single driver loudspeakers


I was wondering about your opinions or experiences regarding single driver speakers? I am considering purchasing a pair of Bob Brines' FT-1600 to replace my present speakers. I read wonderful comments about these and other single driver speaker but was hoping for a broader sampling.
lcrim
Rar1 from what I gather you do need to upgrade your amplifier and especially the source. Those speakers are so pure. The majority of the faults your hearing is upstream.
I think we make the mistake when buying fair price high quality speakers like the Omegas. By assuming components in that bracket will work.
The better the equipment the better your speakers will sound.
I look forward to your review!

Good luck!

Hey Bombaywalla I never did make it to Earthshaking but a good friend did. His report and yours is all it took for me to take the plunge.
Oh yeah for the ones that haven't listened to the new Fostex lately. The whizzer cones do not make a buzzing sound and are certainly not rolled off! This driver's highs spank my ribbons in the Maggies all day long!

Happy listening!
I have a pair of Fostex 208 Sigmas in Zhorn backloaded cabinets. They are unbelievably quick and exciting, but as it is well said, they are also very demanding in the type of watts you feed them. I have tried my set up with Op amp powered solid state, 47 Labs Shigaraki integrated...the sound, it was outstanding and lighting fast. Also, I currently have it powered with a Final Music 6 battery powered op chip amplifier, but in this case, with a tube regulated power supply...The sound is also intense and wonderfully uncluttered. Finally, I have paired the same drivers in a self constructed Voigt Pipe (cost be a grand total of about $80 for the plywood and other hardware, about $450 with the pairs of drivers included) with a Assemblage 300B Platinum edition tubed amplifier along with matched WE tubes and these were also amazing in the vocals and the quickness.

For the price being, a single fullrange driver experience have been eye opening. Nevertheless, there is a catch, you will find that the low end is not as heavy or as noticable as in other dynamic speaker set up and this lack can easily be remedied with a powered subwoofer picking up the low end duties.

What you need to be aware of is the quality of the amplification....If it is SS, it needs to be extremely good, not necessarily powerful, the design needs to be well executed and the lower the power, the better, therefore of the use of the OP amp based amplifiers.

But

with tubes, ahhhhhh. A match made in heaven.

Single fullrange speakers do not waste money or frills in capacitors and other crossover thingies, just in sound.

BTW, I am planning to get myself a pair of FT2000A cabinets made for my F200A with Alnico drivers. Have you considered this design? The F200A is not longer being made and Madisound has some in stock.

Good luck.
Hello,

I have the exact speaker that you are inquiring.

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/s/f/1093027454.jpg

Stock, it performs very well. But the magic is how to find the correct ratio of damping material so the speaker/room coupling is flawless. Not to mention that the BSC(Baffle Step Correction) circuit needs some patience to find the correct value of resistor to use in order to make the correction seamless.

In the end, it is worth all the effort.

Goodluck!
Bemopti123,

BTW, I am planning to get myself a pair of FT2000A cabinets made for my F200A with Alnico drivers. Have you considered this design? The F200A is not longer being made and Madisound has some in stock

Is that similar to this?

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1104807499.jpg
I've been looking at the same speakers.Bob is very insightful.It sounds like he knows what he's doing as well!
The FTA 2000a will be my next speaker purchase.I called Madisound about a week ago and they still have some F200A drivers in stock.