We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

I don't think ESL's are the only loudspeakers that don't suffer from thermal compression, what about full range panel speakers like apogees?

I don't think ESL's are the only loudspeakers that don't suffer from thermal compression, what about full range panel speakers like apogees?

Apogees have a voice coil and so thermal compression is possible.

@atmasphere wrote:

The signal itself is the source of dynamic contrast. Loudspeakers only take away from that; if you value dynamic contrast, using a speaker that has the least thermal compression will bring you closer to your goal. In this light, ESLs have the least thermal compression owing to no voice coil at all; a close runner up is higher efficiency loudspeakers [...]

Which only gets you so far being ESL's have the lesser macro-dynamic range compared to horns/high efficiency designs, unless extremely (unrealistically?) large and rid of bass signals. Before thermal compression would ever become an issue with horns, other potential factors like horn material resonance and truncated horn size in the midbass horn in particular would be the primary concerns. While ESL's don't compress per se - and as such some of their implementations can have an advantage over low eff. direct radiating, dynamic driver designs - it's well known that when they limit out they do so abruptly, not least when applied full-range. 

Apogees have a voice coil and so thermal compression is possible.

If we are talking about the original Apogee true ribbon 1 Ohm speakers, this would be news to me.

Technically Atmasphere is correct, they use the aluminum panel as the voice coil, and they still use magnets. I highly doubt that apogee's suffer from thermal compression, the area is much larger to dissipate heat. I listened to a pair of Diva's that were driven by over 2,000 watts and they had effortless dynamics.