Single driver vs traditional 3 way loudspeakers


What you prefer , single driver , no crossover, full   range  loudspeakers powered by low power SAT  or traditional 2-3 way design ?
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Showing 3 responses by douglas_schroeder

BTW, I can appreciate that for some lack of coherence in a multi-way speaker is so irritating that they will not accept it. Can’t have it both ways.
My experience: Why should I give up true full range to get single driver experience?  I don't have to. I've had too many smallish speakers in life to accept loss of frequencies under 40 Hz. To me, that's gutting your system unnecessarily.  Losing anything under 80 Hz would be like reverting to a table radio.  :(     obviously YMMV

Open Baffle full range hybrid with big bass and treble assist is great, win-win imo.
Like the Tri-art Audio Series B 5 Open that I reviewed for Dagogo.com. 

Best of both worlds, gorgeous full range and integrated LF. No screwing around with trying to "assemble " a 3-way speaker.


Only a preliminary assessment can be conducted based on one comparison of two different systems. If the speakers are similar enough in terms of efficiency and impedance curve, one could theoretically swap them and have the preference shift to the other speaker. That is how difficult it is to draw a firm conclusion in regard to assessing two different speakers at a show. Still, it's better than never hearing.

The big draw, as should be expected, of a single driver speaker is coherence and very tight center imaging. Full range speakers do this exceptionally well as a lot. Expecting them to do other things as well as other technologies in speakers is unrealistic. They may, or they may not. 
Full range are often lauded for such wonderful midrange, but I find that one can get that with nearly any genre of speaker - if you work at it and optimize the system. It's easy to say the midrange is all that when there is no bass worth commenting because a swath of frequencies went bye-bye. 

Full range better than other technologies? No, not at all. It's just garnishing a different set of performance highlights in keeping with the design. It's to be expected. Switch to another genre of speaker and hear things that a full range can't touch. For example, a very well built multi-way can be superior in terms of resolution/definition. 

It's all part of the game, as with low/high power.