Can someone guide me as to what Single driver ??

Hammer Dynamics Super-12 kit ($650, 97dB/8ohm)

It uses a 12" fullrange single-driver for 40Hz-10k+Hz, then a coaxially mounted supertweeter is used for 10k+Hz and above. 1st order crossover to minimize phase shift and distortion. It is is mounted in simple 70L ported cabinet and produces some of the punchiest, most powerful, bass I've come across in the FR speakers I've heard. The midrange is fantastic and highs just a good.

The Fullrange Driver Forum has a whole section dedicated to simple, cheap, Super-12 mods to raise the performance to an even better level.

I've owned them for 4+ years and listened to a lot of other FR systems in that time. Some were better overall, some were equal in one way or another, many were worse.

A couple of years ago I made the jump to a $12k+ FR speaker system(Fostex double-horns + dual subwoofers) after a few years of auditioning, but I still own the Super-12's. They are that good, especially when taking cost into consideration.

I consider them to be a near-perfect first excursion into high(ish)-efficiency FR speakers. They are affordable, perform extremely well, ably demonstrate all the best and unique qualities of single drivers, and provide extremely good bass response. The last point cannot be overlooked because that is single largest caveat to FR speakers - bass.

I have easily driven them with everything from flea-powered 3-18wpc SET's, 10-40wpc PP tube amps, and solid state 20-255wpc amps.

Darkmoebius: I would not doubt that the Hammer Dynamics system works reasonably well, as i've used the same basic 12" Eminence driver in several different yet similar PA installations. I've made mention of this Eminence driver a few times when talking about full range drivers here on Agon, but nobody has ever asked for specifics on it.

I've got four of these Eminence drivers in my basement right now. They are in partially finished PA cabs that i'm building for a local band. I'm running two of the Eminence 12's per cabinet full range and bringing in an Eminence horn tweeter at 6 dB's / octave at 11 KHz. The shallow slope allows the tweeter and full range drivers to blend right at the point where the larger full ranges are starting to take a nose dive. It also negates the losses involved with a passive crossover on the full-range drivers, improving sensitivity.

We've run similar cab's as mains in small clubs and electronically crossed them with subs below them when more volume and bottom end is needed. They are versatile enough as designed, but the added wallop of the extra woofer area and electronically crossing the full-ranges really adds quite a bit of punch.

Thanks for the links to the "Super-12 mods", as i'm sure that i'll check that out very soon. Sean
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Sean,

Which Eminence driver are you talking about? Not that I have a project for it right around the corner, but if you like it that much then I want it in my bag of tricks.

Thanks,

Duke

Duke, for an inexpensive driver, the Eminence Beta 12LTA offers pretty wide bandwidth and high sensitivity. Eminence has recently revamped their measuring techniques, so some of the spec's may be different than what is posted on PE's website. Lot of basic mods that can be done to improve performance without a lot of cost. Still want to check out the list of mods for the Hammer Dynamics that Darkmoebius listed above though, as maybe others have caught some things that i haven't.

Other than that, one can build a complex crossover with Zobel's to flatten the rising impedance, but i've never bothered. Running a pair of these nets you 99+ dB's @ 1 watt without ever dipping below 4 ohms anywhere in the band. Easy load, wide bandwidth and high efficiency for not that much money. Sean
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Still want to check out the list of mods for the Hammer Dynamics that Darkmoebius listed above though, as maybe others have caught some things that i haven't

Oh no, tell me it ain't so!

"Maybe" somebody thought of something you didn't?

A little full of ourselves don't you think?