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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
hearhere
55 posts
 
The key, as pointed out by Onhwy61 and Craig is "Everything should be made as simple as possible, BUT NOT SIMPLER". Not all speaker designers are willing to compromise phase and time performance just for simplicity's sake, even in their wide bandwidth designs.

As TWL has shown, with a different set of design goals, one can make a very satisfactory "short wire" speaker. Different goal, different approach, happy listener.
hearhere
55 posts
 
Albert, you posted a list of features and elevated them to the level of standards for an ideal speaker. To quote you:

"My "impossible" speaker posting was exactly on topic because it listed ideal standards for that single driver system, including the crossover design and ability to be driven (impedance load and efficiency specs). If you do not believe that these are important to a speakers design and performance, you have much to learn."

For many of the features it is irrelevant whether you are referring to a single- or multi-driver speaker, and I’m still uncertain as to the need for such absolutes. For example, why do you specify an 8 ohm impedance as ideal? Are 4 ohm speakers inherently worse? Or why must speakers have a sensitivity in the specific range you mention? There are many audiophile-grade amplifiers that can drive the 4-ohm, inefficient Thiels to very high volumes without working up a sweat. And the size constraint baffles me completely.

There is more than one approach that leads to state of the art, especially in speaker design. Some violate one or more of your standards by a wide margin - that does not make it a design flaw.
albertporter's avatar
albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Within my own post is the following: "it listed ideal standards for that single driver system."

The topic as posted by Twl is on the subject of single driver systems. My post addresses that subject much the same as an opinion as to the best CD player, preamp or turntable.

In Twl's world of single driver speakers, most if not all are powered by low output SET amps (as already mentioned in my post). Those designs REQUIRE the efficiently, impedance and other factors that I listed as ideal.

Simply put, a valid opinion and answer on this topic.
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