Sean:
You looked @ measurments while I instead listened to the Jordan drivers in two different types of enclosures. The Jordan drivers offered an amazing amount of separation (single instruments and musical lines in complex material) which in turn made for great deal of realism.
To compare time coherence between the drivers I use and the typical, popular 2/3 way cone based speaker is like comparing apples to oranges. The single driver speakers (and even the coaxials) sound very much like decent planers, but with greater dynamic swings and a very 3D effect. My drivers are neither bright/lean nor are they lacking in bass/mid-bass while playing popular music (considering the size of the cones). The Stephens would be considered to be forward sounding by most (I enjoy this type of sound) and the Coral speakers are more middle of the road in this aspect. The Stephens 8" drivers present stronger (if not deeper) bass/mid-bass response than most of the 12" FR drivers I own or have owned, so go figure.
If you place any driver in a poorly designed cabinet (or mount it poorly in a well designed cabinet) there will be problems such as you mention (there were also problems with the early Lowther driver designs, in general, but from what I have read this has been addressed with their most recent offerings). I would not own vintage Lowthers on a bet having listened to various driver and cabinet combos over the years, but then this is but a small selection amongst a sea of FR single drivers of which to choose from.
Though I have not had any of my speakers set up properly for a while (we need to do some serious sorting/cleaning), when I did the desirable listening area covered pretty much the width of the living room with the Stephens drivers. These are a bit odd for vintage FR drivers in that their desired baffle width (in a non sealed enclosure) is approx. 11 inches. My current cab's are slightly wider than this so I do expect an even more open sound (wider/deeper presentation) when proper/narrower cab's are used.
I do agree that some of the older box/cabinet FR designs requiring a wide baffle area do seem to restrict the size (width/depth) of of the listening area, but then again the few open baffle setups I have listened to had quite the opposite effect, and the baffle area was huge. As I do not have room for large open baffle designs, I try not to dwell on this, but I suspect that open baffles with the right driver, and perhaps subs, are the way to go.
Why not pick up some FR's and experiment with them yourself?
You looked @ measurments while I instead listened to the Jordan drivers in two different types of enclosures. The Jordan drivers offered an amazing amount of separation (single instruments and musical lines in complex material) which in turn made for great deal of realism.
To compare time coherence between the drivers I use and the typical, popular 2/3 way cone based speaker is like comparing apples to oranges. The single driver speakers (and even the coaxials) sound very much like decent planers, but with greater dynamic swings and a very 3D effect. My drivers are neither bright/lean nor are they lacking in bass/mid-bass while playing popular music (considering the size of the cones). The Stephens would be considered to be forward sounding by most (I enjoy this type of sound) and the Coral speakers are more middle of the road in this aspect. The Stephens 8" drivers present stronger (if not deeper) bass/mid-bass response than most of the 12" FR drivers I own or have owned, so go figure.
If you place any driver in a poorly designed cabinet (or mount it poorly in a well designed cabinet) there will be problems such as you mention (there were also problems with the early Lowther driver designs, in general, but from what I have read this has been addressed with their most recent offerings). I would not own vintage Lowthers on a bet having listened to various driver and cabinet combos over the years, but then this is but a small selection amongst a sea of FR single drivers of which to choose from.
Though I have not had any of my speakers set up properly for a while (we need to do some serious sorting/cleaning), when I did the desirable listening area covered pretty much the width of the living room with the Stephens drivers. These are a bit odd for vintage FR drivers in that their desired baffle width (in a non sealed enclosure) is approx. 11 inches. My current cab's are slightly wider than this so I do expect an even more open sound (wider/deeper presentation) when proper/narrower cab's are used.
I do agree that some of the older box/cabinet FR designs requiring a wide baffle area do seem to restrict the size (width/depth) of of the listening area, but then again the few open baffle setups I have listened to had quite the opposite effect, and the baffle area was huge. As I do not have room for large open baffle designs, I try not to dwell on this, but I suspect that open baffles with the right driver, and perhaps subs, are the way to go.
Why not pick up some FR's and experiment with them yourself?