And the subjectivity is that those compromises and strengths are just that - subjective. Everyone is allowed an opinion but to suggest that one person's opinion trumps another is selfish.
It depends on your definition of superior George. One man's treasure...
Not me. They fill a market for those who find multiways not to their liking, whatever the reason. Besides, 95% of the persons making the purchase are affected by what they see. Single drivers just don't cut it.
That's neither correct nor fair George. I am surprised you posted that.
I can see no reasoning in that.
Having said all that, I must say that I own very few single drivers systems and many multiway. I wasn't taking the side of FR's just pointing out that to each his own and who are we to downplay the importance of another person's opinion?
Indeed. And that can apply to multiway based systems as well as those using wideband drivers. Speaking as somebody who designs and uses speakers of both types & hybrids, insofar as they can be called such.
I don't think anybody on this thread has claimed they are. Given this lack, you seem to be attempting to provoke a reaction for some reason.
Depends on what you call superior & in what circumstances. As you yourself stated above, it's a matter of knowing & selecting the compromises that best suit a particular set of requirements, and that is a matter for the individual to decide.
A few aspects here. Cal mentioned some. There are others; for example availability & wide choice have only really started to emerge globally over the past decade or so. Wideband drivers in general fell out of favour in (particularly) the west with the availability of cheap solid-state power back in the mid 1960s, allowing less efficient speakers & smaller boxes. Before that, they had a far larger market segment. You are also imposing your own market perspective upon things: for example, they have been a major component of the Japanese hi-fi market, especially but far from exclusively the DIY segment, for decades, to the point where it can be argued that they never really fell out of favour.
A further point is that whether you like it or not, wideband based speakers are likely, over the next decade or so, to become a whole lot more common, since they use less resources, and at the risk of sounding like a prophet of doom, those resources are going to become ever more expensive as more people, notably in China & the Far East, are pulled out of poverty & into the middle-class bracket. Interesting programme on the BBC last night actually. Currently, in that general region, about 400 million in the middle-class. 10 years from now, they're expecting that to be in the region of 1.7 billion. That's a lot more cars, washing machines, dishwashers, flats, houses, and speakers. And resources. Which are running out. Fact. The speaker market is hardly a big player on this score, but it's heavily affected by wider market and resources conditions. You only have to see what happened a couple of years back when the price of neodymium went through the roof. Big scramble to re-design drivers with ferrite (which sent its price up too incidentally due to the increased demand & inability to supply it)
A sweeping statement that is both patronising and quite frankly insulting to users of wideband drive units, who are entitled to make their choices without being dismissed in such terms. For the vast majority of people who use them, it is because they feel such a speaker provides them with something they have been unable to obtain from multiway setups. Or for whom they are a very practical option for xyz reasons, for e.g. size constraints.
You seem to be assuming that there is one purpose to using a wideband drive unit. There isn't. There can be a vast / near infinite number of reasons for a person wishing to use them, just as there are with multiway systems, which last I checked, weren't all the same either.
Question: a person makes, let us say (pulling something straight out of the air) a focused array employing 12 wideband drive units. Leaving aside whatever your (or my, for that matter) opinion might be regarding the merits or otherwise of focused arrays, why has that defeated the object of using wideband drive units to begin with?
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dynamic SPL will deafen you. If that's what you want, fine. But if you don't want to go deaf, thats a good reason to avoid dynamic SPL wouldn't you think?
If you are so keen on SPL just buy a PA system. It's not as if single driver speakers can only play at whisper quiet levels. You are just finding faults and ridiculing the benefits of single drivers.
I can build typical 2-ways but I prefer single drivers with bass support.
My version of a 3-way would be a wide-band driver or full-range with bass and treble support.
Everyone in this hobby is entitled to what they feel is best. If there was a blind test with speakers behind a curtain I think many designs would do well.
My version of a 3-way would be a wide-band driver or full-range with bass and treble support.
Everyone in this hobby is entitled to what they feel is best. If there was a blind test with speakers behind a curtain I think many designs would do well.
multi ways don't solve the problem of a limited bandwidth and dynamic range of a single cone. They create new problems which weren't there. Like how to merge all those drive units into one acoustically. Its impossible to achieve the polar response of a single driver with multi way. A single driver is closest to being a point source.
I do think that from 5 to 6 khz and up, no fullrange can recreate those highs really perfectly as good as a good supertweeter or ribbon or dedicated tweeter. am I wrong?
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or what he defines as a fullrange 😀
reminds me
I have thought about ripping a quality 5" midwoofer apart
and reuse everything mounted with a small 2" cone
my plan was a cone tweeter, but maybe it would be a fullrange
reminds me
I have thought about ripping a quality 5" midwoofer apart
and reuse everything mounted with a small 2" cone
my plan was a cone tweeter, but maybe it would be a fullrange
expected response, but sounds like you don't know them at all, do you ?
you have heard one you didn't like, and think you know them all
or you have heard about them, and believe that's enough
have you heard this particular model ?
you have heard one you didn't like, and think you know them all
or you have heard about them, and believe that's enough
have you heard this particular model ?
no how can we know which model it is? you didn't tell us. Bit i can say the same for you. That speaker I showed you is worth maybe the same as your house
So what? He's entitled to his opinion. And a degree (degree, mark you) of irony. 😉
Some CV's are actually rather solid performers, not just within their remit, but generally. It's a confident man (or woman) who writes off all the products of a brand at a stroke. The converse also holds good.
Some CV's are actually rather solid performers, not just within their remit, but generally. It's a confident man (or woman) who writes off all the products of a brand at a stroke. The converse also holds good.
They may "cost" as much as a house in the overinflated retail hifi market, but what are they "worth" to someone who doesn't like them? Personally, I think they're ugly, and wouldn't want them in the house.
jeff
Yeah its getting ridiculous, back to the op question
If we can admit that from 5-6 khz, fullrange are less likely to be better tehn a ribbon/supertweeter, whats the advantage of fullrange. Shouldnt we use fullrange up to 6 khz then use a supertweeter?
Just the fact that a good fullrange can do 120-150 or 200 hz up to 5-6 khz easily is already great...
If we can admit that from 5-6 khz, fullrange are less likely to be better tehn a ribbon/supertweeter, whats the advantage of fullrange. Shouldnt we use fullrange up to 6 khz then use a supertweeter?
Just the fact that a good fullrange can do 120-150 or 200 hz up to 5-6 khz easily is already great...
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