Best full range driver?

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Over the last 10 years or so I've collected numerous "full range" drivers. From old Altec to Diatones to Fostex, Jordan, etc. Full range driver is an oxymoron. Wide band should be used to describe these drivers.

If I had to choose only one wide band driver pair from my collection I would choose the Feastrex. Next would be the Visaton B200, then the JX92s and Diatones. The Fostex, Altec, Lowther and Markaudio don't sound as balanced or clear. (The Lowthers I have are the DX4 and DX55, which have superior mid/top then all the other drivers, but alas is unbalanced and needs a bass driver.)

Hello, I am glad that you like Feastrex too. I do know one or two gentlemen in this part of the world who have fallen in love with it, and we got along well still sharing many audio hobby exploration and experience together. Not for a moment I would think they are very different from me in terms of our passion for good music. I have owned a pair of Visaton B200 which I like very much too on Open Baffle but did not live long enough with it for further exploration. If I am to go nit picking, I would hope the high end extension of the Visaton b200 could be more refined (but this may be due to my **** gears, how knows). These are now in the hands of one of my audio buddy and he loves it so much. I know Planet10 has suggested some dustcap/phase plug mod for it which is supposed to cure just that. I have not tried.

I did not have experience with any Jordon drivers in my life. But now I have one pair of Alpair 10 drivers sitting around my room. I have tried them briefly on my open baffle augmented by an active 18" dipole woofer. They sound decent enough for me to keep them on the board and i would have if I had not been to Mark's office and listened to his Alpair 12 in the Pencil 12 birch box. Now I want to try the alpair 10 in the Pencil 10.
 
Hi Inclined Plane, which were the $150/pair drivers you liked?

Incidentally, the Feastrex don't have that 2k whizzer peak as far as I can hear. :) But nor are they trying to be ultra-efficient like Lowthers, based on what little I know (very little!)

Oh, the Audio Nirvana Super Eights. But be aware my judgement of how good a fullranger is - is far from the mainstream. I like high volume duty and I judge a driver's worth by how smooth it sounds loud. And most of them sound quite terrible indeed. The AN driver is simply 'over the horizon ahead' compared to its Fostex, AER, and Lowther counterparts. No it does not have quite the resolution of the megabuck drivers but I really couldn't care less. I still haven't heard any Mark drivers but I think his attitude and participation here is just great.

I just ordered a Valab NOS USB DAC. I hope it's good!

Also, I don't think 2khz is whizzer territory. It's the main cone that seems to go nonlinear in this area.
 
>>> My reference point is the Jordan Jx92s driver.

I liked seeing this comment because it represents a ‘reference point’ some will agree with and others won’t. My reference is the Fostex 168s, someone else’s might be Lowther, Feastrex or Altec coax. From ‘our’ reference point we make decisions about what we like about other drivers we buy and use. Also, just because it’s my reference driver does not mean I think it’s the best. It’s just a driver I think does most things well enough to please me most of the time. I think the similarly priced TB 8” full range driver is better in some ways… I think the some of the cheaper drivers I own are also better in some ways. Depending on how these drivers are implemented (back horn, ob, pipe, etc.) determines which speaker would be better overall.

>>> No it does not have quite the resolution of the megabuck drivers but I really couldn't care less.

Interesting statement. I agree with it because i believe sometimes less resolution is better.

>>> I still haven't heard any Mark drivers but I think his attitude and participation here is just great.

Me neither. I agree.

>>> I just ordered a Valab NOS USB DAC. I hope it's good!

Enjoy, I hope it’s good too.

>>> Also, I don't think 2khz is whizzer territory. It's the main cone that seems to go nonlinear in this area.

Perhaps. I have no clue but do enjoy drivers with wizzers.

$70k on drivers? I think this blurs the line between a piece of hardware and a piece of what some may consider art. For the people who purchase them, i hope they sound good too!

Godzilla
 
$70k on drivers? I think this blurs the line between a piece of hardware and a piece of what some may consider art. For the people who purchase them, i hope they sound good too!

Godzilla

Just to clarify again.. I think the $70K limit is way too shocking for many ... Again I'm not offended or upset......:) But I think I better make it clear that that's not the one and only driver Feastrex sells... The basic models are way way much lower than $70K, infact pricewise comparable with the better and more upmarket fullrange manufacturers... No this is not a sales pitch... last thing I need to do on this thread.. :) Just that I keep seeing the $70K figure popping up without any mention to the availability of the lower price range......:)
 
My pair of feastrex d5nf will cost me less then a pair of lowther alnicos. I've heard both and much prefer the feastrex. I personally found the sound less 'shouty' and fatiguing in the mids/highs and suprisingly more deeper bass from the 5" feastrex in br box then the 8" lowther in a BLH.
 
Good to see this thread has settled down. Great! However, I must confess, I loved Scottmoose statement re a friend buying Feastrex....."hit him"...I love it!! It is imperative we dont loose our sense of humour...and good to see yours has returned Scottmoose!!?? Sites that deal with taste, opinion and a mixture of expertise are always a bit tricky to navigate a way through.

You guys should feel what it's like being an audio moron like me!!??....hearing about great single drivers on discussions such as this (ie; Alpair 10inch, Feastrex, well, alright I admit to lusting after these probably more than even SEAS EXOTIC) after you have bought something else and you can't make 'em work really well! It is sometimes better to go the extra yard..., (or as in Feastrex case, two yards), and get what you really want and love! Holding something precious and full of precision, even if it is only for a short time etc etc...is worth it....a good bottle of Aussie Shiraz for example!! (Where did I put it?) If it is music and you love it, hock yourself for it....we all end-up in the pine motel (ie, coffin) for a heck of a long time. As for our partners......well I'd just like to say.........sorry I've got to go!!! Half the hassle is with DIY F/R stuff is; you can't hear the stuff before you buy it and build it...and then you have to adjust it, adapt it.........
Regards to you all and thanks again! ...now I like these Alpiar 10's, I'd prefer the Feastrex...maybe I could strike a compromise with SEAS Exotic....etc etc etc: I'll slip back under my rock now: Regards again: Dave
 
Last edited:
On a light-hearted note... here is a video of the very good sounding Fostex FF85K. Thank you to Dave @ PLanet10 for steering me towards these.

YouTube - Re: AudiogoN @ CES 2009: YG Acoustics: Best Loudspeaker on Earth

I find myself very much enjoying these cheap drivers... modifying, destroying, running them full-range, crossoverless. Sort of comparable to VW ownership versus Porsche ownership. I'm not worried if I were to blow-up the Fostex. (More so if I owned Feastrex :)
 
Hi Chaps,
I've received several private communications asking for more driver selection advice. Here's some quick suggestions. I'm thinking about a practical approach (mine or other driver makes), it's useful to start by thinking about the following:

1 - Room size
If you've got a large room volume, might be useful to think about horns, OB designs, basically something on the grander scale. Conversely, smaller environments might do better with vented and BR designs.

2 - Amplification.
If you're taste is for weeny amps pushing out small power, then high efficiency drivers have to be the preferable choice. Driver choices widen if more power is on tap.

3 - Budget
Nice to dream about spending lots of dosh but sadly, times being what they are, its worth shopping around but do it for the whole "project" rather choosing drivers first.

Granted, these suggestions are broad so hope others will chip in with more advice. Because most of us are still "boys with toys" at heart, we often like to concentrate on the sexy bits like amps, drivers and so forth. It usually pays to take a step back, deep breath, and consider the project as a whole. Bear in mind, the boss (wife, partner etc.) might not appreciate your grand scheme! Ummmmmph, lots to consider.

Cheers

Mark.
 
Last edited:
This is a tangent, but hopefully a simple and brief one

Some full rangers (FRs) do great things, but I haven’t heard enough different ones to advocate particular drivers etc, but anyhow just took the plunge and bought my 1st FRs (8 inchers) last week.

I get the impression that FR diyers are a little more likely to go Open Baffle than multi way systems. Whether or not that hunch is right, who can comment on this:

Something I’ve just started to wonder/ worry about, as I got the FRs with a view to using them on an OB (inc good Xmax), and now looking into what size & shape baffle to use:

The frequency response of any driver mounted on an OB has severe peaks and troughs above the Dipole peak, “every time that D is a multiple of a wavelength” – the 2nd graph at Electro-acoustic models

In a multi way, to avoid an 8 inch mid-woofer passing these peaks and troughs on to the listener, the crossover would pass the offending range over to the tweeter. But with FRs we don’t want to do that.

It now seems to me that if you want smooth response, don’t put FRs on an OB, or if you do, you need to defeat the benefit of the FR and use a “normal”/ low crossover to a tweeter . .

I hope I’m wrong. Have I missed something?
 
The frequency response of any driver mounted on an OB has severe peaks and troughs above the Dipole peak, “every time that D is a multiple of a wavelength” – ... It now seems to me that if you want smooth response, don’t put FRs on an OB, or if you do, you need to defeat the benefit of the FR and use a “normal”/ low crossover to a tweeter . .

Some will avoid the "dipole hump" by using a skinny baffle and/or crossovers, or do what MJK says and use it to your advantage to shape the total final system response. Lots of options in terms of driver offset + baffle shape. But baffle diffraction is just one part of the equation -- the final response is the combo of baffle + driver's response (the two form a system) so you don't know the final result until both actions are combined: After Linkwitz, read this:

OB Theory
 
...suprisingly more deeper bass from the 5" feastrex in br box then the 8" lowther in a BLH.

No mystery here. Drivers are drivers, enclosures are enclosures; they both conform to basic physical principles. In this case, there are two basic possibilities: either the BR was tuned lower than the horn, or the latter had insufficient volume to provide gain down to its intended cut off.
 
...I loved Scottmoose statement re a friend buying Feastrex....."hit him"...I love it!! It is imperative we dont loose our sense of humour...and good to see yours has returned Scottmoose!!??

You've got to have fun; if you don't, time to walk away for a bit.

Mostly tongue in cheek, but there's a serious point too: when it comes to any very expensive piece of audio equipment, you have to keep in mind that they're basically pitched at the multi-millionaire who already has everything else they could possibly want. Nobody else is likely to be able to afford whatever the component in question happens to be, and if they do try via scrimping, saving, bank-robbing etc., they're not necessarily going to do themselves any favours.

Sticking with our existing example, let's say you had, oh, I don't know, a pair of 8in wide-band drivers, ~£1,000 for the pair. The fact is that any possible performance gains by shifting to ~£50,000 worth of similarly sized drivers will be relatively minor in the great scheme of things. A few percentage points at best. Is that worth it? If you're rolling in money, possibly. Cost is a non-issue in such cases, so you can afford to indulge yourself. Fair enough; I'm certainly not criticising. I may be many things, but a communist I ain't. For everyone else though? Aside from a handful of absolute extremists, who are the ones you would hold down until the men in white coats arrive with a big (make that b@$#@[d big ;) ) sedative, unlikely in the extreme. Maintaining perspective is the thing.
 
Last edited:
Mostly tongue in cheek, but there's a serious point too: when it comes to any very expensive piece of audio equipment, you have to keep in mind that they're basically pitched at the multi-millionaire who already has everything else they could possibly want. Nobody else is likely to be able to afford whatever the component in question happens to be, and if they do try via scrimping, saving, bank-robbing etc., they're not necessarily going to do themselves any favours.
...
Here (citation next),The jump-start of loudspeaker economy, by Romy the Cat - 2008, GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site - The jump-start of loudspeaker economy

I predict a highly probability that a new wave is coming in high-end audio loudspeakers. The today’s high-end audio the loudspeakers field is in a complex stagnation, the stagnation that will lead to the need to invent a new ways to sell loudspeakers.

For a manufacture to sell a good loudspeaker is very difficult task as if you do good loudspeaker then with your sale you… loose a customer. Truly, a person pays a lot of money for a good performing acoustic system and then the person stays with this acoustic system for years. There are people who stay with same speakers for 10-30 years – how the hell a speaker manufacture would pay monthly his mortgage if a customer bought ones and them gone for 10 years? The loudspeaker industry put on the task the army of the audio writing ****** – the publications reviewers. Pay attention, I am not talking about the audio writers who publicize the new loudspeaker technologies, discover the new directions and etc…. but the I am talking about the industry payrolled sleazebag that methodologically and persistent, month after month polish the knob of user’s perception convincing them that the very new crapy model that “juts accidentally became available” has “something” that should make a user to sell his current loudspeaker and to buy a new model.

This process is very well-oiled and very grotesque and any person who actually knows how the inner-mechanism of audio distribution works feels very appalling about it, if not involved. Even from some among the people who are involved I heard a lot of sorrow about the stupid customers who “swallow” all that superficial marketing crap that they structured for them.

However, the mortgages invoices are still coming and the dollar keep crashing dally. Many manufactures increase prices by-monthly, with no needs lately to provide any justification for price rise. In the past the idiotic stories were composed and deployed to the customers as the justifications for price increase – “the new ultra-expensive cabinets made by lazers”, “the new beryline diaphragms”, “the new ceramic drivers”, “the new diamond tweeters” , “the new MF cones soaked with ejaculate of adolescent hippopotamus”… I can go on and on… However, everyone feel that this is got saturated in the mind of mostly blind to results audio consumers. Not the last fact is that the audio “reviewers” who dump all this crap to buyers perception are generally very low talent writers, the writers who just write very pure marketing literature – thanks Gog the Americans are accustomed to bad literature…

So, what I think will happen next? The markets desperately need a new, very dramatic round of cash collection. I think the new round of huge price increase is coming in loudspeakers and the industry will invent an idea that will “rationalize” the price, increase and “justify” the need for a consumer to sell current loudspeakers and to by new. I think I know what the industry will use as a crutch for this action. The new industry-embraced mania will be loudspeakers with electromagnets.
...
 
I find the booming business of 'tweaks' and 'accessories' to be a part of the process you're describing, Inductor. I'm appalled at the junk that people are drooling over. But it's heavenly profitable. I for one cap my speaker wire costs at $20 and my interconnects at less than $200 (USD) No ridiculous cones or clocks or isolators or unobtanium what-nots.

No thread derailment intended.
 
Hi Inductor, fellas
I have some sympathy with many of the posts on this thread.

In this part of world (Hong Kong-China), I'm working in factories that make drivers at rates from 40,000 to 3 million units per month. Yes, 3,000,000 drivers every month, such is the size of the business. There's allot at stake for many mainstream A/V companies and hundreds of thousands of worker's depend on this business for their living.

In the case of some mainstream A/V brands, the actual cost of production is less than 5% of the retail price of the item. Just think about that next time a friend tells you he's going to splash out on a system bought from a high street A/V shop. What's happening? It's simple, most of the money goes of distribution, marketing and sales operations. The built speaker system industry follows much of the A/V business, given that speakers form part of many systems.

So where does this leave DIYer's. The term "stagnation" may be appropriate. Those few driver makers who supply the home build market don't rely on this activity for their core business. They'd soon be bankrupt if they did! There's little financial incentive for them to invest in DIY driver development. These makers can usually only afford to do one of two things:

1 - Stick with the model line-up and hope enough DIYers get hooked on "brand loyalty" to create longer term sales.
2 - Spin-off driver types from their core businesses to create additional revenue streams.

New driver choices (mine and a few others) are gradually coming on stream but it's an up-hill struggle. Some of the established speaker brands don't like change. They have a "take what we make" attitude and adopt various methods to propagate brand loyalty as their main weapon against development and growth. There's a conflict and a real danger here. The hobby needs to attract more newcomers while existing DIYers deserve more component choices, not the same or less. If the Full Range driver hobby continues to rely on so few choices, relative stagnation will remain or worse, there could be a gradual decline in interest. Compared to other hobbies, for example, radio controlled models, this pastime has grown greatly over recent years, by comparison Full Range DIY speaker building is almost going backwards .

So the debate about "best driver" or the "next driver" is more fundamental and profound than perhaps many of us realise. Food for more thought and comments.

Cheers

Mark
 
Last edited:
I'm very happy with my current ml tqwt's but I can't play really loud due to obvious power limits.

Maybe there's a new speaker project in the near future?
So, I'm toying with the idea of using a full range driver down to somewhere in the bass range and a big woofer for the bass.

Which full range driver would you say is the best?
My current spakers use Jordan JX92s.

If you like what the Jordan is doing, then your "best full range driver" is the Jordan. There is no need to look for the best driver. You already have your best driver. And since you just want it to play louder your idea of a big woofer down low is an excellent option to pursue. There was a guy a while back named "Thor" who used the Jordan unfiltered and sealed with powered subs underneath. (BTW, Bruce Edgar had recommended the Jordan to him.) He said that sealed the driver would start rolling off around 100 to 150Hz and even though, the sub's 2nd order max cutoff was a 100Hz, there was excellent integration. He even demo'ed it at some event and most agreed it was one of the best speakers there.

The Jordan sometimes gets a bad rap just for being around a long time. And it's not like there has been a major breakthrough in driver technology. The last time I looked there was a cone, voice coil and magnet. If you still have doubts about its viability, consider who designed it, Ted Jordan (Goodmans), and the people who have used it or heard it, tested it and/or recommend it, Jim Griffin, Nelson Pass, Bruce Edgar, Sakura systems, Junji Kimura (47 Labs), John Krutke (Zaph audio). Most of these designers don't have any fish to fry, either monetarily or intellectually, so I would put more weight in what they say then the naysayers.
 
I know Mr. Nelson Pass is very fond of open baffle experiment lately, and he experimented a fair bit with a number of lowthers and feastrex. I gathered that he loves both, claiming each has its own charm:

6moons audio reviews: FirstWatt J2

"So far I have evaluated several baffle designs, a number of woofers and nearly 30 drivers. I'm almost ready to start writing. Lest anyone get the impression that Feastrex is king over Lowthers, I would add that in the four categories 8"/5" and Lowther/Feastrex, each has a lot to offer and it's still very much a horse race."

so I think he likes Feastrex (in open baffle) just as much as he likes a few Lowthers models.

I have no chance to hear Mr. Pass's set up, I wish I could as I have all the respect for his dedication to solid state electronics. His J2 amp may sound amazing, I don't know. Wish I own one.

Then it is interesting to read about Linkwitz's constrasting view on Pass's set up. Linkwitz was lucky enough to have heard both Pass's Lowther and Feastrex.

Design of Loudspeakers

"My interest is, of course, loudspeakers and so I looked forward to hearing two exotic full-range drivers that would be mounted in Nelson Pass's large open baffle loudspeakers right on location. The first was a new Feastrex pair, the only one in existence and build with paper cones by a Japanese master craftsman using centuries old techniques for making archival papers. The drivers had very large diameter field coils. So did the Lowther pair, except these were in long cylinders. Both needed magnet supports since the baskets obviously could not hold the weight. The large 15" woofers had their own amplification and there was no shortage of bass output. The full-range drivers were straining and rather colored, though the Lowthers sounded more neutral. It was like viewing a slightly abstract painting when I wanted to see a photograph of the landscape. I did not hear anything that would have given me an incentive to investigate such drivers or to re-evaluate what I am doing. I was quite surprised to learn the retail prices of around $48,000 for the Feastrex pair and $4,400 for the Lowther pair...."

So my view is: we all have different ears, even amongst the so called "guru" themselves. Someone getting a phd in newtonian physics or E.E. does not automatically own simiarly accurate hearing ability. It is a taste factor playing here. Even when you and I go to the same concert of Berliner Phil, as much as each of us would be praising their outstanding performance, each of us would also actually be having our very own personal preference on certain movement, sound of instruments, not to mention the emotional factor involved. When two person tell you "I love the sound of Chicago Phil", they are actually talking about different aspects of sound from the same orchestra. Preference of sound is a very subjective issue, but accurate reproduction of sound isn't. There has to be a set of objective data published by the maker so that we as shopper can have a minimum basis for comparison, even if this set of T/s parameters cannot fully explain how a driver will sound on any given day. Two drivers having very close t/s will sound very similar in many areas in the same type of box and yet also different in some area (for example, material that the cone is made of).

So what is the "best"? As long as you enjoy what you using and they give you all the joy of listening that you hope for, then it is your "best".
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.