Full Range comparison

~~~~I;m back~~~ In 5 minutes~~~, Not sure how i missed these Mark Audio on madisound, as i looked over nearly everything FR on Madisound,,,,carefully,,,or was it a case of tunnel vision, as i am  a huge fan of SEAS only, and could not consider anything other than. 
The Mark Audio Alpair 12P8 is really interesting, and this will be my choice, and the clincher here is, well affordable, making ~~The 2nd Dream System~~~ a  closer reality. 
 
As soon as i dump my cayin MT and chinese pre, both at a  50%+ loss, i will regroup and get the Mark Audio 8 inch,,,play around with that on my jadis Defy. I see the MA is rated 90 db,,not too efficient fora  FR. But if as you say,,all the funny things with whizzers and break up is not there with the MA, this will mean no xover, just straight muisc. 
I mean, we have cd players/pre/amps,,,then xover in a FR???  The FQ;'s are being pulverized to a  mush. 
I may end of liking the FR over the SEAS Thors...will bea  good shootout. 
Thanks for your suggestion, would have certainly overlooked this fantastic looking Mark Audio 8. 
No I do not plan to push the vol of the Defy, nor do i listen to harsh rock. 
This will get very interesting,,hopefully YT has some vids on this MA 8.
Thanks
paul

Mark Fenlon is british, I really hate all american and bristih products,,across the board,,,cdp's, amps, speakers,,, 
In this YT vid, when asked which lab he most respects,,stubbornly he comes out with another brit lab,,wharfdale,,i hate that speaker,,,
sorry, but I am SEAS die hard, The Danes are the kings in speakers, and i'm going back to my original idea, staying with SEAS..Now i will admit, the whizzer has to g,,,, need to ck which FR/no whizzer avalibale in SEAS and also the japenese offerings on ebay. 
again appreciate your imput as it helps me to xout some, and focus on others. 
My plan is to hit a  grand slam on 1st purchase. 

I wouldn’t take his opinion of Wharfedale as an indicator of what his products are like. In the full range arena, he does an excellent job. And he also just states opinions on what he "knows". He may not have access to or know the labs from vendors such as Focal, B&W, Wilson, etc.

There are a multitude of youtube videos with Mark Audio speakers. However, there’s only one with the 12P and it uses a very mild recording from a turntable. Not really the best to showcase this speaker.

I used the 12P and made a center channel speaker. Being a full range paper cone, it was slightly soft in the very high frequencies. Using Cardas rhodium binding posts and Furutech rhodium disconnect clips helped tremendously with the high frequency extension (also removing those connection extenders on the MarkAudio speaker). The result is a very excellent, accurate and revealing speaker. I also recommend using a solid-core type of speaker cable for internal, such as Audioquest Rocket 44/88.

I did go on to engineer and build a replacement set of speakers because the Mark Audio was slightly soft in the highs (this was before I switched to rhodium binding/clips -- I originally had gold-plated connectors and binding posts). I used a variation of the Seas Thor speaker. Used 7" Seas Excel magnesium cone woofers and the Seas soft dome tweeter. It did do very well in the high frequencies, but the magnesium drivers have a bright breakup at around 5khz that needs to be handled with a notch filter.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Seas fan. They make excellent drivers. However, I have heard a lot of full range drivers and wizzer cones. While some may like them and they do full range well, the wizzer cones all come with compromises and problems. Additionally, a woofer designed to play well down low will always have problems in the upper frequencies (such as above 2khz). Look at any Scanspeak woofer and you will see a really bad response above 1-2khz. However, they are awsome between 50 and 900 hz.

In the end, I would rather listen to the Mark Audio 12P instead of a higher priced over engineered driver such as the Seas. I think the Mark Audio is just going to sound more natural and "real" than the breakup and wizzer cones of the Seas.

can you provide a link to one of the Japanese FR on ebay?  I'm just curious.

FEASTREX FR bid on ebay, best sounding speaker inm the world, bar  none. Open bid $7K. well worth it. 
Ck out the YT vid on the sound of that FR. super unreal, just how i like it, super crystal clear, tons of timber and glistenings on the top, mids  bright and lively.