Full Range Drivers

Magfan. I read that article (head ache). That was enlightening to say the least. I was particularly interested in the comments about the Fostex FF225K driver, which is the driver Eric Alexander from Tekton Design chose to use in his Kat's Meow speaker. In the aricle, Nelson Pass said it reminds him of the JBL LE8 and if implimented with a tweeter above 5k you'll really have something. It's funny because that's what Eric Alexander found worked out best with the Kat's Meow and added a Fostex bullet tweeter in a separate enclosure on top.

I agree with Darkmoebius that I should find some to listen to.

Tannoy does not use a full range driver. And performance for full ranges is as varable as any other transducer type.

Donjr, almost any true fullrange "single driver" system is going to need a supertweeter and subwoofer(s), making it a 3-way system, in reality.

But, some have done a great job to moving the crossover between highs and lows way beyond the entire midrange frequencies.

A great starter system for a real taste of true fullrange glory is the $650 Hammer Dynamics Super-12 kit. It uses a professional 12" widerange driver to cover everything up to ~8-10kHz where it crosses over to a coaxially-mounted supertweeter.

This speaker does bass in a BIG way, along with all the benefits of other single drivers. A 12" driver has it's own benefits compared to smaller ones. There are a ton of upgrades that can be done to the speaker, like a better tweeter and crossover mods.

The kit is easily built by anyone with a table saw or circular saw and a few other simple tools. It can be made in a few hours from three or four 4'x8' pieces of plywood/mdf, if you are the least bit handy.

There are a few magazine reviews of the Super-12 on their website.

Darkmoebius, I would be able to handle the wood working skills no problem. My father gave me a beautiful Jet table saw with a Biesemeyer fence, an amazing plunge router with a more amazing router table that I can't remember the make of. It's all a matter of getting my a$$ out of the listening chair. I didn't want to go this route out of pure laziness, but a 12" driver holds my interest like a beach in Brazil. I'll look into the Hammer kit. If I lose a digit or two along the way, I can always press the shuffle button with my nose.

Donjr,

The FullRangeDriver.com(home of the FullRangeDriver Forum) still maintains it's original SingleDriver Website archives. Inside of that is a priceless resource that has in-depth theory, construction, and upgrade/modification information on a lot of the most popular designs a few years back.

But, most importantly, they maintained the Hammer Dynamics Super-12 Tweaks page. It documents the evolution of the Super-12's from the late creator's, John Wyckoff, original kit to better tweeters, crossovers, wiring, cabinet reinforcement, etc. Some really talented and enthusiastic people experimented every which way to squeeze the best performance possible out John's speakers. And their final tweaks take it to a whole 'nother level.

I think John's wife, Colleen, has incorporated a lot of those final tweaks into the kit now, so there may not be much to do anymore. I think the upgraded Fostex FT17h supertweeter now comes as part of the stock kit along with the better Solen hepta-litz wire wound inductors. Send Colleen an email, she is very nice and helpful. Supplying the kit is way to keep her late husband's dream alive. It's been a few years since I last sent her an email, so I can't say for a fact that she's still doing it, but the website is up, so i guess so.

If she isn't, I have an extra kit that I bought for my brother years ago that he never ended up building due to his first kid being born.

I have the Super-12's and still love them even though I have a much, much, more expensive and complex system now. There are things that a large single driver does well that smaller ones cannot match, bass being the most obvious. But, there is also a difference in the sonic presentation.

The Super-12's can rock with the best of them and still do jazz and chamber music extremely well. Vocals are eerily real. The Super's are a true 97dB efficent, so the whole range of flea-powered SET amps are perfect, from 2wpc 45's to "monster" 845's and 211's.

But, they also do extremely well with low-powered and larger push-pull amps. I preferred more power for most complex music, but have used them with 8 wpc 300B SET and 6wpc PX-25 amps with superb results. They also do well with good solid state amps.

The Super-12's are a great way to experiment with all types and designs of amps because of their relatively high efficiency.