Maybe it comes down to how many problems are there to fix. I would argue that designing a good FAST FR system involves a whole lot less "problem fixing" than a multiway HF XO system to get to the same destination. By this I mean complicated XO, Waveguides, etc. There are good and bad versions of both of course and any full range driver over 4" is always going to be a compromise. I sold a nice pair of Audiophysic as to me there was always an uncomfortable phasey feeling that I don't get with my FAST system.
I get that sort of. A poorly designed speaker with a screwed up crossover can easily have many defects avoided by a single driver. But a well designed system, easier to do if the crossover is out of the 2K to 4K range, can have the same "transparency". The clarity and forwardness of vocals mentioned I can attribute to nothing but a midrange hump. It only takes a couple of dB. Good old tone controls can help a lot but to tame the drivers I have had or heard would require host based or expensive DSP to deal with and it is just as easy to screw up that up as it is analog crossovers.
I will grant one, "full range" to enjoy music need only be from 100 to about 12K and If you live in an apartment you can't really use below 60 or 70 anyway. I am not suggesting 20 to 20 as full range. When I added the tweeters to the FE-85's, they went from so-so desk-tops to listenable for background music. Crossover had only a few more parts than the notch filters and BSC needed as single drivers.
Well, it will remain a mystery to me for a bit longer. I guess the closest to a full range is something like an old Quad, but even those were really helped by a tweeter and they had more parts in their network that I need for a decent multi-way. I'll keep watching the "full range" threads to see if anyone ever develops a wide band I can use as a mid that does the 500 to 5K range reasonably flat without severe breakup, does not require extensive eq outside the crossover, and had efficiency higher than the woofer as padding woofers is never a very great answer. About a 4 incher should do it without excessive beaming. I may get a MiniDFSP-Flex and bi-amping the MID/tweeter with the woofer could avoid the efficiency problem. Seems the smoother the mid, the lower the efficiency as a general rule.
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Well others could say that they just don't understand the exact opposite...why having many speakers hooked together trough a xover, if a single one can do it better. Being lucky enough to own and listen to many different speakers these last 25 years, bw802d, BW801, floating synthese1, wilson audio sofia, tannoy's, and many many others on electro companiet, Mcintosh, devialet, sansui b3000, etc etc amplifiers, all I can say is that once I heard my Woden design Victor's with FE168NS EnAbl playing on a WE 300b set amplifier, I sold all the others...Never in my life I had heard something like this anywhere and at any price. It's hard to describe and I am sure that they do horribly bad on the 'flat curve' tests, really who cares, anyway not me. Comeand listen to 'the wall' on this simple setup and you will be blowned away and never look back.
I did some listening sessions at my home recently with a couple of hifi store owners that I know, since I spent a serious bunch of money at their places, and first of all they couldn't really beleive what they where hearing, second none wanted to beleive that just the 2x 16cm speakers where doing all the job alone without any subwoofer and with a simple 2x6w amp playing at a third of it's max power...
I don't know what speakers you tested and on what equipment but like for anything audio,and certainly more with FR, it's all question of perfect match, room accoustic and placement are critical, I can make my system sound like a peace of crap by moving the speaker only 25 cm...Tuning of cabinets using absorbsion material is also a must and take a serious bunch of time.
I did some listening sessions at my home recently with a couple of hifi store owners that I know, since I spent a serious bunch of money at their places, and first of all they couldn't really beleive what they where hearing, second none wanted to beleive that just the 2x 16cm speakers where doing all the job alone without any subwoofer and with a simple 2x6w amp playing at a third of it's max power...
I don't know what speakers you tested and on what equipment but like for anything audio,and certainly more with FR, it's all question of perfect match, room accoustic and placement are critical, I can make my system sound like a peace of crap by moving the speaker only 25 cm...Tuning of cabinets using absorbsion material is also a must and take a serious bunch of time.
A significant portion of the "FR" builds are merely wideband with either a woofer or tweeter for a bit of augmentation. Some go for a sort of "purity" thing where they try to just use 1 driver with as few components as possible, but that's not representative of ALL the builds. Most have some form or other of either active EQ or a few passive components doing the same thing, extremely few use only that single driver and no extra candy.
Some of the fun is in "taming" that single driver to make great music, with as few components or adjustments as possible, but not everyone is into that. Can be a very rewarding experience though.
This may not be a point for all builds, personally I am a big fan of a relatively cost conscious approach to DIY audio, being able to make a two-way where you'd traditionally make a 3-way because of wideband units can help keep cost down a lot, another thing can be easier slopes on filters because one would perhaps often choose drivers where roll-off is smoother and/or they have a wider overlap.
This is a thing for one of my builds, does wonders in small rooms with reflective surfaces.
FWIW I really like my basic Seas build with 1st order xo, double 6.5" in closed box + FU10RB in a simple waveguide, it just sounds great. The FU10RB is perhaps not the flattest driver in existence, but those Seas drivers man, fantastic stuff.
Yeah one can spend money on top performance, or lose some on foolery, be it any kind of loudspeaker what the object is for. Point is fullrange speaker performance might be just what the doctor orders but to get more SPL capability and wider bandwidth there is no such single physical woofer even if it was ideal pistonic disk or ball or what ever shape, that would provide it. 1" ideal point source would have to make so huge excursion to generate enough displacement for low frequencies that one would have to watch out it doesn't poke to the eye at listening position. Dimensionless ideal pulsating point source out from thin air would do it though, where the "source" is same size as each wavelength, big and small at the same time. Use two for very close proximity for ideal dipole to have some pattern control. Unfortunately our technology is not advanced enough for this kind of magic 🙂
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Your premise that you want to understand something would require that you think you don't know everything, which would be incorrect. Therefore any discussion with you is useless.
You asked a series of questions, which you already had answers for. It's ok, you know everything, so stick to your guns and enjoy the music.
Yes, just trying to make a point that there is no way single physical object can handle all the long and short wavelength equally because it doesn't happen even in a simulator with ideal any sized "source", source that is big and small at same time just doesn't exists 🙂 While single driver fullrange speaker can be enjoyable it is never gonna beat multi-way in this regard, where short and long wavelength can be reproduced and controlled with different "objects" which are optimized for short or long wavelengths respectively. No escape since it is the nature of sound, size due to speed of sound. Size of sound varies a lot from low to high frequency, 20Hz with ~17m wavelength is 1000 times longer than 20kHz at ~17mm.
I've had fullrange speakers and they were very good as long as were positioned properly and small sweetspot. Had quite good bandwidth but never could reach nice SPL level, compression creeped in quite soon with volume pot past 9 o'clock. If one want's to have it all but louder, multi-way it is. Any system sounds better just by increasing volume, until one hits system limits or hearing limits. This is the comfortable loud SPL that any system sounds it's best, where any louder is no more comfortable, but still capable of doing it cleanly with full dynamics.
I've had fullrange speakers and they were very good as long as were positioned properly and small sweetspot. Had quite good bandwidth but never could reach nice SPL level, compression creeped in quite soon with volume pot past 9 o'clock. If one want's to have it all but louder, multi-way it is. Any system sounds better just by increasing volume, until one hits system limits or hearing limits. This is the comfortable loud SPL that any system sounds it's best, where any louder is no more comfortable, but still capable of doing it cleanly with full dynamics.
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You don't actually need to make said point, as there is nothing as such to 'beat'.
The combative nature of threads of this type (I'm speaking in the general, not with specific reference) rather miss the fact that it isn't a competition, and that a majority of those who use wideband drive units don't actually care what anybody else thinks, or see fit to express their opinions about. In a similar vein, the OP's presumed generosity to other people in 'granting one' misses the fact that he is not actually in a position to 'grant' anything, since it will not be universally accepted that any of his personal opinions are to be take as an synonym for 'incontrovertable fact applicable without exception to everybody else'. There is often a mistaken view that certain people are ignorant of certain subjects, without ascertaining if that is the case, or if they are, but simply don't care.
Putting it another way (and again, speaking in general, without reference to any specific person): those who believe it is their place to foist their opinions on others are in dire need of getting over themselves.
The combative nature of threads of this type (I'm speaking in the general, not with specific reference) rather miss the fact that it isn't a competition, and that a majority of those who use wideband drive units don't actually care what anybody else thinks, or see fit to express their opinions about. In a similar vein, the OP's presumed generosity to other people in 'granting one' misses the fact that he is not actually in a position to 'grant' anything, since it will not be universally accepted that any of his personal opinions are to be take as an synonym for 'incontrovertable fact applicable without exception to everybody else'. There is often a mistaken view that certain people are ignorant of certain subjects, without ascertaining if that is the case, or if they are, but simply don't care.
Putting it another way (and again, speaking in general, without reference to any specific person): those who believe it is their place to foist their opinions on others are in dire need of getting over themselves.
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They're not my friend, but this precisely. If the OP was interested (as they claim) in knowing anything about why people like fullranges they would simply read about what people say on the internet. This is what is done to learn.
Instead, their goal is to simply harass people into a debate with them so they can launch their distaste at others who do things different than they do, something which unsettles them in their guts. Plus, someone somewhere is paying some kind of attention to them, unlike the usual. They get to feel they're the center of attention, and their barking is simply to direct the discussion to what they think.
This is like the oldest trick in the world on the internet. Hello.
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Also this. Well said. They're doing this to convince us they have some authority here.
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AllenB, perhaps poor wording but here is the reasoning and what I ment. Of course one can produce whole bandwidth "equally" but either the SPL or directivity control is not there, or both. Example
One could use big cone to have displacement and to reproduce low frequencies nicely, but now the highs are wild since cone breakup starts relatively low and there is more bandwidth that would benefit controlling the breakup. If it was ideal rigid piston instead as the radiating surface is huge beaming would be severe making small sweetspot. There are whizzer cones and most probably other advanced techniques try and make center of the cone play the short wavelenghts while all of the cone would participate the displacement, a controller breakup.
If one used small cone instead, to reproduce the highs nicely without breakup and wild directivity, it would have to have very much excursion in order to have displacement for the lows. Too high excursion would eventually make the high frequencies suffer but at the end it is just SPL limited low frequencies.
All one can do is find nice balance with both, a cone size that is big enough to have enough displacement but not any bigger because the wild bandwidth where the cone is in breakup gets wider and harder to keep in control, or if it was all ideal pistonic a lazer beaming would occur ever lower in frequency, highs being not controlled making the sweetspot small.
With multiway the concerns are separated, both low frequency SPL capability and high frequency directivity can adjusted separately. No need to sacrifice the other for the other.
Anyway I believe the trick is to make very advanced "controlled" breakup to get the highs behave nicely. I'm not sure if this is possible even if the cone was made of nanorobots with perfect control, perhaps multiple independently working coincident ring radiators on a single cone happening would work ok but would already be multiway, wouldn't it?🙂 Basically single driver system is just SPL limited, and narrow sweetspot due to wild directivity either beaming or breakup or both. If these are fine then no problem, can make really good easy and cheap system for those occasions and thus a best solution.
And yeah, we shouldn't have fight on this. Perhaps it is a lounge topic.
One could use big cone to have displacement and to reproduce low frequencies nicely, but now the highs are wild since cone breakup starts relatively low and there is more bandwidth that would benefit controlling the breakup. If it was ideal rigid piston instead as the radiating surface is huge beaming would be severe making small sweetspot. There are whizzer cones and most probably other advanced techniques try and make center of the cone play the short wavelenghts while all of the cone would participate the displacement, a controller breakup.
If one used small cone instead, to reproduce the highs nicely without breakup and wild directivity, it would have to have very much excursion in order to have displacement for the lows. Too high excursion would eventually make the high frequencies suffer but at the end it is just SPL limited low frequencies.
All one can do is find nice balance with both, a cone size that is big enough to have enough displacement but not any bigger because the wild bandwidth where the cone is in breakup gets wider and harder to keep in control, or if it was all ideal pistonic a lazer beaming would occur ever lower in frequency, highs being not controlled making the sweetspot small.
With multiway the concerns are separated, both low frequency SPL capability and high frequency directivity can adjusted separately. No need to sacrifice the other for the other.
Anyway I believe the trick is to make very advanced "controlled" breakup to get the highs behave nicely. I'm not sure if this is possible even if the cone was made of nanorobots with perfect control, perhaps multiple independently working coincident ring radiators on a single cone happening would work ok but would already be multiway, wouldn't it?🙂 Basically single driver system is just SPL limited, and narrow sweetspot due to wild directivity either beaming or breakup or both. If these are fine then no problem, can make really good easy and cheap system for those occasions and thus a best solution.
And yeah, we shouldn't have fight on this. Perhaps it is a lounge topic.
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I'd probably consign it to the foam-flecked jaws of the rabid yak I keep by my desk at all times for just such instances. 😉 As noted, it's not exactly a new topic, or one in which there is anything original left to say, since it was done to death decades ago to about as little purpose and simply arises on a regular basis like the audio equivalent of the undead to punish us for our evil ways.
We have no evil ways here, others though are quite obvious with theirs. They need us more than we need them.
The “controlled chaos” part of the FR’s bandwidth.
All wideranges do this. It is not at all easy. One is trying to achieve a “breakup” where the outer parts of the cone slowly decouple from the inner cone and the radiationan area is effectlivey smaller diameter.
How close a designer can come to this (probably unacheivable given tody’s tech) is a large measure of how good a widerange can be. When we see ringing in the higher frequenies (ie Fostex/Lowther “shout”) it is the chaos getting out of control. Trying to eliminate this sometimes brings other compromises (ie “vintage” top end of Alpair 10p/12p).
dave
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TL;DR
Your wording told me you were being theoretical. Your point in space doesn't have to change its size in order to maintain directivity as equal across the spectrum.
Maybe you are not noticing the positive side of fullrange drivers? For one thing, as the highs close in it keeps them clear of creating secondary sources. Fullrange systems can sound better than a lot of multi-way systems.
Summary 😀
Yeah I'm very theoretical on this and also wrote on about all the posts that if small sweet spot and limited SPL capability is fine then a fullrange is fine. Narrow directivity is usually a good thing as you say, less reflections. Sound can be better than many multi-way, it is just SPL limited and tied to a single spot.
Pulsating points in space is a concept to compare against, it could be omni or use two for dipole or bi-pole, perhaps constrain it to a huge waveguide. I haven't imagined completely how it would actually play out 😀 Physical objects beam as frequency goes up and roll off as frequency goes down, they cannot change size per wavelength, except approximate changing size per wavelength as multi-way concept. We just cannot have more than one object at same space(time), so it is draw between fullrange or multiway. We can colocate multiple transducers acoustically though, like XRK already posted example of woofer assisted wideband driver, or multiple subwoofers in a room, within ~1/4 wavelength.
But if it missed your question then it is too long as well.
Yeah I'm very theoretical on this and also wrote on about all the posts that if small sweet spot and limited SPL capability is fine then a fullrange is fine. Narrow directivity is usually a good thing as you say, less reflections. Sound can be better than many multi-way, it is just SPL limited and tied to a single spot.
Pulsating points in space is a concept to compare against, it could be omni or use two for dipole or bi-pole, perhaps constrain it to a huge waveguide. I haven't imagined completely how it would actually play out 😀 Physical objects beam as frequency goes up and roll off as frequency goes down, they cannot change size per wavelength, except approximate changing size per wavelength as multi-way concept. We just cannot have more than one object at same space(time), so it is draw between fullrange or multiway. We can colocate multiple transducers acoustically though, like XRK already posted example of woofer assisted wideband driver, or multiple subwoofers in a room, within ~1/4 wavelength.
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