05-03-12: Drew_eckhardt
You can also limit high-frequency dispersion with a wave guide so you get a good match with a 10 - 15" mid-range. This sounds great, although a 15" wide x 30" high "stand mounted monitor" with a 12" mid-bass may be a bit much for many spouses.
Among all the compromises mentioned above of a sonic order, particularly with regard to getting to the lower mids right, the above is seemingly constricted to being a compromise of a mere aesthetic order. Making me think: what's the rub if we're to pursue the best(i.e., most realistic) sound reproduction and the sole limitation it takes is having to "resort" to a 10-15" mid/bass driver in combination with a waveguide that would take up slightly more space in total width? Still, all that effort just to maintain the smaller units for the sake of the approval of a spouse(I mean, come on, who are we trying to fool here; this is not the real rub) or whatever keeps many fixated on the use of these smaller drivers is simply beyond me, especially when going "all the way" (assuming 10-15" mid/bass drivers are indeed the way to go) is so close at hand. I do believe we're giving at least some women less credit for being flexible when it comes to speaker looks and size, while it's also a factor dependend on the audiophile's abilities into pursuation or, perhaps more importantly, that he actually succeeds in inviting his girlfriend/wife into his interest/obsession of music and sound. Or, that he can retrieve to his exclusively placed "man cave" where even the most otherworldly looking pair of speakers are just that, and so what? Anyway, even if aesthetics are of importance with regard to general appeal, why not in this interesting discussion concentrate solely on the audible matter and how to achieve/seek that primary aspect most effectively? Surely thinking of and sharing impressions into developements of large-cone drivers do not require of us to (self-)impose aesthetic restrictions that would hinder any further advancements on these issues - that's a secondary issue to consider once the primary ones have been dealt with; indeed, let's try more whole-heartedly and pursue the larger cone-based units and their merits, and put aside looks and conventions for now.
Note: this is not a critique on your part, Drew. I'm simply going at a general tendency of a weird and sidetracked attention on looks and aesthetics...
05-04-12: Waj4all
We all know and love the small driver. It's abilities in the areas of detail-resolution and soundstaging are beyond doubt (not to mention the WAF). It can never be displaced as the most popular and convenient means of bringing high-quality music-reproduction into our homes. But for an all-out assault on truly lifelike, life-sized, and realistic reproduction, it could be argued that the large surface-area of the large driver (or multiples of the small) offers a distinct advantage. Or so it would seem.
Definately, I concur on the advantages of large surface-area drivers into lifelike sound reproduction. I'd even wager to say that it's not only a matter of effective cone area, but very importantly that we keep the effective cone area limited to one unit per channel, or when speaking of drivers above 10" that we potentially extend the use of them to two mid/bass units per channel. I don't know what is the reason for this, but to my ears a single 12"+ unit handles both bass and lower mids(where it's used as such) much more convincingly than, say, two or more 8" units. Maybe it's because of the importance of maintaining a single point source to a large, or two larger cone areas per channel, and that smaller units below some 10" when "spread out" to two or more point sources(/units) per channel has the effect of widening too much the center of dispersion/sound from where it emanates, thus generating a sound also affected by a wider dispertion pattern compared to larger units, resulting in a bigger "percentage" of reflected sound. It's a very essential aspect, as I see it, in maintaining the advantage of a large cone-surface area.