Okay, the gloves are off. Let the fur fly

I think TWL is being a little disingenuous with his question here. He is obviously perfectly well aware (as are all of his fine respondents above) of the various "technical" advantages, disadvantages, and tradeoffs inherent in any of the schools of speaker design. It's just that he is insistent on maintaining that such perfectly legitimate issues as high and low frequency extension, freedom from dynamic compression, fidelity to absolute volume level, and dispersion characteristics and radiation pattern are somehow not as germane to musical "truth" as the qualities he values above these. What he cannot do is "prove" that the tradeoffs he prefers are any less "technically" deleterious to the musical signal than those he disfavors. When such real-world factors as size, cost, appearance, ease of placement, ease of system matching, and the likelihood of a good-sounding overall result are considered, multi-way cone-in-box speakers will often have the advantage. Advances in the applications of digital crossovers, built-in amplification, and unconventional enclosure designs (composite materials, computer-optimized shaping and damping) may further stretch TWL's "point".

Seems to me we are once again debating the question of listening to the sound versus listening to the music. I'll concede that good single-driver systems offer incremental improvements in midrange clarity and accuracy....but at the expense of constrained frequency spectrum and dynamic range. Alas, the reality of musical production is that frequencies DO extend way up high and way down low and to lop off both ends of the spectrum is to distort musical truth really badly. When you attentuate the sonority of six contrabasses pulling a unison low E, you're not merely emphasizing one part of the frequency spectrum over another, you're actually rewriting the music. You're no longer hearing what the composer intended you to hear.

In the same way, compression is not merely something one chooses to tolerate in the interest of midrange liquidity. It is a fundamental reordering of the dynamic structure of the composition, again violating the composer's intention.

Listen to Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain on a good single driver system and then on an equally good multi driver system. You'll see what I mean.

Multi-driver systems suffer multiple problems, as many on this thread have noted. In my view, however, they offer the best chance of realizing the composer's goal and the players' achievements.

Does this make sense to anybody but me?

Will

Twl, I understand you point you are trying to make. At a technical level cross-overless systems (which btw are not limited to single driver systems) have much to offer. But they are not perfect and as a practical matter they have their own set of real world problems. Obviously, you find that the positives of a single driver system far outweigh the negatives and you are very happy with this result. While I am happy that you are happy, we part company when you assert when compared to multi-driver systems that your single driver system represents a higher form of musical truth. Is it difficult for you to accept that some people have different motives and goals in home music reproduction than you? Being that you have basically asked this same question in another post and received numerous responses, what is you motive for this current post?

I think bishopwill and viridian gave excellent responses. I'd just like to weigh in with my agreement.

Bishopwill. Yes I understand and agree with your points. I also agree with Twl's points.

It is not possible with current technology to build a perfect speaker. It is possible however to build a wonderful speaker that compromises sound in one way or another.

I think this is an excellent topic for discussion, and although I am an avid Soundlab fan ( a single driver), I have posted time and again here at Audiogon in favor of Vandersteen, Audio Artistry, Avalon, Kharma and other fine multi cone driver systems.

I am very much enjoying the discussion, and can easily side with either point of view. In fact, I do.