How come that when most audiophiles


follow the philosophy of "shorter, less complex signal path is better", they then wire their carefully chosen equipment to speaker cabinets filled with a boatload of transformers, capacitors, resistors, and drivers which exhibit gross non-linearities which are only compounded by adding them all together? I believe that the reason is the "specification game" again, where people believe that speakers must have a frequency response from DC to light +-3db, and as a result, speaker systems must have many drivers to cover the range. Notice the specs only show freq. response, and nothing about phase non-linearity induced by multiple crossover components. This seems to be a non-linearity in system philosophy where short signal path does not apply to speaker systems, but is paramount in all other aspects of the system. I use a direct input from source to OTL amp and DIY Fostex based 1-way speaker cabinets. The result is very natural, dynamic, phase-coherent,detailed, and revealing. The only non-linearities I have to deal with are the ones inherent in the driver/cabinet combo. With some careful design and impedence curve mods, I get a more musical sound than any "high end" speakers I have ever heard(and I've heard alot) as well as any of the multi-way speakers I've ever designed and built(also alot). Why do you think that there is this disconnect in thinking regarding short signal path as it relates to speakers?
twl
I reject the notion that there is a single technical and/or equipment path to audiophile nirvana. What works for one person may not work for someone else. While the system you describe might work wonderfully on several types of music, I doubt it would really excel at raggae, large scale orchestral, rap or electronica. At the same time these other systems may not have the textural magic and transparency that your system possesses. Any system involves making trade-offs. The success of each system will depend heavily on the biases of the listener. To paraphrase another Albert - it should be as simple as possible, but not more than necessary.
So Onhwy61, are you directing your comments to the topic posted by Twl, or to my post about the impossible speaker?

My post described a speaker that appears to have all the attributes that Twl was searching for.

Your argument as to the possible merit of that technology should be directed at him.
As the person who posed the topic here, I think all of your feedback is very thoughtful and correct in the aspects you all approached from. It is good to hear knowledgable people and their valued opinions. If any of you are interested in my speaker design and its strengths and limitations, I will give you further info here. First, it is not perfect as all of you well know, and since you cannot hear it and I'm not selling it, you can only go by my description. I'm sorry Albertporter, I cannot meet all the criteria you posted, but in many areas I came surprisingly close. First, I used a Fostex FE103 driver(4") on each side.Don't laugh yet. It posesses an excellent moving mass to spl ratio(efficiency) of 92db unloaded.It's very quick and has much less phase shift on transients than larger cone drivers. It is quite flat in response from 100-6000Hz, outside of which it suffers from impedance rises that I dealt with to improve the response. I designed a TL tube cabinet tuned to 41.7Hz - exactly half the driver's natural Fs which gives bass to that freq within 3db. I reinforced the lower mids with a disc shaped baffle behind the diffraction plane. The highs were cured with the impedance mod. The Z mod was simply a 24ohm non-inductive resistor paralled across the terminals. This reduced the 32ohm rises at the Fs and the gradual rise above 6kHz to less than 13.7ohms while only reducing the nominal system Z to 6ohms. (Simple product/sum theory) By reducing the Z rises, the driver efficiency at the frequency extremes was increased to within the 3db down level of the OTL amp from 41Hz to 20kHz(in room response at listening position). I now achieve 100 db peaks at my chair. The TL tube is loaded by the floor(front firing)at the base of the unit. Judicious tuning was required to get the correct tube/direct radiator balance to reduce midrange contamination. It stands 6ft. tall and 18" across(cylinder shape)- not much different than Van.2c's. Sweet spot is smallish due to beaming of highs. Bass is full, solid and quick. Midrange is golden. Transient dynamics are tremendous and all detail is revealed. Rock, jazz, classical, all sound very well given good recordings and imaging is pinpoint and concrete. The downside is spl of only 100db/1 watt peak. Max power handling is 3w continuous, 8w peak. My listening habits are not affected by this. Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Sade, Weather Report, Kinks, Joni Mitchell, etc. are all handled with aplomb. They look like 6' tall stick telephones from the 1920's. Very unique. I welcome all comments. BTW, I'm driving them with a Berning MicroZ OTL - 1watt output.(NOS tubes)
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