Single Driver Speakers

Happy_Listner

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What is everyones experience and thoughts about single, full range driver speakers? These are mainly used with low powered tube amps. There are many company's out there and they seem to have a small but a very strong following. Just to name a few of these speaker manufactures; ZU, Omega, Tekton, Cain & Cain, WLM, Terosonic, ect..
 

DocG

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The best single driver speaker I heard was no doubt the Quad ESL 2812. It has its limitations (needs a lot of space; not ideal for drum 'n bass) but with the right music, in the right room, it's simply stunning!

The other example I tried (and liked a lot) is the Eclipse TD 712zMK2. Superb imaging, wonderful midrange, but limited at the frequency extremes (more obvious than the Quads). So they're top op the pile for chamber music or small jazz combos, but don't do rock properly (let alone the D'nB I mentioned earlier)...

EDIT: IIRC you're in the States, happy_Listner, right? Do you have access to the Ohm Walsh speakers? Single driver omnidirectional speakers (though recent models have a super tweeter now). Seem to be excellent VFM too. But hard to find here in Europe...
 

LDTM

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Good evening Happy Listener,

My experience is fairly limited but there is a chap down the road from me who operates a small music store, they have a pair of Eclipse (sp?) speakers running through an old Linn CD player (probably quite old if we are to be honest with each other). I don't know the amp I'm afraid although I have spent quite a while playing random CD's before purchasing. From said experience I would hazard to suggest that it very much depends on your choice of music. For anything acoustic or relatively small scale I think the low-salt non-fat presentation full range drivers offer is superb - provided you listen at socially acceptable levels. Extremes in frequency just won't be communicated, think the low end of Enya (believe it or not) or the Devin Townsend Project. Something like Orpheus' rendition of Handel's waterworks will be postively sublime, likewise with Chloe Hanslip's version of Goddard's 2nd violin concerto: bought that one on the spot after hearing it on those babies. Still, no 1812 overtures with cannons - get me? :p

If you dig small room classical/jazz/acoustic then I would present two massive thumbs up. If you're into rock, metal, pop...not so much.
 

Vladimir

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Not much interest on this forum about single drivers apparently. :? As I said it is more of a DIY domain or for the eccentric wealthy audiophile.

Something you can make on your own with 6 MDF boards, 4 piano hinges and 2 Visaton B200 full range drivers. You can build the open baffle (OB) system called Dark Star. The Visaton drivers are costly, €200 each.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/roadtour5/roadtour5.html

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Or you can buy the Arcadian Audio Pnoe speakers for just €24.000. The two drivers on those massive horns are AER MD3B which cost €1500 each.

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hoopsontoast

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I have had quite a few, all but one were DIY. They range from the 2" Bandor drivers up to some vintage 12" Goodmans Axiom 201 beasts and lots in between. Out of all of them, the 12" Goodmans had the least compromises in terms of performance but they do need a BIG cabinet to work their best, and a ribbon tweeter on top.

You can not really put all 'Full-Range-Drivers' into a single 'sound' much the way you cant say all 2-way speakers sound similar.

A few things you will get with most full-range-driver speakers is coherence, lack of any crossover or phase issues in the crossover region (as there is not one). Soundstage and Imaging are usually good but that is not as given, cabinet design/placement aids and limits this to some degree.

Most will sacrifice either cabinet size, bass extension or treble response. Pick two out of those. (leaving sensitivity out of it for the moment)

Most drivers over 6" will use a whizzer cone to boost the treble response, my preference is a driver without a whizzer and rolling in a ribbon tweeter to cover the top octave or two with the wide range driver rolling off naturally.
 

namefail

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If the field of Single Driver Speakers includes super(?) tweeter and ribbon tweeters, would Tannoys dual concentric range not also have a look in?
 

hoopsontoast

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namefail said:
If the field of Single Driver Speakers includes super(?) tweeter and ribbon tweeters, would Tannoys dual concentric range not also have a look in?

I would say yes, in terms there is still not a crossover on the wide range driver and the tweeter is used to augument the driver, coming in 7-8kHz and above for example.

The main advantage of a wide range driver is keeping any crossover out of the critical area of the audio frequency, generally between 300Hz and 8kHz where the majority of the music is anyway. You do run into problems getting any decent depth in the bass out of a full-range driver without compromising either enclosure size (complex horns for example) or treble performance.

For Tannoys, no, they have a crossover so would come under a 2-way speaker, the only similarity is the point source design and possible phase advantages as well as driver integration (dispersion etc). This is coming from someone who has a had a few pairs of Tannoys too, currently playing with some older 10" versions.

In terms of drivers, there are loads. I have used some from Goodmans, Bandor, CSS, Fostex, Veravox, Omnes Audio as well as hearing some Seas, Audio Nirvana (clones) and Lowthers. There are heaps more that make full-range drivers too, too many to mention.
 

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