RMAF Loudspeakers?

Duke - Are you the only manufacturer who is hampered by these physical parameters or do they influence all speaker makers regardless of claims to the contrary?

Tvad - I achieved what you are seeking by contacting Bill Woods and ultimately buying his AH300 horns. When combined with B&C 50 mm compression drivers, these horns provide a remarkably coherent voice ranging from 400 Hz up to 14Khz. I mounted mine on top of a pair of JBL L-200 cabinets using only the LE 15B woofers and cabinets and bypassing the inboard horn and passive crossover. Mine are actively crossed over by a DBX Drive Rack but the native crossover divides the signal at 800 Hz and works pretty well with less complexity and less expense than my arrangement.

I'm sure you won't see Bill at RMAF but the Oswald Mill system that was there last year uses the same horn as does the Cogent system. Chris Brady of Teres turntable fame uses them too.

My frequency response is limited at the low end at about 50 Hz. and on top at about 14 Khz. This might be a deal breaker for you but I don't find it to be very limiting at all. Efficiency is limited by the JBL woofer which I'm guessing to be about 97 db. Maybe Duke can give a better estimate of that. The cabinet is 5 cu.ft. and ported. You may have better bass cabinet options in your area than the JBLs I already happened to own.

Duke - My woofer is the LE 15B mounted in it's native L-200 enclosure. There are two round port tubes, 4 inches in diameter and 7 1/4 inches deep, in the front baffle.

The literature says this woofer has a 19.5 lb. Alnico magnet and edgewound copper voice coil. Bill Woods says it is one of the finest 15 inch woofers ever made and comparable to the best that TAD makes today.

The character of the bass is very refined and detailed but, as I said earlier, the extension only reaches to 50 Hz. or so. I roll it off below 37.5 Hz. with my crossover but I think it is already down more than 6 db at that point.

A wide bandwidth mid-range horn, if properly designed, like Acoustic Horn or BD Design, will take you a long way toward what you heard from Classic Audio Reproductions. I use a compression driver with permanent magnet but a field coil could be substituted at very significant increase in money. Add a bass cabinet with active crossover and a tweeter with passive crossover, and you will be in the ball park for a fraction of what the real thing costs. I did it for under $10K including crossover, time delay, equalizer, real time analyzer, calibrated microphone and bass amplifier. The result can be visually pleasing and extremely versatile. My room is 22 x 15, hardly a barn, and it works very well. The only real issue is listening distance. 12 feet back works pretty well but 15 feet is better. If you have that much space and money this is a very realistic option. Let me know if you would like help in doing this. I don't have tools or talent and I made it work so I doubt if many of you would be unable to do so.