Which SPEAKER for the 21ST century?

Bishopwill, I humbly and completely disagree with your point of view about not hearing what the composer intended. The same could be said about any speaker, whether it be 1 way or 6 way. If I said that a multi-way speaker did not produce the 16Hz organ note that is heard once in a blue moon, would you say it cannot produce the performance the way the composer intended? Almost every speaker in the world is rolled off somewhat on the low end. Are they all to be tossed out as well? My single drivers will reproduce even 20Hz albeit at quite a lower level than the average SPL. This conception that single drivers cannot reproduce bass information is just incorrect. It is there, just rolled off some. Just like many other speakers. And when you consider the problems encountered with crossing drivers in and out, with the response lumps, phase anomalies, and loss of signal information, would you say that these irregularities would be preferred by the composer as "more acceptable" deviations from his intended presentation. Are you saying that crossover distortions and losses are part of the composition? There are very few speakers in this world that are truly flat and accurate at 16Hz. And many of them sacrifice far more in musicality throughout the other areas of the spectrum in order to achieve that low end. I respect your opinion to disagree with my point, but I think when pressed in this way, you will have to agree that no speaker really presents the performance exactly as the composer intended and that most of them are deficient in the bass frequencies to some extent. You just seem to think that a single driver with a rolloff that begins at 40Hz is not producing bass below that point and that somehow multi- driver speakers are. You may be surprised to learn that the majority of multi-way speakers are not flat below 40Hz or even higher. I guarantee that if you heard a good single driver system, you would not have the opinion that you have.

Twl, your argument is a good one but at the end of the day it doesn't pass muster. First, as to the organ work with the occasional 16Hz pedal tone, yes, a system that will not reproduce that pitch is recomposing (or decomposing) that work. If the composer did not want you to hear that pitch, s/he would have spared the organist the bother of playing it. None of us would cut speaker systems any slack about accurately reproducing other aspects of music, why do the extreme ends of the spectrum get an exception?

Here's an example: Last night I was having coffee with a friend in a local coffee shop that prides itself on being a bit artsy-fartsy. To my delight, they put on the Herbert Howells oboe sonata, a work out of my own performance past. The fast, nuanced playing totally defeated the resolving power of the tiny Bose-ettes mounted around the room. Further, the wonderful, woody nasality of the instrument was almost totally lost. Now, virtually no one on this list would defend a speaker system that decomposed the music in that fashion, yet folks will cheerfully give away an octave or so on both ends and defend their decision to do so. Stay with me now: I'm not comparing Bose microspeakers to good single driver systems in any respect other than this one--that they deny the listener the opportunity to hear the music as the composer intended it to be heard. It may still be very pleasant. I was far happier sipping my java with Howells in the background than being subjected to Kenny G or Barely ManBelow. But I was not having the experience that Mr. Howells wanted me to have when he wrote the piece.

You may say, "But no speaker can reproduce everything just right!" And you're correct. Indeed, that endless quest for the sound of live performance is the driving force behind the high end. I would submit, though, that a good full-range system that is down perhaps 2-3dB at 20Hz comes closer to realizing the composer's intent than one that is down 20-30dB at 20Hz--at least to the extent that the composer wrote notes down that low. So defending single driver systems with steep low-end rolloff simply because all systems have SOME low-end rolloff doesn't make much sense to me.

For persons who listen only or primarily to music with frequencies that fall within the range of single driver speakers, I agree that they can offer superb midrange sound and a number of other very positive characteristics. For those of us who are accustomed to hearing live organ or orchestral or other musical forms that include significant low frequency content, single driver systems simply leave out too much of the music.

This is exactly the kind of disagreement that makes high end audio interesting. Thanks for the gentlemanly tone of your response to me and please accept my comments as I intend them, not any kind of attack but simply a difference in point of view.

will

Bishop the Manger full range drivers are married to a woofer that provides the low fq's. The Fostex Lowthers and other "full range" drivers all do well with woofers in the lower hz's. But i'm not sure if the these drivers offer the musicality that i'm after. Can one of these full range do what a great tweeter can do in the upper most range? And like i say these full range drivers are not tube friendly, so count me out. And i've got a feeling i will not be able to use the ATC midrange with in my 3 way kit, for ohm demand. Twl has a Berning amp that works well with his Fostex full range. I'm not giving up my tubes for any speaker.

Ok, Bishopwill, I'll give you the deep organ part of the argument against single drivers. But, the high end is not rolled off on good single driver speakers. Many times a high end rolloff on these is actually the characteristic of the SET amps that are commonly used with them. The transformer on the amp it the usual culprit in rolling off the highs. They will "beam" however, so the sweet spot is smaller than other designs, regarding the high freq's.,But a 1 inch dome tweeter beams at approximately 10kHz, so you lose that upper octave if you are off axis on multi-way too. Lowthers will respond within a few db of average all the way to 22kHz. So, we're really talking only about a low end deficiency here. I see the vast majority of speaker designs, even very expensive ones, don't do 20 cycles within 2 or 3 db. So I agree with you that it is a matter of degree as to what level of bass rolloff you can accept. My position is that the increased coherence of the single driver is worth the tradeoff of the lowest bass response that you probably are going to get with almost any speaker anyhow. I am not against low bass response by any means. I would love to have 16Hz flat and clean. But, I just don't want it at the expense of the truthfulness of the rest of the spectrum. Pleasant listening and thanks for your point of view. :-)

Twl The big Berning amp + a great full range hybrid speaker , like Lowther , Manger, Fostex will make wonderful music. As well a superior tube amp + superior 3 way will have advantages. Threads like this open the way for better understanding of the speaker factor in the audioworld.