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

 

[TIU]

For what its worth The BBC now use Dynaudio

Details here

Who install cheesy parts.

 

[Non-Smoking Man]

The short answer is 'yes'.

But let's not fool ourselves that 'full range' means 20Hz to 20KHz - it doesnt.

I recently ran a 3 way speaker floorstander contest between 3 hi - efficiency floorstanders that I owned - Jantzen TQWTs, Mark Audio Pensils and WAD KLS9s - with and without subs.

The Pensils were the only official 'FR' speaker and they c/w ribbon supertweets which I left on. (To save her top end blushes perhaps..).

The Pensils were notably short of bass extension and benefitted noticeably from the pair of Bastani 18" subwoofers (from 'Prometheus').

The graphs available on the internet show them dropping 10 db per 10 Hz from 90 Hz. That's 'falling off a cliff'.

But I wouldnt criticise them for that - thay are just badly named. The term should be 'wideband'

Once you have grasped that, you add an active sub from output 2 of your pre, drive the crossoverless Mark Audio driver with a SET or OTL (my case), and run a supertweeter on top from the Pensils banana sockets.
Your midrange is unsullied by a crossover and you make up the frequency deficiencies by adding a bit of top and bottom. It works.

Its a recognised route these days to run the bass actively and leave the mid and top as a separate speaker system (Martin Logan Summits, Troels Graveson larger designs) and choose different types of amp to do different jobs to which they are suited. Horn multiway systems have been doing this to advantage for years as they too are bandwith limited.
As to the comparison with the BBC sound of the Falcons et. al. I am less qualified to comment, but my best guess is that they (BBC types) would lose that particular battle.

Jack NSM

 

[JamieMcC]

The short answer is 'yes'.

But let's not fool ourselves that 'full range' means 20Hz to 20KHz - it doesnt.

I recently ran a 3 way speaker floorstander contest between 3 hi - efficiency floorstanders that I owned - Jantzen TQWTs, Mark Audio Pensils and WAD KLS9s - with and without subs.

The Pensils were the only official 'FR' speaker and they c/w ribbon supertweets which I left on. (To save her top end blushes perhaps..).

The Pensils were notably short of bass extension and benefitted noticeably from the pair of Bastani 18" subwoofers (from 'Prometheus').

The graphs available on the internet show them dropping 10 db per 10 Hz from 90 Hz. That's 'falling off a cliff'.

But I wouldnt criticise them for that - thay are just badly named. The term should be 'wideband'

Once you have grasped that, you add an active sub from output 2 of your pre, drive the crossoverless Mark Audio driver with a SET or OTL (my case), and run a supertweeter on top from the Pensils banana sockets.
Your midrange is unsullied by a crossover and you make up the frequency deficiencies by adding a bit of top and bottom. It works.

Its a recognised route these days to run the bass actively and leave the mid and top as a separate speaker system (Martin Logan Summits, Troels Graveson larger designs) and choose different types of amp to do different jobs to which they are suited. Horn multiway systems have been doing this to advantage for years as they too are bandwith limited.
As to the comparison with the BBC sound of the Falcons et. al. I am less qualified to comment, but my best guess is that they (BBC types) would lose that particular battle.

Jack NSM

That's pretty my how I run my open baffles per channel I have 2x12" free range wide banders with no crossover mids which are assisted by a tweeter and a 15" sub with crossovers.

As 100dB sensitivity I can drive the lot off a Set amp or just the mid and a
tweeter with a separate solid state amp driving the 15" bass.

 

[newlash09]

Thanks all for taking the time to answer my query. Highly appreciated sirs .

I conveyed the contents of this thread to my friend. And he has also solicited and taken other opinions regarding the speaker build. Considering how even a FR needs additional support in the bass and the treble, he has backed off. He seems to be keen on the pure audio project now. Starter kits start at usd 6k as per him. And apparently he can upgrade the drivers as and when funds permit.

And as regards me, I just heard the QA concept 500 speakers today. Absolutely blown by them... So iam off the FR build for my selves... They still didn't reach the absolute levels of voice realism compared to the falcon gold badge speakers. But they were really really close. And add that spooky vanishing act of the cabinets, coupled with a three dimensional holographic sound stage... I was blown

 

[Non-Smoking Man]

I have an invitation to hear Jezr's Concept 500s.
I collected them from Sevenoaks Hifi in Cheltenham for him this week and he seems very pleased with them.
(Ive heard the 300s chez Ian (Coventry))

Jack.

 

[Monitor Gold Ten]

In my view, Pepperpot Tannoys take some beating; my venerable Monitor Gold IIILZ are sweet enough to be used to check recordings made by local bands.

They are truthful; if a recording is 'bright' they'll tell you.

Also magical with Valve Amplification.



(I might be slightly biased)

 

[dave]

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.

Anything flappy (paper cones, I do love them, but in breakup?) can do well with simple material, and could even add its own complementary colourations to enhance the impression, but will utterly fail into a horrible mess with challenging material. Depends what you want to listen to.

 

[Fatmarley]

Anything flappy (paper cones, I do love them, but in breakup?) can do well with simple material, and could even add its own complementary colourations to enhance the impression, but will utterly fail into a horrible mess with challenging material. Depends what you want to listen to.

Being pedantic, you can get stiff paper cones. The tell-tale sign is a large, sharp breakup peak. Scanspeak make a stiff paper cone, slice it, and fill the slices with a damping substance to flatten the breakup.