Question Do full range driver speakers, do mid range more realistically than the BBC type speakers

[newlash09]

Hi all

I've heard the falcon l3/5a gold badge speakers in my room at the end of a sugden. They belonged to a friend. The mid range was really realistic and live sounding. Apart from the diminished scale and lack of bass, I really loved the mid range and vocals. Now my friend intends to better their mid range realisticness with a FR build, by the same gentleman who built my speakers. A big scale, spooky real mid range, smoothness and low power are the requirements. In fact my friend got 300B amps in anticipation already. The total cost for the mass loaded transmission line build with some tangband drivers will be kept below 1500 GBP. Since I've been itching to have such a realistic sounding mid range for sometime. Iam wondering if a FR implementation will be better than the falcons mid range. Iam aware of the lack of lower bass and spikes in the treble. Anyone have any experience with full rangers please 😜

 

[Tony_J]

I messed with Lowther back loaded horns for (too) many years - in the end I decided that they were too compromised to be worth the effort. Multi-way actives for me are better set of compromises.

 

[Nopiano]

Hi Mike, I’ve not heard many FR types, but I fear you’ll be disappointed. It’s the lack of LF and colouration that makes the BBC clones so good in the mid. And the tiny box, which can’t add much ‘noise’ of its own. As soon as you get bigger there are panels to damp and cones that squawk.

I recall that you’ve heard ATC SCM40s and that’s when good mids emerge again, but from a dedicated driver.

I hope that helps, and sorry I can’t be more optimistic. If it were that easy you’d see it in commercial products!

 

[old Guy]

For what its worth The BBC now use Dynaudio

Details here

 

[tackleberry]

Full range are ultimately flawed especially when you put some juice through them

 

[tackleberry]

IMD.
Some 2 ways can be just as bad!

 

[pmcuk]

I have Mark Audio Alpair 10 full ranges, metal cones. I prefer my Wharfedale bookshelf speakers, but that's probably because I don't much like aluminium cones.

 

[rabski]

Every full range I have heard has been like the ESL57s I owned. They do remarkably lifelike mids, but imaging is only OK, and then only in a small sweet spot, and bass and treble are lacking. Not just in volume, but in other ways. I could live with the ESLs, but they needed sub(s) and supertweeters to work for my ears and in the end, the fact that they only worked well if you sat in exactly the right place and sounded s**te everywhere else was just too much.

I love superb mids and lifelike vocals, but if nothing else is lifelike, then there isn't much point. Plenty of multi-drivers get extremely close to the superb mids and do everything else far better IMHO.

To be honest, I'm not the greatest fan of 3/5a designs either. Again, I find them too compromised. I understand why people like them, and that's personal taste. Just not my taste I'm afraid.

 

[Jazid]

If you take to the FR sound, it's addictive. No, the extended range isn't there, distortion at the extremes is high, and looks are so-so. But if you "get it" then nothing else comes close. The lack of crossover artifacts and the seamless midrange performance is addictive. If you add field coils then the dynamics get somewhere better as well. So try and see. We all hear differently. Ultimately not my gig, but sooo close.

I don't include the old Lowther squawk-fest abberations in this...peace to Lowther fans, but it's like music played through a tin bucket. Whizzer cones might be single voice coil, but they're not equally coupled to the air as the main cone in my book.

 

[JANDL100]

I've never heard a FR speaker that didn't sound as if it was broken.

For me the positives are overwhelmed by the negatives.

Attempts to get round this, such as the notorious Lowther whizzer cone, just add insult to injury.

To my ears, open baffle type speakers done well can present the same kind of sound as FR at its best, but without the compromises of tonal colouration and high and low frequency aberrations.

 

[steve 57]

I have at least a couple of pair of lowthers, with the help of suitable bass drivers they can sound close the my red speaker's that where at this years wam show.

My view regarding full range drivers
Most people link high efficiency to full range, which is not always the case but from the high efficiency view point, drivers generally have improved transient response.
With good drivers this relates to more detail and lifelikeness, but many drivers cones are not up to it to start with, which can add colouration at some frequencies. But then the cabinets that are invariably larger start to do their thing, and are even worse in the colouration department.

I found lowthers are best for me in a open baffle, but the bottom end needs cutting off and supporting.
The trouble is with higher efficiency is the bass driver needs to be big and any tweeter needs to be efficient. If you get all that right you have a large and expensive speaker...
Beware, if do manage to get that right, they are more than likely to show every fault in your amplification...for which many will blame the speaker ?
It's a slippery slope to climb.

 

[Tony_J]

I found lowthers are best for me in a open baffle, but the bottom end needs cutting off and supporting.

No question about that. The best performance I managed with my Lowthers was at the Harrogate show when they were backed up with Ed's sub and dspeaker antimode DSP. However, the top end is also problematic IMHO, especially at high volumes because the whizzer cone starts to break up. What I never tried was using them just as midrange drivers - ideally you would cut off the whizzer for this, which of course is a one way trip. They have been used in that way in some commercial designs. However, not clear how well they would compete with a good dedicated mid driver.

 

[rabski]

No question about that. The best performance I managed with my Lowthers was at the Harrogate show when they were backed up with Ed's sub and dspeaker antimode DSP. However, the top end is also problematic IMHO, especially at high volumes because the whizzer cone starts to break up. What I never tried was using them just as midrange drivers - ideally you would cut off the whizzer for this, which of course is a one way trip. They have been used in that way in some commercial designs. However, not clear how well they would compete with a good dedicated mid driver.

So basically, they're a full range driver, as long as you use an additional bass driver and an additional treble driver

 

[Tony_J]

So basically, they're a full range driver, as long as you use an additional bass driver and an additional treble driver

Zackly 😂

 

[savvypaul]

There are certain speakers that I've loved for the way that they do certain things, with certain genres, at certain times. But I'm 100% certain that I couldn't live with them all the time.

I'm about to be equally certain about a set of 57s

And I may even double-down and stack 2 pairs, just to be 200% certain

 

[Tony_J]

I don't think the issue with FR drivers only applies to Lowthers by any stretch - there's a fundamental issue with persuading a single driver to perform well over the whole audio range - sumfing to do with fizziks I suspekt. The one thing single drivers have going for them IMHO is the single point source, but unfortunately that is somewhat spoilt by their other compromises.

The "Coaxial"/"Dual Concentric" approach pioneered by Tannoy and more recently by Kef attempts to achieve the benefits of a point source using 2 concentric drivers, and these can produce great results, but this approach introduces further compromises of its own of course. As Steve has observed, at the bass end there's no substitute for cone area and cabinet volume.

 

[karlsushi]

My experience of full range speakers is fairly limited, but what I can say is that one of the most memorable set-ups I've heard this year involved a pair of EJ Jordan full range speakers at the NW Audio Show (on the end of a Lampizator DAC and Longdog monoblock amps).

These stunning little things:



For a while now I have subscribed to the 'less is more' ethos in audio reproduction and the theoretical advantage of having no crossover to mess up the signal makes a lot of sense in this context.

But as others have intimated, the magic coming out of the Jordans was based on solo piano and small scale acoustic music. No doubt the situation would have been different if the demonstrators were playing full scale orchestral works or rock music.

Great little things they were though and the purity and transparency on offer was really beguiling.

 

[steve 57]

So basically, they're a full range driver, as long as you use an additional bass driver and an additional treble driver

I like that..
It does not stop them sounding better than many speakers if the are coupled with matching performance drivers at the frequency extremes and implemented well.
I've been considering resurrecting my ex4's with a pair of 15"s

 

[karlsushi]

Just a quick additional thought on this. If you want to hear the theoretical advantages of using a single driver, just listen to one of the many high-end headphone offerings that invariably use a single driver. And the frequency range available from a single driver in headphones is astonishing.

Oh if we didn't have bl00dy room acoustics to contend with...

 

[Fatmarley]

Years ago, we had a Philips micro system. The speakers looked to be about 3" full range drivers, in a cheap, chipboard ported box. They produced a surprisingly good sound, with lovely vocals, bass was good, and even the treble didn't appear to be compromised - The only problem was, they wouldn't go very loud.
I'd owned and heard a lot of good HIFI prior to the Philips midi system, and I can honestly say it caused me a bit of head scratching. Philips obviously know/knew their stuff.

I built some single driver bi-pole speakers with Fostex drivers, and they were terrible. Shouty, beaming treble and no bass.

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Speakers/FE127E_SB/FE127E_SB.htm