I’m considering a full range build but have some questions for those that use them, have used them or have heard them:
I understand the benefits but what are the real world drawbacks?
Within reason, can they party? I get the impression they are best used gently on gentle music.
Can they be high efficiency? (Currently have a 60w@8ohm ch Lyngdorf (Which actually does very well))
Should I plan on WAW integration from the start?
Why do you like or dislike them?
Small drive unit 4-5” vs 12”?
I listen to anything and everything with the exception of contemporary rap and, most, chart music (especially that awful auto tune stuff) Also, not a fan of all the ‘go to‘ audiophile demos but appreciate their purpose.
My room is approx 7.2M x 4.5m and Im listening across the 4.5M width
Typical listening is at 70-80dB allowing for a bit of headroom.
Any EQ would be done using REW and Roon with playback through the baby Lyngdorf TDAI-1120.
After years of separate components I love the simplicity of the TDAI units and will be swapping to the TDAI-3400 at some point.
Many thanks,
I understand the benefits but what are the real world drawbacks?
Within reason, can they party? I get the impression they are best used gently on gentle music.
Can they be high efficiency? (Currently have a 60w@8ohm ch Lyngdorf (Which actually does very well))
Should I plan on WAW integration from the start?
Why do you like or dislike them?
Small drive unit 4-5” vs 12”?
I listen to anything and everything with the exception of contemporary rap and, most, chart music (especially that awful auto tune stuff) Also, not a fan of all the ‘go to‘ audiophile demos but appreciate their purpose.
My room is approx 7.2M x 4.5m and Im listening across the 4.5M width
Typical listening is at 70-80dB allowing for a bit of headroom.
Any EQ would be done using REW and Roon with playback through the baby Lyngdorf TDAI-1120.
After years of separate components I love the simplicity of the TDAI units and will be swapping to the TDAI-3400 at some point.
Many thanks,
Limited volume, but they can party. My favourite is SEAS FA22RCZ. Should be fine in your room. Works well in OB with EQ. I could quite happily live with them if I didn't have my big 3-way multi-amped OB's.
Don't over-think it - there's only one way to know for sure: try it!
Cheers,
Mike
Don't over-think it - there's only one way to know for sure: try it!
Cheers,
Mike
Full rangers can be great and can party but the enclosure choice is very important. Full rangers in big enclosures sound big and such enclosures make the most of their bandwidth. There are lots of great proven designs available to consider. The frugal horn XL is just one example, you'll need to do your research to find what can meet your needs. There are a lot of knowledgeable folks here that can advise and answer questions.
This topic has been beaten to death over the last 2 decades here.
The task of a FR driver is a VERY difficult one.
But with no XO one can get a seamlessness that eludes most with an XO (and physical separation of drivers).
But one often has to give up ultimate loudness levels without falling apart.
FR drivers range from cheap crap, to really, really good. Just like almost everything else.
Given what a FR has to do, they often suffer from ringing, in bigger drivers it can typically reach lower. As such a designer can damp the cone to help deal with these, usually ends up with a “vintage” top end. Completely unobjectionable but kinda soft. A good example of this is Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 vrs 10p. The paper cone driver having a well controlled top. On the other hand some find issues with ringing at the top of range. Some of those will bandaid it with a filter, the other approach is to sort it mechanically in the driver.
Given the huge range, the boxes contribution to extending the bass is quite important. Often why we see little drivers in big boxes.
FRs come in all sorts of sensitivities, the really efficient ones tend to fall apart more.
My favourite size, what i figure is the sweet spot is 4-5” or so. I can only speak to what i have heard, my choices for a driver that size would be Markaudio Alpair 7.2/7ms/10.3/10p/11ms. Somethign like A10 in Frugel-Horn XL is good for some 9.5 octaves, 70-80 dB is not really “party” levels so rhey wuld “party” fine. . These stun people often when they first experience them. One interesting such was when Mark Fenlon (the driver designer) heard how much bottom we were getting with A10p in FHXL. Chris had to play the track 3 times so he knew he wasn’t imagining things.
A WAW solves many of the issues of a single FR driver. With a low XO (and drivers with similar voicing as well as XO), one can get the drivers close enuff that they are coincident (ie a single point source). This makes the XO much less auditable, but brings as much bass as you are willing to spend money and box volume on, while stil retaining (most) of the seamlessnes sof the FR, while at the same time improving its capability to deliver mid & HF information once it is releived of the heavy lifting of doing bass. A WAW will typically be many times pricier and has many more degrees of freedom (and this complexity/detail of design that entails). But with a WAW some 3” FRs that don’t do much bass anyway come into sight as midTweeters. Less sensitive but potential for better dispersion* and more top.id detail capability.
*(you will see disperion often discussed wrt cone size. But cone shape makes such a difference in disperion that this is not a good metric)
I always suggest that one start with the FR and find out if too much bass or levels are MIA.
Do note that whizzer cone FRs like the FA22 are really 2 ways with a mechanical XO. The FA22 is one of the few larger drivers i like. It does need a phase plug added (pretty much the case for any driver with whizzer cone).
dave
The task of a FR driver is a VERY difficult one.
But with no XO one can get a seamlessness that eludes most with an XO (and physical separation of drivers).
But one often has to give up ultimate loudness levels without falling apart.
FR drivers range from cheap crap, to really, really good. Just like almost everything else.
Given what a FR has to do, they often suffer from ringing, in bigger drivers it can typically reach lower. As such a designer can damp the cone to help deal with these, usually ends up with a “vintage” top end. Completely unobjectionable but kinda soft. A good example of this is Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 vrs 10p. The paper cone driver having a well controlled top. On the other hand some find issues with ringing at the top of range. Some of those will bandaid it with a filter, the other approach is to sort it mechanically in the driver.
Given the huge range, the boxes contribution to extending the bass is quite important. Often why we see little drivers in big boxes.
FRs come in all sorts of sensitivities, the really efficient ones tend to fall apart more.
My favourite size, what i figure is the sweet spot is 4-5” or so. I can only speak to what i have heard, my choices for a driver that size would be Markaudio Alpair 7.2/7ms/10.3/10p/11ms. Somethign like A10 in Frugel-Horn XL is good for some 9.5 octaves, 70-80 dB is not really “party” levels so rhey wuld “party” fine. . These stun people often when they first experience them. One interesting such was when Mark Fenlon (the driver designer) heard how much bottom we were getting with A10p in FHXL. Chris had to play the track 3 times so he knew he wasn’t imagining things.
A WAW solves many of the issues of a single FR driver. With a low XO (and drivers with similar voicing as well as XO), one can get the drivers close enuff that they are coincident (ie a single point source). This makes the XO much less auditable, but brings as much bass as you are willing to spend money and box volume on, while stil retaining (most) of the seamlessnes sof the FR, while at the same time improving its capability to deliver mid & HF information once it is releived of the heavy lifting of doing bass. A WAW will typically be many times pricier and has many more degrees of freedom (and this complexity/detail of design that entails). But with a WAW some 3” FRs that don’t do much bass anyway come into sight as midTweeters. Less sensitive but potential for better dispersion* and more top.id detail capability.
*(you will see disperion often discussed wrt cone size. But cone shape makes such a difference in disperion that this is not a good metric)
I always suggest that one start with the FR and find out if too much bass or levels are MIA.
Do note that whizzer cone FRs like the FA22 are really 2 ways with a mechanical XO. The FA22 is one of the few larger drivers i like. It does need a phase plug added (pretty much the case for any driver with whizzer cone).
dave
Planet10 gives an excellent summary above. I’ve been experimenting with Fullrange units in Open Baffle and can share my experience. I have found that they almost always benefit from the assistance of a large woofer for bass and a tweeter for highs. In open baffle, they really need the bass assistance. I typically use a large (18” or 21”), efficient high-QTs driver with a 6-12mH inductor for supplemental bass. For the tweeter, I use a very high crossover around 2.5k-10k (first-order) just to add some sparkle and improve off-axis response. Sometimes the main fullrange driver is wired to play all frequencies (maybe with an Lpad, but otherwise essentially crossoverless). Sometimes I instead cross over to the tweeter. Depends on the fullrange driver and how good it sounds in the uppermost octaves. I have not noticed any issues with having two drivers play the highest frequencies.
I’ve gotten fantastic results with this approach. You can get ALMOST the coherence and liveliness of a single crossoverless fullrange driver, with extra wide bandwidth. These speakers sure are capable of partying.
I’m finding 6-8” to be my preferred size for the fullrange unit. I like human voice from this size driver, but of course it depends on the driver. I have been disappointed with 4” and smaller FR units as they just have a smaller and less dynamic sound to my ears.
I’ve gotten fantastic results with this approach. You can get ALMOST the coherence and liveliness of a single crossoverless fullrange driver, with extra wide bandwidth. These speakers sure are capable of partying.
I’m finding 6-8” to be my preferred size for the fullrange unit. I like human voice from this size driver, but of course it depends on the driver. I have been disappointed with 4” and smaller FR units as they just have a smaller and less dynamic sound to my ears.
I set off my journey into serious* HiFi with a pair of Fostex FE126E drivers, treated by Dave/Planet10. They did some music really really well. Small-scale stuff like singer+instrument (usually an acoustic guitar) was excellent. However, my listening tastes extend far beyond Nihls Lofgren's live version of Keith Don't Go, which seems to be played at every HiFi-related event I've been to. I like classical, folk, rock, heavy metal, dubstep, Motown, rap, and even some pop.
* In so far as HiFi can be considered "serious". I've spent time with HiFi systems that would cover the cost of a house, and haven't found anything that could convincingly recreate the sound of live instruments. NB - I'm a live sound engineer, working with live musicians and instruments a few times a week.
My experience with wide-range drivers goes as follows:
After trying a few different full-range drivers, with subwoofers (100Hz crossover), woofers (500Hz crossover), and helping to develop other systems (one included an 8" Lowther on a perspex open-baffle - it ended up a 3-way), I came to the conclusion that wide-range drivers aren't for me. They ended up dictating my listening habits, according to what they sounded good with. IMO, a good speaker should play anything you want to listen to, at any volume, and sound decent doing it.
I've managed that, with a pair of 8" 2.5-way speakers, using compression drivers for tweeters.
Chris
* In so far as HiFi can be considered "serious". I've spent time with HiFi systems that would cover the cost of a house, and haven't found anything that could convincingly recreate the sound of live instruments. NB - I'm a live sound engineer, working with live musicians and instruments a few times a week.
My experience with wide-range drivers goes as follows:
- Smaller drivers struggle below 100Hz, and are still rough in the treble compared to a half-decent tweeter. They also show rising harmonic distortion levels if you give them a woofer and then turn it up a bit.
- Larger drivers tend to be so ragged >4kHz that they ought to be used as woofers anyway. Of course, the sacrifices to get the HF extension (short/light voice coil etc) tends to mean they're mediocre as woofers.
- The off-axis response is almost always narrow in the HF, and those using whizzers can have some very interesting off-axis curves.
After trying a few different full-range drivers, with subwoofers (100Hz crossover), woofers (500Hz crossover), and helping to develop other systems (one included an 8" Lowther on a perspex open-baffle - it ended up a 3-way), I came to the conclusion that wide-range drivers aren't for me. They ended up dictating my listening habits, according to what they sounded good with. IMO, a good speaker should play anything you want to listen to, at any volume, and sound decent doing it.
I've managed that, with a pair of 8" 2.5-way speakers, using compression drivers for tweeters.
Chris
Select small (4-5") well performing fullrange (FaitalPro for instance), place it in small closed box, run it from say ~200Hz up, with woofers (10-15"), ideally actively crossed and biamped.
Good luck!
There are few instances where an OB does not require bass support. Adding a tweeter inevitably means a significant c-c distance between the FR and the tweeter. Move your head the HF will change due to different interference patterns. I have heard few FRs that benefit accuracy-wize from a tweeter, but it can make some with deficiant top end to have more air. More often the attempt to add a tweeter can degrade performance. I would suggets getting a FR that has the top you need.
Dave
I have used fullrange a lot from 4" 6.5" and several 8" to 10" (breifly a 12").
There is a trade off between output/bass and high range/beaming. 6.5/8" is the sweet spot for me. None of them has the slam of corner horns with 15" drivers, but with resonable expectations. For your 32 m2 a 8" unit with a decent Xmax (Seas or SB). In something like the Schmacks/Isophon horn a 8" can play insanely loud (JBL 2110 could generate fear inducing levels)
There is a trade off between output/bass and high range/beaming. 6.5/8" is the sweet spot for me. None of them has the slam of corner horns with 15" drivers, but with resonable expectations. For your 32 m2 a 8" unit with a decent Xmax (Seas or SB). In something like the Schmacks/Isophon horn a 8" can play insanely loud (JBL 2110 could generate fear inducing levels)
How do you "party loud" in such a small room?
I got into fullrange out of dissatisfaction with my ESL63 -- guitar sounded like harp if you know what I mean. Lowther is almost as fast but has much better dynamic transcients. My "reference" is acoustic instruments/vocal live concerts, usually front-row. The "realities" are many. Bass, I seldom need disco-beat type of party sound; organ/piano/doublebass/orchestral-bassdrum/Beatles (climactic deep notes) suffice for me. Usually achieved with a very compact tapered TL-type enclosure I call "TLonken"; subs seldom needed. Trebble, almost no fullrange driver (stock) has the near-flat response below 10khz needed to reproduce instrumental voices (tonality) with high fidelity. Lowther "shout" being one of the worst. My solutions include notch filters; automotive "plast" taped to the cone/dustcap; stacking complementary drivers, and more. Some are briefly described in this forum.
I got into fullrange out of dissatisfaction with my ESL63 -- guitar sounded like harp if you know what I mean. Lowther is almost as fast but has much better dynamic transcients. My "reference" is acoustic instruments/vocal live concerts, usually front-row. The "realities" are many. Bass, I seldom need disco-beat type of party sound; organ/piano/doublebass/orchestral-bassdrum/Beatles (climactic deep notes) suffice for me. Usually achieved with a very compact tapered TL-type enclosure I call "TLonken"; subs seldom needed. Trebble, almost no fullrange driver (stock) has the near-flat response below 10khz needed to reproduce instrumental voices (tonality) with high fidelity. Lowther "shout" being one of the worst. My solutions include notch filters; automotive "plast" taped to the cone/dustcap; stacking complementary drivers, and more. Some are briefly described in this forum.
From the description given of the intended venue, programme material/listening levels and available power, I’d imagine that a 2way WAW type system with passive XO, or actively bi-amped with pair of small woofers should suffice nicely.
While no longer actively building, I had much fun for close to two decades playing with FR drivers alone and assisted as noted above, and have for the past at least 5years been quite satisfied using all FR drivers in a modest 7.1 system in a room approximately the same volume as yours. After futzing about with more than a few makes and models,of drivers and enclosure designs, I settled on Mark Audio Alpair10.3, Alpair6 (metal), and Pluvia 7 for this particular rig, supported by a pair of surplus OEM woofers. Thanks to the flexibility of bass management in modern AVRs - some of which even accommodate active bi-amping of front mains - and software such as Audyssey, REW, or others to be found in higher end integrated amps such as in your case, I think the concerns over overtaxing smaller FR drivers can readily be mitigated.
If you were to survey the variety of enclosure drawings and physical builds archived on several of Planet10’s websites, you’ll get a small taste of what’s possible with reasonably affordable smaller drivers. Much time can be wasted spelunking that particular rabbit warren.
https://www.planet10-hifi.com/custom.html
https://www.planet10-hifi.com/bespoke.html
Dave must have several hundred gigs worth of photos of the more ambitious WAW builds, which were I not seriously constrained by “domestic acceptance factor”, the A12W/A7 MTM would be my choice.
While no longer actively building, I had much fun for close to two decades playing with FR drivers alone and assisted as noted above, and have for the past at least 5years been quite satisfied using all FR drivers in a modest 7.1 system in a room approximately the same volume as yours. After futzing about with more than a few makes and models,of drivers and enclosure designs, I settled on Mark Audio Alpair10.3, Alpair6 (metal), and Pluvia 7 for this particular rig, supported by a pair of surplus OEM woofers. Thanks to the flexibility of bass management in modern AVRs - some of which even accommodate active bi-amping of front mains - and software such as Audyssey, REW, or others to be found in higher end integrated amps such as in your case, I think the concerns over overtaxing smaller FR drivers can readily be mitigated.
If you were to survey the variety of enclosure drawings and physical builds archived on several of Planet10’s websites, you’ll get a small taste of what’s possible with reasonably affordable smaller drivers. Much time can be wasted spelunking that particular rabbit warren.
https://www.planet10-hifi.com/custom.html
https://www.planet10-hifi.com/bespoke.html
Dave must have several hundred gigs worth of photos of the more ambitious WAW builds, which were I not seriously constrained by “domestic acceptance factor”, the A12W/A7 MTM would be my choice.
Thanks for the replies,
@chrisb 2way WAW is where I was heading - My Lyngdorf has great flexibility, in terms of crossover setup, so I could high/lowpass without issue.
I found this build from @planet10 which looks interesting: Mar-Ken12PWxwTT (I aslo like the option of building those in a trapezoid cabinets)
Much to think on and many retail speakers to resist!
@chrisb 2way WAW is where I was heading - My Lyngdorf has great flexibility, in terms of crossover setup, so I could high/lowpass without issue.
I found this build from @planet10 which looks interesting: Mar-Ken12PWxwTT (I aslo like the option of building those in a trapezoid cabinets)
Much to think on and many retail speakers to resist!
I just finished my first speaker build, using tang band w8-1808s in a mastodon enclosure. It’s important to note that my hifi listening experience is extremely limited.
They sound fantastic when I play Colin Hay, the first few acoustic songs on Neil Young’s Live Rust, a slack key guitar recording… I cannot listen to some of my classic rock, mainly Rush, without adjusting the eq on my iPad. Eq’d they sound really good to me.
I realize my source is questionable, but that’s what I have and I only have my rp 600ms to compare against.
They sound fantastic when I play Colin Hay, the first few acoustic songs on Neil Young’s Live Rust, a slack key guitar recording… I cannot listen to some of my classic rock, mainly Rush, without adjusting the eq on my iPad. Eq’d they sound really good to me.
I realize my source is questionable, but that’s what I have and I only have my rp 600ms to compare against.