I hope Richard will forgive me , but "best"? - that's a four letter word. Personally I'm currently quite liking both the Alpair7.3, and Alpair10P, for the finely textured, low level inner detail that I consider to be meant by " DDR", and which certainly don't measure or sound the same. I guess a golden ear (with which I'm thankfully not afflicted) could find reasons to fault either of those drivers - does that make my enjoyment /tolerance of their "shortcomings" any less "true" for me?
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Both of which measure flat, extended, and mild break up.
I'm not sure a driver has ever added inspiration to music
I'm not sure a driver has ever added inspiration to music
But drivers (and the kit before them) has gotten good enuff that they can get out of the way and let inspirational music thru
dave
When a system can clearly convey things happening 20 or even 40dB down from the primary music signal, there is definitely some magic that starts to happen and convey one into the recording venue. Of course the DDR of a driver is only one part of that equation and needs to be complemented by the source, the amplification, the room, etc. But if you get it right and add what to me is all important, ultra clean low end, and clean dymanic headroom, then you're in goose bump territory! Those little things are what has me looking seriously at the Alpair 10's (paper or metal) enabled. Just waiting on the dust to settle in figuring out which enclosure design to go with. (Well that and a few $)
I bought the W5-1611 neo some years ago when it was cheap, it has a home in Bali now, snugly fit into a voigt pipe solution. It is definitely a lot of driver for the money, and have a certain degree of entertainment value, but it is not reference material.
Had the W5-1880, it sounds good I guess, sold them quickly for some unknown reason. But I liked the W4-655SH more, which is a bit odd, bought 8 of those, gave a pair away and one pair went to a fellow music interested guy who needed some more diversity in his small home music studio, still have some laying about for a quick and dirty FR fix.
Not sure if I've ever been truly happy with any speaker, home made or store bought, since I got into DIY, everything is a compromise.
Had the W5-1880, it sounds good I guess, sold them quickly for some unknown reason. But I liked the W4-655SH more, which is a bit odd, bought 8 of those, gave a pair away and one pair went to a fellow music interested guy who needed some more diversity in his small home music studio, still have some laying about for a quick and dirty FR fix.
Not sure if I've ever been truly happy with any speaker, home made or store bought, since I got into DIY, everything is a compromise.
The mini Karlsonator with a couple of 3.5 in TC9FD drivers sounds great as a kitchen radio and works very well near a wall. It has advantage of very uniform directivity so you can walk around and it still sounds good. Use a small class D-amp (8 watt/ch TPA3110D2 from Sure is perfect). Connect L/R to separate drivers and get pseudo mono as sound combines in chamber behind aperture.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/atta...arlsonator-0-53x-dual-tc9fds-vocals-1-mp3.zip
xrk971,
The Mini Karlsonator actually sounds very interesting for the kitchen, but I think it's a little too large for my purposes. For a 'speudo mono' model like this to work in our kitchen (and I must say, I like the idea), it would need to fit into a corner and be angled out into the room (it's just a function of the way our kitchen is laid out). But such a speaker would also need to be fairly shallow to fit in the space between the corner wall and a window. A 'pseudo mono' speaker like this might work quite well, however, so I may play around with it a little (perhaps trying your idea of using foam).
Another good option for the kitchen (space wise) would be to place two small speakers close to the ceiling and angled down. A small wedge would be ideal. Are there any good models for small, full range wedge speakers that would work well placed against a wall? (I searched and couldn't see anything obvious.) I could play around with something here as well, I suppose, but it would have to be total trial and error as I lack the instruments, information, and know-how to model this kind of thing.
As for the near field option, I've long been intrigued by the Fonken designs, but am still wondering if I might be better served by a smallish horn (e.g. a Frugal or something along those line) or even a pensil. Again, proximity to a wall is crucial here, but I figure the relatively low listening levels might help in this regard.
I will definitely check out the other suggestions given as well. Some of them also look intriguing.
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