Roy brings up some great and very valid points. Speaker design is obviously VERY complex and loaded with design trade-offs. Having said that, Roy's comments also point out that the room has to be taken into consideration i.e. how the drivers "blend together" and "load up" in the actual listening area. Since most designers / manufacturers don't take all of these factors into consideration, they end up with a product that lacks "universal" application and / or works well in some aspects but is quite limited in others. All of this for only a few thousand dollars : )
One of the points that Roy mentions is the phase shifts that take place within the audible band when using multiple drivers. Part of why people "love" single drivers is that this is less of a problem. Instead of dealing with multiple different radiation patterns, transient responses and phase shifts, you have one point source radiator. Most all of these problems are drastically reduced, resulting in a far more "unified" or "cohesive" presentation. You don't have to worry about how one driver blends with another because you've only got one driver.
This is one of the reasons that i love my Ohm F's as much as i do, as limited as they are. Being a single driver design with the horizontal radiation characteristics that they offer, they do some things that no other driver / speaker can offer. At least, no others that i've heard.
Drubin: Naming names gets hard to do, for both good and bad reasons. The "bad" reasons are obvious i.e. potential legal ramifications. Believe me, i've gotten more than a few emails about this subject. Only thing is, someone can't sue you for telling the truth using statements that are verifiable.
As far as the "good" goes, i have a hard time finding any "manufactured" speakers that are worth recommending in stock form. It's hard to use something as an example when you can't find a suitable sample.
If you want some basic recommendations, avoid ports and passives. Both introduce increased amounts of resonance and phase shifts into a system. I've posted links to a few discussions that cover this topic that i had over at AA, but i'll see if i can find them and post links to them again later tonight. Sean
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PS.... Obviously, i'm NOT familiar with EVERY speaker or audio product out there. It is quite possible that there are some excellent examples out there, i just don't know of them or enough about them to use them as a reference.
One of the points that Roy mentions is the phase shifts that take place within the audible band when using multiple drivers. Part of why people "love" single drivers is that this is less of a problem. Instead of dealing with multiple different radiation patterns, transient responses and phase shifts, you have one point source radiator. Most all of these problems are drastically reduced, resulting in a far more "unified" or "cohesive" presentation. You don't have to worry about how one driver blends with another because you've only got one driver.
This is one of the reasons that i love my Ohm F's as much as i do, as limited as they are. Being a single driver design with the horizontal radiation characteristics that they offer, they do some things that no other driver / speaker can offer. At least, no others that i've heard.
Drubin: Naming names gets hard to do, for both good and bad reasons. The "bad" reasons are obvious i.e. potential legal ramifications. Believe me, i've gotten more than a few emails about this subject. Only thing is, someone can't sue you for telling the truth using statements that are verifiable.
As far as the "good" goes, i have a hard time finding any "manufactured" speakers that are worth recommending in stock form. It's hard to use something as an example when you can't find a suitable sample.
If you want some basic recommendations, avoid ports and passives. Both introduce increased amounts of resonance and phase shifts into a system. I've posted links to a few discussions that cover this topic that i had over at AA, but i'll see if i can find them and post links to them again later tonight. Sean
>
PS.... Obviously, i'm NOT familiar with EVERY speaker or audio product out there. It is quite possible that there are some excellent examples out there, i just don't know of them or enough about them to use them as a reference.