Woofer-Assisted Wide Band


In the old days of dynamic speaker drivers everything was done with a single driver. Now multi-way speakers with multiple drivers covering different ranges are the most common.  With this of course come some issues, and all sorts of ways to fix them.

But even today in the 21st century there are some interesting varietals of single-driver speakers attempting to claim a spot on the high-end though. Some use little paper "whizzer" cones and transmission lines. Some use mechanical crossovers (no caps).  Others like Kef and Thiel attempt to solve some of the issues by using a coaxial arrangement.

One of the cool ideas I have seen lately is "woofer assisted wide-band." The idea is that the main speaker is a single driver that covers from around 400 Hz on up. This keeps the crossover well out of the midrange and treble. An additional woofer is used to cover the lower octaves.

What about you? Are you a firm believer that multi-way speakers are the wrong way to go?


erik_squires
Here ya go
Have not heard even 1 speaker in this list. Dont care to.
There may be some things I ~~mighyt~~ like about these 25,, then again,,there may be issues..
~~extra baggage~~, 
Its been my 40 yr goal to avoid all ~~extra baggage~. allowing only the purity of the music to be ~~en-joy`ed.
I am sure some of these do some very wonderful things.
But at what cost??
Sorry not interested = Not my cup of teaS

THe Seas Thors do some nice things with music,, But sadly, at 87db, sens, its like music from behind closed doors , when placed next to a wide band. 
AS they say, no speaker is perfect, there are ~~compromises~~
WEll with my wide band as ~~front/center~~, this is IMHO the least  compromises of any design..
For classical music.

Midwoofers are attempting to carry the critical 500hz-1500hz. 
Sorry not acceptable.
Crossing at the critical 1500hz-2khz ,, now we really have a  mess, with the tweeter attempting to voice again critical 1500hz-4khz.
I've not heard the AER in person, so I can't say how this popular wide band performs. 
Maybe one day I will attend the Tampa Audio Fest, and get to hear it.
But honestly I have zero interest in the AER's. 
Just look at the horn cabinet's for these drivers.
Ridiculous. 
Repeating above
I have zero interest in any of these speakers on the list, and have no interest whatsoever in any other TRoel Gravesen speaker, who I feel makes the finest speakers.

My intent is to cofirm what Erik has a  hunch in the OP.
A wide band can  carry the critical range far superior to any other type design. 
I made my experiements, and concur the OP is spot on ~~the real deal~~

https://audiophilereview.com/audiophile/the-25-ultimate-audiophile-speakers-of-all-time/
Mozart ; your use of we suggests you had a date with Einstein ….

Not sure when you got a jones for Vandersteen but if you and your creation make it up to Seattle, we ( as in you, me and ? ) can listen to the clash, cosmic hippo and of course your namesake on the world acclaimed model 7. IF you desire more neutral ground, haul them to Munich.

of course, we can use the venerable ESL-63, Apogee Stage, Thiel 2.3+, even my hot rod Dynaco A-25…..

I am betting your driver pukes on Cosmic Hippo…

carry on
My fully horn loaded, triamplified, DIY  speakers use AER BD3 wide range drivers loaded into BD Design Oris 150 front horns to cover the range of 200Hz to 8kHz.  Folded corner horns provide the bass and Fostex T900a super tweeters cover the range above 8kHz.  A DEQX HDP3 preamp-DSP provides digital crossovers, with all slopes being set at 96 dB/octave, as well as time and phase correction, speaker correction, room correction, etc.  I came up with the idea for this system in 1999, but it was 2004 before I found a DSP unit available that met all my needs. 
The SQ of this system is in the opinion of my audiophile friends including one audio professional very good, lifelike, detailed and exiting.  I am convinced that the absence of any crossovers between 200Hz and 8 kHz is vital to the SQ. 
Having crossovers set so high and low makes it a very forgiving system as well. You could easily screw up the inter-driver alignment and probably very few people would ever hear it. :)
Woofer assistant set 600-700 Hz, low pass, wide band set same, and only one very small value  capacitor i use for high pass supertweeter