Speakers The single most critical component

All others will have to play catch-up, but its doubtful Seas and Scan Speak will be around much longer.

You were doing so well, then the deep end you fell off of.


Much work has been done in the last 30 years to reduce impact of thermal compression from voice coil/magnet structure heating. That will continue. Seas and Scan Speak both are still viewed as making some of the best drivers on the planet. That is not likely to change any time soon.


Single full range dynamic drivers, ala Voxatif have one large, unavoidable and limiting issue. Doppler distortion. They solve one issue and create another one.


I am hoping for direct brain interface in <50 years.

OK I‘ll nail my colours to the mast: my primary directive is ’garbage in garbage out‘, with ’weakest link’ lurking in the background.

By that I mean that the source should always take precedence, and that a  top down hierarchy is justified

Give me your best shot.

that is so easy it is not a "shot". There is so little "garbage in" it can be ignored. I have a Raspberry Pi with a HiFiBerry DAC running off of a wall wart power supply. Somewhere in the $100 range. Currently have a $10K Denafrips DAC and DDC, I've had a $30K DCS Rossini with clock, A $15K Chord DAVE with Mscaler with linear DC supplies, and others.. The more expensive are clearly better, but the Pi sounds really good and is  nowhere near garbage. So the source can in no way be considered the most critical component.

Weakest link

is off topic, the thread is supposed to be about "the single most critical component." By definition "single" means one which eliminates links from the discussion. 

@Mozartfan, you win the prize for the longest most rambling posts... hands down... but I have a question

what is this FR you keep going on and on about? When I googled "Berlin FR" I found in one of your diatribes I  got something about a German farmers market and a German Ford dealer.

DOAH !!!

FR = Full Range .. HA! I get it

unfortunately, despite your passion, you are incorrect. Full range drivers as dletch2 pointed out are inherently flawed, just like all speakers are inherently flawed. This is the reason they are the most critical component. Obviously you prefer to live with the flaws inherent in FR drivers. However, others prefer to live with the flaws in other designs.. my preference is horns as you can see from my system.

Modern day sources and amplifiers are approaching perfection relative to what has been achieved with speakers therefore one must choose a speaker they are willing to tolerate and then feed it with whatever maximizes its strengths and minimizes its weaknesses.

It really is irrefutable... you are welcome

FR = Full Range .. HA! I get it

unfortunately, despite your passion, you are incorrect. Full range drivers as dletch2 pointed out are inherently flawed, just like all speakers are inherently flawed. This is the reason they are the most critical component. Obviously you prefer to live with the flaws inherent in FR drivers. However, others prefer to live with the flaws in other designs.. my preference is horns as you can see from my system.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You beat me to this valid assesstion of Quote *FULL RANGE*
This very thought occured to me, just now while having morning coffee, and now i see your post, which has validity, but must be examined carefully. 
FR = not full range. There is a  post above somewhere on this topic, a  member has tried them all, and  from exp , suggests all FR need a  additive tweet.
No big de4al. 
Yep you heard me right no big crisis there.
*Flaws*
I've only heard this chinese clone of Diatone 6.5, In my YT vid I exclim has all things, highs, mids, bass.
Thats not true, 
has bass, has mids, highs are rolled off.Terribly, No big complaint from me, AS classical muisc is 90% and in fact most music is 90% midrange, HOWEVER to have jazz/female vocals to have proper *ambience** you absoluetly must have shimmering/crystline sonics in the upper registers.
Otherwise ya ain't got nothing.
Simple solution, \add a  21st Century tweeter.
Issue resolved. TI Compression horn which can be found in the hundreds of offerings , from super budget to braek the bank priced.
Compression tweets are the finest driver in high fq's, 2nd to none
So we will have the 
Midrange/bass fq's being voiced by the so misnomer driver *The Full Range* and the high fq's being delivered by the world calss , super high fidelity, 21st C driver = The Compression Horn
There now argue your case that all speakers are flawed.
Which is both true and not true.
Box/xover/Seas ScanSpeaks/Troels Gravensen are flawed to the point they are now The Dinasaur line of <,THe Wet Blanket> experience in speakers.
THese old flawed low efficient speakers are not just flawed, but useless when heard next to just about any *Fukll Range/TI Compression* set up.

This is the point of my entire postings. 
Flawed yes they are, HOWEVER that minisclue lack of high fq's can be easily overcome addinga  TI Horn,. 

Whereas low efficient speakers, the flaws are glaring, permament, and worthless when paired with any tube amplification system. 
Cables, wires, sources, amps,  boutique caps, boutique resistors, go ahead and tweak all,  You will only gaina  Mini-Scule nuance in each component over low price to high priced.
Speakers , now here is the Elephant in the room nuance/tweak. 
Speakers are everything when pair with tube amplification. 
Full Range is a   misnomer, Yet at least there is no wet blanket over the music such as any speaker with lower than 90db will offer. 
Which is why my threshold point in sens is 94db/higher. This elimintes all traditional box/xover style The Dinasaurs. 
I rest my case.