Single driver point source speakers vs. the world?

Elevick

I was interested to see the speakers in a tall "matchstick" shaped enclosure in a 6 Moons review, which raved about them.

Then I found other posters saying that 6 Moons reviewers must get paid by the paragraph, because although OK for the money, nothing really "high end" about the sound.

I am assuming you do not have the matchstick cabinets on your desk top?

What cabinets are optimal for the single driver point source?

Weakness...

High THD, high coloration, limited bandwidth, limited SPL, limited musical repertoire..

Does have a good mix with SET's and being full range favors the middle bandwidth over the other. Agree about the chip amp a few friends with Cain & Cain's uses them 2.

One would have to have pretty poor panel speakers IMO for a small single driver speaker being driven with 8 watts to be an improvement.....

Perhaps I'm not hearing the weaknesses other than a lack of full bass production because A) I listen namely to acoustic jazz, which these excel at...Vocals, woodwinds, brass, and strings all sound as natural as I've heard them and B) I've come from CLS's and Vista's which weren't producing mass amounts of bass anyway, but where the Abby's excel is in a lush midrange which is what I was accustomed to with the 'stats, however I couldn't sufficiently drive either the CLS's or the Vista's with an 8 watt SET, which is my main point...being able to bring a low powered amp into the mix is a welcomed and brand new thing for me personally, as I've always had speakers requiring high power demands.

In the end I'm jazzed with the Abby's, and for a very modest cost one can put together quite a system that doesn't break the bank. I'll bring a sub into the mix for LF balance.

I don't know any other speaker amp combo one could assemble at this level of performance for a home system for less than the $1500 I've got into this pairing. I'm using a GF 534 300b integrated on the Abby's and I'm anticipating the arrival of a pair of Shuguang Treasure 300b's to see what they're all about. It's kinda fun foolin' around with tubes...It's like being a newbie all over again...well it's all about fun now ain't it!

I lived with a pair of Brines single drivers (Fostex 167, I think) for a couple of months. They are a fairly large TL design, and I found the lows surprisingly deep. They also imaged very well, and retrieved a lot of detail -- I had a lot of "I never heard that before" moments. In the end though, I felt like there was something a bit off in the upper mids and above -- maybe a loss of coherence? Any of you single driver types have thoughts on that?

Anyway, I enjoyed them, then sold them to a friend for a good price, and he's ecstatic.

John

Just this past week I received a pair of Tekton Design speakers for a 30 day eval - 8" Fostex ff225 + bullet super tweeter. There is something to be said about this type of speaker, matched to my 2A3 SET. The speakers are spec'd down to 40 HZ (-3db) and in my small room they do sound nice and full. I've owned Magnepan and Martin Logan and still own Klipschorns, so this small fullrange speaker thing is new to me and I like it. Never heard Abbys but aren't the specs on them to 100HZ? If so I'm not sure I'd like that for my main speakers without a sub.