What's the best 7" & 8" woofers available?

These are the absolute "BEST", but at $500 ea. they better be.

8" custom Flex units from Audio Technology (Skaaning)founder of DynAudio and Scan Speak (think like buying a "over the top" custom designed Ferrari, with state of the art materials, from the Ferrari design team). The Flex units have bass output similar to a high quality 15" woofer, and can accelerate at twice the speed of other similarly sized "over the top" 8" drivers (the BEST of both worlds!). According Skaaning in-room response will be down to 18Hz.

A more reasonably priced "over the top" woofer to consider the 8" Revelator woofer. It has the second fastest impulse response of any woofer that I know of, and is similar in response to a 10-12" woofer by other manufacturers. Very uncolored and extremely well dampened. I'll put this woofer up against anything else (except for the Scanning).

You may be able to buy either of these drivers directly from Peter Thompsen at http://www.av-reality.com/ as he uses both of the Scanning and the Revelator in his premium speaker lines. Since he offers kits for his other speakers, I think he may be willing to sell these drivers too. Good luck on your quest for the "BEST".

Ehider the thread did say "best" which the scanning are but they are very pricey (400 EACH!!) so between the 3 practical contenders FOCAL SCANSPEAK SEAS..i'll have to vote big on the SEAS as top..for 2nd place its a close call..the revelator may be better in the lower bass but the SEAS will overtake it in the upper midbass..which is better for my listening of classical music...there are hundreds of manufacturers of midwoofers..most are not audiophile quality

Tweekerman,

No argument with your advice regarding the SEAS, but this guy is building a three-way, i.e. my secondary recomendation for the Scanspeak Revelator, since it is having to play less upper midbass in a three way application than in a two-way design. I do think both of these woofers offer interesting trade-offs though.

Myraj,

Like I said before, if you want "the best" , go get the Scanning. The power of this woofer, with it's ultra control and speed will SCARE you on drum beats, etc. It's that good! (BTW: If you do buy the Scanning, I don't want to know which bank you're going to rob to get the money...HE,HE)

Ehider i've got a spectatular 3 way in the possible making..i'm waiting word from the designer..its a biamp..SEAS 8 inch(30!!hz to say 500hz)EX22 + SEAS 4.5 midwoofer (500hz to 3.5hz)W12CY + PHILIPS RT8 isodynamic..what ya think?..doable?

Along these lines, what do you folks think of ETON?
They make 5", 7", 8", 11", & 12" mid/base and woofers.