Crossover-less Speakers

don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet but even "single driver" speakers have crossovers. Different parts of the cone respond at different frequency, so there is a mechanical, rather than electronic, crossover. "Whizzer" cones, found on some well known "full range" drivers are an extreme example. Only a headset driver is small enough to cover the entire spectrum without breakup.

Designs that chase one extreme (no crossover) at the expense of others (mechanical driver limitations) are not guarenteed to come out far far ahead, even if some exceptions can sound extremely good (no doubt ZU is one of these designs, judging from the accolades).

Chasing one extreme, however, may have the significant advantage of being highly differentiated in a forest of look-alike two and three way boxes...you and your guests can readily appreciate why they are different and be proud of it!

There are also multiple driver speakers that are still crossoverless. The Bose 901 comes to mind! But heaven forbid that anyone mention that as an option.
Even the 'breakup' phenomenon that Eldartford mentioned is minimized by the use of multiple 'small' drivers.
Albeit the 901s are difficult to set up properly in a room (in spite of the marketing that says these speakers are very easy to set up), when they are set up properly, with the help of an RTA, their sound can be quite satisfactory and seamless. My 'B' room set up features these speakers and they are flat from 25-10K Hz, with a rolloff above 10K that I inposed on them for a more natural sound. No crossover distortion there!
After the chuckling has subsided, maybe one should consider the 901s as a legitimate candidate in the search for a 'crossoverless' driver(s) speaker!

Bob P.

Inpepinnovations...My Bose 901s are still in their boxes waiting for my pool room to be finished. It's a huge room with cathedral ceiling, hard surfaces all around, and little furniture, and I am working on a hunch that the 901s will have a synergy with that acoustic environment.

Eldartford, you should use one of your RTAs to help in the set-up. The 901s, due to their reflecting and non-parallel driver baffles, tend to have less concurrent nodes and thus averaging of microphone placement tends to be less critical.
The high-frequency contouring offered by the equalizer will be quite handy in your highly reflective environment, I suspect.

Inpepinnovations...Yes, I plan to do that. I also wonder if the Behringer DEQ2496 can emulate the Bose equalizer that comes with the speakers. Also, I will find out what the equalization curve of the Bose unit is. This seems to be a deep dark secret.