Hi, has anyone had the opportunity to compare a coaxial speaker with lowther and similar? In your opinion, in a horn-loaded cabinet on both sides of the driver, how would a coax behave? In your opinion (everything is subjective) do you like coaxial drivers?
my opinion: coax can sound smoother and at high volume better but my point is the step response, FR is better, my experience, Lowther needs min. 3,5 m distance IMHO.
The choice of coaxial drivers is so large, how can you seriously answer such a question? (at least the selection of full-range drivers has been narrowed down a little with "Lowther and similar" .....😳).
There are a large number of FRs in the “pricey” Lowthers (Sonido, Cube, AER, Voxativ, SupraVox, MAOPs …)
Also the boxes make a difference.
They all sound different…
As do coaxes. And you have 2 drivers and an XO to buy with the same budget. And if you want them to be time coherent a DSP XO. So 2 amplifiers as well.
Your question is unanswerable with the information provided.
Your room, your kit, and your tastes all make a BIG difference.
Any loudspeaker is a huge set of compromises.
There are compromises to be made just choosing a FR or a coax. Let alone comparing them.
Further, coaxes are usually made in quantity by large manufacturers. Hi-end FRs hand made in small numbers.
dave
Also the boxes make a difference.
They all sound different…
As do coaxes. And you have 2 drivers and an XO to buy with the same budget. And if you want them to be time coherent a DSP XO. So 2 amplifiers as well.
Your question is unanswerable with the information provided.
Your room, your kit, and your tastes all make a BIG difference.
Any loudspeaker is a huge set of compromises.
There are compromises to be made just choosing a FR or a coax. Let alone comparing them.
Further, coaxes are usually made in quantity by large manufacturers. Hi-end FRs hand made in small numbers.
dave
A well executed coaxial like a kef or sica driver tends to outperform full range drivers. Full ranges have quite a few drawbacks as frequency rises. There can be a sort of seamlessnes that you get with full ranges but one has to decide if thats worth the trade off of relatively poor hf reproduction.
waffle is way too general, and it would only be an accurate statement for specific FRs, there is a huge range, and room, taste, kit. Any blanket statement like his or hm’s is IMO kindan useless.
My main objection to coax is the need to biamp with a DSP to get them time coherent, which many FRs (those without whizzers usually) are naturally.
If i’m going biamp, a WAW makes more sense to me (for my needs/tastes), and i can get awaynwith a much simplier and often cheaper XO.
dave
My main objection to coax is the need to biamp with a DSP to get them time coherent, which many FRs (those without whizzers usually) are naturally.
If i’m going biamp, a WAW makes more sense to me (for my needs/tastes), and i can get awaynwith a much simplier and often cheaper XO.
dave
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I think it would behave well if designed well. Like @planet10 pointed out you would need DSP to get it sounding coherent. Tannoy had/has large format coaxials that are supposed to be great, I have not listened to them so I can't confirm if it's all 'Dark Side of the Moon' hype or not. There are also several coaxial studio monitors by Genelec and PreSonus, so someone must think coaxial design is a good idea. To me it's not worth it, for all of the expense in time and money, to design a coaxial system with DSP and four amplifiers. I think it's more important to get consistent power response from the speaker, something coax and full range designs have trouble with.
The coaxes I've heard seem to have good imaging, play louder, have reasonably good bass, but the crossover area is just weird with a good bit of phase confusion. Full ranges seem to have extraordinary imaging, great midrange, less bass, and lack sparkle and air. Find the things that annoy you the most and take them out of your design.
Back to the choice here, I would pick a relatively high quality full range rather than a mid-fi coax with DSP, and additional amplifiers for the same cost.
Unless you know of full ranges that defy physics, my statement is accurate. can you even hear up into hf? Im still good out to 16khz.
Anecdotes about speakers in general are useless without data, good things theres plenty of that to back up my statement. shall I share some of that now or do you want to be realistic?
Good luck op, this forum is basically picking and choosing which misinformation you want to believe, theres a near endless amount of that here.😉
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I have certainly contemplated that…
But iff you cross low enuff, as long as the centre-to-centre is ≤ a quarter wavelength of the XO, it is essentially the same thing but removes the what to do with the back of the FR issue.
dave
Everything has compromises. Coaxes have their own set of compromises. Some of them listed above. If one can live with the limitations, a good FR in a good box is a VERY good solution. There are no blanket solutions.
Markaudio MAOP 11ms in Frugel-Horn XL in a good room might well change your opinion. Decent support kit assumed.
I’d guess Mr. waffle would like to bring out his charts & graphs?
dave
PS: audio3, how old are you? How high does your hearing go?
can a passive LCLC allpass filter on the coax woofer obtain decent alignment? Can Xsim simulate that situation? I used "this" on an Eminence 80oz magnet 12cx and passive xover and things "seemed" more coherent.
Compared both many times. Coaxials are better than fullranges in every imaginable way.
If one absolutely needs perfect time/phase coherence, than FIR DSP is the cure for coaxials. Nowadays, with cheap DSPs and class D amplifiers, I don't see what is there to object.
On the other hand, some deficiencies of fullranges can not be cured with DSP at all. So the winner is clear - coaxial.
But if one wants simple system, than good fullrange plus a little bit of EQ is viable solution and may bring a lot of musical satisfaction.
Actually, this is a good advice - minus biamping. Woofer Assisted Wideband (WAW) is working fine with only one amplifier, and if first-order passive crossover is employed with physically delayed wideband driver, then time/phase coherence is perfect.
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I thought you'd never ask. Data doesn't lie, but forum members sure do. I'll share my findings for others, I know you won't care.
First downside of fullranges, dispersion. Full ranges tend to be desired by those more swayed by flowery language and magic than science/evidence, so it's hard to find good data on them. Here is one reviewed by joesph crowe. Full ranges tend to beam very heavily as they rise in frequency. This tends to lead to a very narrow sweet spot and really draws attention to the speaker itself, HF like cymbals often sound like they are a tiny point on the speaker and become very localized. This is mentioned in the review by the reviewer and lines up with my own experience. You can't DSP EQ your way out of this problem.
Driver is Mark Audio CHR 120.
Compare that with the dispersion of a 3/4" dome tweeter in a waveguide. I have heard both of these speakers/drivers. The more even and wider coversage speaker sounds considerably more natural in it's upper frequencies.
Next major issue of full range drivers is break up and resonances. These are clearly evident in response and impedance.
Perhaps if one prefers massive 10db spikes in their response, they might actually like this junk.
Lots of resonances in this driver.
So yeah, all of these issues are largely a product of the drivers dimensions and diaphragm mass, pretty much all full ranges exhibit these issues to varying degrees. You're basically trying to pick the full range driver that has the least amount of these issues but as long as you're asking a larger cone driver to reproduce HF content, you're going to be asking for problems. Proponents of full ranges have the absolute worst arguments when presented with this info. "You just have to hear a good full range, it'll change your mind". How on earth is that an argument for anything? You'll hear a lot about how crosssovers are bad, yet people are creating, mixing, and enjoying music on speakers with crossovers all day long. Some of the highest subjectively rated speakers in the world are filled with evil crossovers.
Here's a great review of a coax 3 way speaker. It's even got one of those awful "crossovers" people complain so much about. Idk about you but this looks like really well executed speaker to me.
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/kef_concerto_q_meta/
Now you have the data, it's up to you to decided whether any of this is relevant for you. The choice here is really between evidence vs. anecdote. You want to listen to random forum users, or analysis data captured by the industry standard tools that commercial operations are utilizing to design loud speakers.
https://www.klippel.de/company/references.html
I'm sure planet10 is a far more reliable source than say genelec, sonos, ascend acoustics, harman, etc.... I will agree with one statement he made, all speakers are compromise. Full ranges tend make compromises that simply don't need to be made. Just use a damn tweeter and stop going backwards in time/speaker development.
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An all pass might be required on both the LP&HP for passive time alignment of a coax, like in the URIE 813C-LR:
Yes, Xsim can simulate all pass filters.
Back in 1977 when URIE introduced the TIME-ALIGNED™ coax monitors no DSP was used to get them time coherent.
If it were available at the time, Edward M. Long would probably have used it, but history is what it is.
Small coax with less path length distance between the LF/HF don't require the complex all-pass filters for time coherency.
Art
Why not take fullrange driver, filter out the garbage it makes on top, and mount small tweeter coaxially infront of it?
But it can be misinterpreted, under or over emphasized. And there is a certain, typically larger, error bars often not considered.
Full-ranges tend lack dispersion, as a generalization. larger isn’t as good, but cone profile, dustcap shape, membrane behavior all contribute to that. They tend to struggle at the extremes with (on-axis) ringing and are hard pressed to move large amounts of air. In the right room FHXL can do low 30s. They do bass fine.
I put a lot of work into ameliorating a significant number of these issues. 2 coats of thinned acrylic gloss should have benefits on your CHR’s ringing.
Just like ant niche oddriver most aren’t all that good. FRs have a really hard job to do.
Not one i have heard, but i suspect is Alpair 12m derivative. Mark said that this size metal cone is at the limits. I was never a fan of the original. I prefer smaller drivers, and often add bass help. The enhancements in the MAOP 10.2/7/5 over the stock metal cones surpasses the treatments i did.
The WAW above has close enuff spacing at the XO that they are essentially coaxial, not only in the XY direction, but also in the Z.
A lot of people’s exposure to FRs has been the bigger Fostex FExx6. Even properly loaded into the right horns and driven with the intended high output impedance amplifier, they need a lot of work to make listenable (to me). Tweaked FF85wk is good, but suited as a midTweeter (or computer speaker).
Now the FRs we are discussng are a whole different world than the “pricey stuff”. €1,ooo+ per driver.
To quote Floyd Toole:
As long as the listener is being connected to the music…
dave