Which SPEAKER for the 21ST century?

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.

I'm very surprised ain't nobody following up this thread ..like i'm talking to myself. oh well here goes anyway. I posted this on 3-11. Well they've arrived, they will be released in the next week. Seas W26, Seas W15CH, Seas 27TDC. Seas web site shows a photo of the W26, the midrange and tweeter photo will be up shortly.