Single driver speakers without the pitfalls?

Full range drivers exist that do not restrict SPL but its not going to be under 8in and its not going to be a budget transducer and its cabinet isn't going to be small cheap or easy to construct. I say this as I prepare a BLH of 160lbs each that will be replacing some massive costly electrostatics.

interesting remarks. i built 2 sets with audio nirvana drivers. an 8 in and a 12 inch. in my humble opinion the laCK bass below 38hz on the 12's is hardly an issue as the mids and, yes!, the highs are incredible. even the 8's did well into the mid 40's. those of you who see rolloff specs dowm 3 db. at almost 15 khz as being clipped in any way are apparently much better at hearing all that detailed sizzle on crash symbols than me. most men only hear to that point anyway as we age. and yes, you need big ported cabinets to get all the bass but i built smaller cabs and they still sound fine in the low end. detail is more important than thump im my listening world. i am runing a 3.5 wpc tube amp and at 97 db eficiency they play plenty loud.

i need connection with Full range lovers in NY

Veroman,
Very interesting to me that you built speakers with Audio Nirvana drivers. I've spoken to David Dicks on the phone. I stumbled upon his $1500 300B SET amp and was intrigued, although I ultimately chose to build my own SET amp from a kit. But I've got the DIY bug now and might one day try building one of his designs for the sheer fun of it.

Nobody here has mentioned Omega Speakers and their hemp cone drivers. I've spoken with Louis at Omega, too, and he claims to have conquered the harsh midrange of conventional FR drivers. That's why he makes his own. Anybody have personal experience with the Omega's? Again, not dumping my De Capo's, just curious.

As I have described in earlier posting, I like fullrange drivers used as wide range drivers in multi-way systems. One of the best for such applications is the old Jensen fieldcoils with the built-in power supplies (e.g. M-10). That driver in an open baffle design, with a super tweeter coming on way on top (only crossover element is a high pass capacitor on the supertweeter) is quite magical and can be played at reasonably high volume.

I recently heard a VERY good, large, open baffle system with a 756 driver and a tweeter. I believe the nominal crossover point was 10k with a 6 db/octave slope. This system had decent frequency balance (light in the deep bass of course, but not as rough and peaky as most single drivers), and had the clear, clean and immediate midrange that is prized by single drive fans. I liked the system, but personally require greater weight for classical orchestral and choral pieces.

I have only heard a few truly full range single driver systems that sounded decent and most of them either had elaborate cabinets and were quite expensive (e.g. Beauhorns), or had breathtakingly expensive drivers (e.g., Feastrix fieldcoil drivers). Even then, for my taste, the immediacy and clarity and microdynamic excellence did not outweight some of the problems with sharp upper midrange peaks and treble peaks (causing raspiness and sibilance), and lack of bass and midbass weight.

Rebbi, if you are inclined to experiment in that area, for decent lower priced drivers look into the Tangband. I have heard a few surprisingly well balanced systems that utilize that driver in both multiway and single driver systems.