Coaxials - Reality vs. Experience?

To add clarity, concentric is a subset of coaxial. In other words, all concentric drivers are coaxial but not all coaxial drivers are concentric. @erik_squires Pardon the presumption; you are probably referencing most designs intended for the hifi home user, of which most (if not all) are concentric.

I heard a few designs at audio shows as well as listened critically (TAD micro)  while evaluating two amplifiers for purchase. Having experienced music through quality concentrics, my opinion is that a quality design well executed in all parameters sounds great.......concentric drivers or not. The theoretical advantages of concentric drivers notwithstanding, there are probably a number of other design variables that bear more weight (at this point) on how a loudspeaker "sounds" to each person.

Hi I just picked up Hsu coax driver speakers $300 used, and holy smokes they are amazing.  The reason is because I found synergy using $15K worth of electronics. I have another amp that cost me $800 but has tubes and the Hsu speakers do NOT sound good.  I think the question isn't if this design or that is good but what will work with what.  I had to send my main speakers back and needed something but had no idea these would sound this good. Shocked actually.  So you could listen to these speakers and conclude they do not sound good because....   This was an eye opener for me. I think horns, coax, single driver, etc all have different compromises so talking about that is great fun but if we keep we want to hear sound/music in amazing ways then focusing on synergy is very fruitful. 

I love this stuff. 

jh

Erik,

I’ve had a pair of KEF Reference 5’s for about a year and a half now and have been mostly happy with them.  They have a pretty good sound stage and even with having an aluminum tweeter, they are not as bright sounding as I first feared. I’ve been powering them with a Hegel H390, which is a slightly warm sounding A/B amp and I’m thinking that is why.

I was thinking that they are becoming more and more popular. I was close to buying Fyne but they jacked up the price just before I decided. 

In general I assume that coaxial elements are more expensive for a given quality. That may explain why not everyone is using them.

The best coaxial I've heard is Cabasse Le Pearl Pelegrina but they are also active and $30k.

erik, you post some puzzling questions. My guess is that speakers with concentric drivers from different manufacturers can sound as different from one another as speakers with concentric drivers can sound from speakers with each driver mounted separately. I don’t think there is a specific sound that all concentric driver speakers have in common, do you?

Maybe you could be more specific about the sound qualities you ascribe to concentric drivers.