Rat Shck Presidian 40-5053. Next Sonic Impact?

midrange clarity improving with break-in. it's faults continue to be eminently forgivable at this price! a fun little speaker, especially enjoyable with acoustic jazz, folk etc.

>only a single 1 Microfarad capacitor on the (+) tweeter lead, so the mid-woofer is running rull range.

This makes them a similar design to Reference 3A. First-order crossover, correct? I imagine the drivers are not physically time-aligned, but that shouldn't matter much. Effectively no crossover, which approach always seems to deliver some sonic benfits as well as some problems.

depending on the brand of speaker, i guess the one cap crossover could either be considered "elegant" or "cheap." maybe a little bit of both in this case?

I just gave these a listen. I'm very impressed.

Lack of an inductor in series with the woofer means that they rely on the limited frequency response of the woofer to roll off its HF response. This means that the woofer must not exhibit any wild peaks and dips as it approaches its HF limit. The purpose of the low pass section of a crossover is to keep the woofer signal away from this eratic frequency range. So the success of the full range woofer depends on the characteristics of the driver. A light cheap paper cone is more likely to work well than a metal cone driver, although the metal cone is far superior if properly used.