Which SPEAKER for the 21ST century?

TWL i am trying to take in all the posts on your fine thread...seems no one wants to pick a fight over their "beloved" speaker...even though this thread did not receive even half the attention that your's received...maybe mine was a prelude...you put the question in a way that demanded attention..the full range plasma i am not familiar with ? the name?...and most important how much?...i posted on your thgread about the NEW HIGH TECH DRIVERS, but was totally ignored...what i need is some opinions on the sound of the THIEL and CABASSE, both labs make models from $4K to $13K...when we go into this price range i could have a kit designed that would easily out perform...and for half the price...THIEL's web page says "Attractive,Affordable, Awesome", and alot other funny things..so statements like that put doubts in my mind even before i hear them...oh, i see that statement is taken from the "not tell it like it is" hearing aid folks

Tweekerman, I am sorry if I ignored your post on the other thread, no disrespect meant. I have read about the Ravens and others you mentioned, but have not personally heard them. The Ravens may be the future, or the German Physic wave bending transducer, or the plasma tweeter(no full range yet, that I know of), or the Morel driver(discontinued), or the Sound Labs type of E-stat panels, or even a new generation Lowther type single driver which almost does it all, except for a small upper midrange peak and a bit bass shy. I would state that my prefence is some kind of full range single driver(cone,panel,ribbon,plasma,whatever) that really handles the entire audio spectrum, and does so in a point source fashion, presents a stable load, has minimal inherent phase shift and breakup modes, is very fast and efficient,and has no intervening circuitry between amp and speaker. And, of course, it has to play music. A friend once said to me,"I can eliminate all forms of audible distortion. Just turn the system off!" So it must be musical, technology is just a means to an end. There is alot of room for improvement in speaker systems and it will be interesting to see what may come in the future. Regarding your other point about building your own speaker system and saving money, I think it is a great idea and it can be done. I have done so and am very happy with my results. Remember, it is a learning process and very unlikely that your first one will be your best. But you will eventually get to the place where you won't want to buy a manufactured speaker system because you can make an equal or better one yourself for alot less. Unless they have a very complicated proprietary design that is impractical to make yourself. Great thread.

After a quick trip around the web, I found only tweeters using the plasma technology. Mfrs. include Accapella, Magnat, Corona, and a DIY page for a plasma tweeter by Ulrich Hauptmann in Holland. They all use a flame/ionization technique which results in an AM sound transmission. Commonly, a horn is coupled to increase sensitivity. Primarily used for 4kHz and above. Tube electronics are used to regulate/modulate the flame. Advantages are stated to be coherence, imaging, natural tonality. The only price I could find was the Accapella Horn Loaded Plasma Tweeter at $2600 each. Sounds like a really neat technology to me, but possibly a little dangerous. I guess we'd have to start up a new thread about whether we would then need pure-silver litz braided propane gas lines for the tweeter.

As a good listening room does not allow for balanced distribution of sound from multi channel direct, bi or di radiating speakers. I believe that single omni-directional drivers with digital room correction will permit suround sound to actually work.

full range MANGER driver>>can someone give me some info and even better a solid review on this interesting driver