Single Driver Speakers??? Lowther, Moth Audio??

Their is a sense of cohesiveness from single drivers that cannot be achieved with multiple drivers. However, I don't think you will be happy with 5 watts into a 90dB speaker. It will play but you will quickly run out of power. You need to get closer to 100 dB so you will have some headroom.
I tried a 3.5 watt 2A3 amp with 91 dB speakers for a while and what there was sounded great, it just wasn't enough to get them going . Eight watts of 300B was much better, but I still ran out of power sometimes.

In favor of the single driver:

1. No crossover to introduce phase shifts and waste power. You only have a few watts to begin with and would like them all to go to the speaker, not be used up as heat in the crossover.
2. The aforementioned cohesiveness. In a multiple driver system, near the crossover point you have 2 different drivers both producing the same frequencies. This leads to colorations. The crossover also introduces phase shifts which colors the sound.
3. Usually very efficient allowing the use of simple low power amps. All else being equal, simpler is usually better.

In favor of multiple drivers:

1. It is very difficult, some say impossible, to get a single driver to work over the required range. Breaking up the job makes it possible.
2. You can buy huge speakers with a whole lot of drivers that look great in your living room and drive women crazy. Of course, most are driven crazy in a way that makes them demand you get rid of them.

the upper-end tannoys, including the churchill, use a "dual concentric" single driver. they really rock with great tube amps (e.g., airtight). if i were to install a second system, i'd buy these as my "base." -cfb

I have the Moth Cicadas and like them very much with tube electronics. I listen to acoustic music (classical) almost exclusively and the sound of a cello (my favorite) is spectacular. However, I use a sub to supply the bass that the Cicadas lack and use a digital eq to smooth the frequency response. Without these aids, I probably would not keep the Cicadas but go to a multidriver speaker.

Royy:

Here is a "single driver" website that you might find interesting.

http://melhuish.org/audio/

I have only listened to vintage Lowther's which were bright sounding and had some kind of a "reverb thing" going on with the midrange (noticable on vocals and piano), but there are now newer designs/versions available which would be worth a listen.

Also check out the various speaker forums @ audioasylum.com (click on the regular "speaker forum" and their will be further options).

Moth has another speaker out now that retails for around $1K, but I have yet to see a review of it.

Hi, I heard these RL Acoustique speakers at the Stereophile show. I never heard these type of speakers. They basically use a horn which acts as a sub. Then they used an AER full range driver. Let me say, these speakers sounded so great. They sounded very articulate and natural. The bass was very good. Here's a pic of them. http://shows.soundstagelive.com/shows/avtour2001/mtl_stand_rl.shtml