Thoughts on single driver speakers

Single driver speakers are not without flaws, but offer greater coherency, immediacy and purity than multi- driver speakers. Probably due to the elimination of the crossover. Generally speaking, the smaller the driver the better the highs and the larger it is the better the lows. Of course there are ways around this like using a sub or supertweeter. Or both.

Solid state will work and are actually preferred by many single driver speaker owners, especially in Japan. Those using SET amps need efficiency (Lowthers in rear loaded horn enclosures).

Caveat: Once you get used to the full range driver sound, you will begin to hear the crossover in multi- driver systems.

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"Single driver" speakers are rarely full-range: it's (as yet) impossible for a single transducer to reproduce 20-20kHz. HOWEVER, the reference to "single" driver is in the use of one drive unit reproducing all or most of the ear-critical region, i.e. ~100 - ~10kHz (or 300-6kHz). The sound benefits greatly, as Ultrakaz notes above: you only have one source for the bulk of music's frequency content. And, therefore, you do not need a crossover in that area, AND the result is very versatile as, when you DO use a-over it can be behind the amp (line-level) - OR at frequencies where our ear is less sensitive to distortion effects (150Hz, etc).

On the down side, there are small peaks in the amplitude response as you go up in frequency (that can be addressed with appropriate filters, if need be), good wide-range drivers are expensive, accompanying super-tweets and woofs/ subwoofs MUST be commensurate (i.e. very good quality).

Good "single driver" designs are very high-end, both regarding reproduction & price.

Using ss is not a problem IMO -- I'm happy with it (I also use SET).
Cheers

The ones I heard briefly at shows sounded bad to my ears. If the composer called for thunder, by jove the speakers should put out thunder. They all sounded to me like listening to a table radio, a good table radio mind you, but a table radio nonethelss. Unfair to judge anything on a short listen in poor conditions such as shows, but nothing twigged me into wanting to hear more. A cult item if ever there was one.