Okay, the gloves are off. Let the fur fly

hi Tim, what i do in the privacy of my home and room is my business.....but if you must know.... i first get a big shit-eat'n grin on my face....think of how lucky i am to be able to enjoy my system....and then go to work (about 55 hours a week) to pay for all this great shit.

i hope when you make it out here to listen the system will measure up to all the hype...it is not perfect...but it doesn't do "bad" things and is about the musical message and not "parts" of the music.

someone once said; things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

i think this thread is all about technical execution, and how to remove as many barriers between the pure signal and the listener but still do the whole job to deliver the complete musical picture. my Kharmas have a series crossover....the mid-range "runs free" and the tweeter and woofer have subtractive crossovers....minimum parts count....everything is cryo'd.....my amps have no output transformer, i use a passive volume control.....neutral cables....put it all together and you have the POTENTIAL for magic.....and it seems i have been lucky enough to have it.

Actually, I applaud Twl's beliefs, efforts, and persistence. It's probably people like him that do eventually make the major breakthroughs in any field of endeavor. But as I personally don't know diddley about speaker construction or theory (and have little interest in it), as an end user I can only judge products by listening-- regardless of what they are. I'm in it for the music, and if Twl can improve on what we've got, I say he deserves to get rich and famous. Cheers. Craig

I let most of my fur fly about 20 years ago so will not be able to participate in that part. I am now in the SET/ single driver camp. I think it easier to get there with that approach than trying to integrate a bunch of drivers and crossover components. Notice I said easier, not that it can't be done the other way. However, I cannot get the deep bass I want from my speakers (Lamhorns) so I am using an MBL sub to fill in the bottom. I guess that means I agree with both sides. I may run for congress.

Please keep in mind that i am a fan of "single driver" or "point source" designs and own two such speaker pairs. However, being the realist that i am, i can not overlook the flaws that go along with ANY design. Nor should i think that there are only benefits to that design just because i happen to like that specific product or concept.

The basics that any speaker systems have to work with include mass, transient response, radiation patterns, resonances, impedances, output levels, Xmax ( maximum excursion capabilities ), damping / suspension characteristics, etc... One can not achieve the necessary traits with high accuracy in all of the aforementioned categories within the audible frequency range using one driver. As such, the end result of a design that tries to do so is simply a matter of selected trade-offs.

Deep bass requires large surface areas to move a lot of air and mass to achieve a low resonance. It also requires long excursion. What it takes to achieve extreme high frequency response is completely contradictory to those requirements. Clean treble response requires small surface areas to minimize beaming and low mass to respond quick enough for good transient response. Since very short and rapid excursions are what is required for high frequency reproduction, a driver that is simultaneously trying to make large excursions to cover the bass range will end up fighting itself. The end result is distortion. Measurements show that THD, IMD and several other types of distortion sky-rocket to various levels when this takes place.

Trying to achieve excellent results in one area of the audible spectrum over the other ranges results in an unbalanced approach. This is therefore not acceptable to most avid audiophiles. One can achieve a good balance of many of these attributes, but this requires compromises in almost EVERY area of performance. The normally chosen path is a driver that works best over a wide frequency range but not have to cover the extremes with as much finesse.

The end result of almost all of these designs is exactly that. A point source that sounds quite fabulous over the upper bass / lower midrange, up through the midrange and into the lower treble. If one tries to push deep bass out of something like this, the necessary excursion tends to create a "warbling" or "tremolo" effect at upper frequency ranges. This becomes far more apparent as volume levels are increased. On the opposite hand, if one expects "purity" out of the top end, then the driver must be excursion limited and this hurts bass.

As such, if one is willing to live with phenomenally seamless midrange response that is very liquid and coherent at the expense of deep bass, extreme highs and limited SPL capabilities, a single driver system may be for you. Otherwise, you'll have to choose what is acceptable to you in terms of other trade-offs and go that route. Sean
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