DIY Speakers: You CAN Just Put High Quality Drivers in a Box and Get Hi-Fi...

[Mark of Cenla]

...if you use full-range drivers in the right sized box. I really like single driver speakers, mostly because of the open midrange. I mostly listen to them with a subwoofer.

In our bedroom, where I do most of my music listening, my speakers are homemade boxes with Pioneer 4.5" full-range drivers, one per box. Using a subwoofer with these is a must because the little Pioneers have very little low bass. The rest of this system is a Sony CD player, Technical Pro PRE-B5050 preamp, Audiosource Model Amp One/A, and a Sony Sa-W2500 subwoofer. This is also what I use for computer sound.

In the living room the speakers are towers I modified. In the front are Goldwood 8" Full-Range drivers, which are powered by a Yamaha RX-V375. In the back are Dayton Audio Reference 8" woofers driven by a Sherwood receiver and crossed over at 100hz by the Yamaha. I absolutely love the way this sounds. All TV, DVD, and some CDs and computer sounds are played through this system.

Does anyone else out there like full-range drivers? Peace and goodwill.

 

[theJman]

Does anyone else out there like full-range drivers?

I do. Concentric's too, like the KEF speakers with the Uni-Q driver.

 

[monkish54]

I do. Concentric's too, like the KEF speakers with the Uni-Q driver.

Full range drivers and Uni-Q are much, much different beasts. The Uni-Q is far better, IMO (generally speaking). I'm not a fan of fullrange drivers. One driver can't do it all...

 

[fuzz092888]

Full range drivers and Uni-Q are much, much different beasts. The Uni-Q is far better, IMO (generally speaking). I'm not a fan of fullrange drivers. One driver can't do it all...

Depends on what you're trying to get out of it I guess. As a center channel, it's hard to say it can't be done

 

[templemaners]

Full range drivers and Uni-Q are much, much different beasts. The Uni-Q is far better, IMO (generally speaking). I'm not a fan of fullrange drivers. One driver can't do it all...

I agree with monkish. Finding one driver to cover everything seems like a near impossible task. I think dividing up the desired frequency range between multiple drivers in the least offensive way possible is the route to go.

 

[monkish54]

Depends on what you're trying to get out of it I guess. As a center channel, it's hard to say it can't be done

Absolutely. For my brother's RV I designed him a center with a few Aura Sound full-range drivers. His objective was SPL not accuracy, but I chose the best full-range drivers I have seen (within $30-$45 per driver). They happen to be very cheap, and really awesome. I wish Aura's patent would expire. They have an epic motor structure. Anyway, It depends on the application. A full-range speaker cansound fine, but I have yet to see a full-range driver that can truly wipe the floor with the likes of TAD, Revel, Salk, Philharmonic Audio, etc.

Even if one could completely eliminate cone breakup, you still have high frequency directivity and cone area/bass to deal with. The more mass/area, the more the driver is suited for low frequencies. The smaller/less massive, the more the driver is suited for high frequencies. Sure, full-range drivers can be fine, but since the two ranges want the complete opposite driver characteristics, it's hard to say they can rival a good 3-way system. They might get close if you add a subwoofer, but then you have a 2-way system with crossovers.

I agree with monkish. Finding one driver to cover everything seems like a near impossible task. I think dividing up the desired frequency range between multiple drivers in the least offensive way possible is the route to go.

IMO, the best way to go is active. You don't have to deal with passive issues like time alignment, impedance matching, xo phase change, xo frequency change with VC heat, and you can use very high order slopes. The one drawback is expense. If one wants an ultimate system they should quit looking at full-range systems and start looking at active solutions if they fear passive crossovers. There is no way a full-range speaker alone can beat the high and low frequency reproduction of my Philharmonic 2s and pair of W15gti MKII.

It makes me sad that 80k speakers use passive xo. Audiophiles allow the worst source of distortion to continue distorting so that they can choose which very low distortion component they want (amplifier). It makes absolutely no sense. Welcome to consumer audio, I guess.

That's not to say that every passive xo speaker is trash, but just that active xo are easier to design with less tradeoffs and drawbacks. The only negative is cost. With 80k/pr, cost is no object and therefore distortion should be at the lowest percentage possible.

 

[theJman]

Full range drivers and Uni-Q are much, much different beasts. The Uni-Q is far better, IMO (generally speaking). I'm not a fan of fullrange drivers. One driver can't do it all...

I wasn't intimating they were the same, only saying I like the concentric approach as well. I'm a less-is-more kinda guy at heart.

 

[monkish54]

I wasn't intimating they were the same, only saying I like the concentric approach as well. I'm a less-is-more kinda guy at heart.

Oh, gottcha! I mostly feel that way about women and clothes.

 

[fuzz092888]

I definitely like those aura drivers. I've been thinking about getting a pair or two to play with. I'd really like to do an array with them, but that gets pricey when you need about 40 of them


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[GranteedEV]

Just my opinions on the pros/cons to a full range driver.

+ the polar response transition from low frequencies to high is natural due to the off-axis response not switching between mid and tweeter
+ The surrounds are generally designed to be very non-resonant. Some DIYers, like planet_10 hifi, take it further by coating the surround and cone with various dampers/glue for a well-damped sound. Comparitively, many dedicated woofers, including high end scanspeak revelators, emphasize bass response and have measurable response abberations in the midrange due to their surround designs.
+ since the polar response is narrowing in the upper mids and throughout the treble, the effects of baffle diffraction in the upper mids are mitigated compared to flush-mounted tweeters!
+ no driver integration issues, not that i`m convinced these are really as great as they are made out to be.

- unless they've got a big and wide response bump below 600hz, or a gigantic (~16"+ wide) baffle, full range drivers still need a baffle step compensation filter / active shielding filter to sound balanced in the mids.
- no driver is immune to resonances, and the bigger you go, the lower in frequency this becomes audible, if not "offensive". An 8" full range is probably not too clean and resolving above ~2khz. It might be a really inoffensive sound, but i`m not sure that`s hi-fi.
- Due to the lack of excursion capability of the wideband surrounds, you can get some compression on complex passages. In general you`re pretty bass or output limited.

I certainly don't think I'd rather have a full range driver than, say, Dan Neubecker's Echelons

 

[Pyrrho]

I do. Concentric's too, like the KEF speakers with the Uni-Q driver.

Full range drivers and Uni-Q are much, much different beasts. The Uni-Q is far better, IMO (generally speaking). I'm not a fan of fullrange drivers. One driver can't do it all...

I wasn't intimating they were the same, only saying I like the concentric approach as well. I'm a less-is-more kinda guy at heart.

A Uni-Q speaker isn't anything less than a two-way speaker. It is just that the tweeter is mounted on the pole piece (at the center) of the larger driver (either woofer or midrange, depending on the model of KEF we are talking about). There is still a crossover, just like with any other two-way speaker.

You can read this and watch the little video as well:

KEF Innovation - Uni-Q® - KEF United States

It is very much like a lot of 2-way car speakers, where the tweeter is mounted in the middle of the woofer. In the case of car speakers, the reasoning and implementation is often different, but in both cases, we are still talking about a two-way speaker with the tweeter mounted in the middle of the larger driver.

 

[theJman]

A Uni-Q speaker isn't anything less than a two-way speaker. It is just that the tweeter is mounted on the pole piece (at the center) of the larger driver (either woofer or midrange, depending on the model of KEF we are talking about). There is still a crossover, just like with any other two-way speaker.

I don't believe anyone was debating that part. AAMOF, I don't recall the crossover was ever discussed.

It is very much like a lot of 2-way car speakers, where the tweeter is mounted in the middle of the woofer. In the case of car speakers, the reasoning and implementation is often different, but in both cases, we are still talking about a two-way speaker with the tweeter mounted in the middle of the larger driver.

I wouldn't say they're "very much" alike; coaxial and concentric speakers have some significant differences. The latter design inherently has proper time alignment, whereas the former inherently doesn't. Concentrics have much better off-axis response too.

 

[Pyrrho]

I don't believe anyone was debating that part. AAMOF, I don't recall the crossover was ever discussed.


...

I was responding to your "less-is-more" idea. Uni-Q simply isn't less than a 2-way speaker.

 

[lsiberian]

I looked long and hard for good full rangers that could be fronts in a home theater. I never found any suitable to the task.

Because it was always limited SPL wise. I have considered putting the best ones in a line-array, but they aren't cheap.

 

[Mark of Cenla]

Thanks for all of the responses. I have played drum set since 1969, so my hearing ain't what it once was. I really like how the Goldwood 8" full-range drivers sounds in my old Boston Acoustic towers powered by my Yamaha RX-V375 AVR. I am sure that most of you could point out some issue with the sound. I only use the subwoofers when watching movies. I am listening to them now, and it sounds like music to me, all instruments and voices clear and detailed. Peace and goodwill.

 

[Mark of Cenla]

The Pioneer 4.5 inch drivers require no equalization. When I have added some bass, mid, or highs, I undo it within a few minutes. They really need to be used with a subwoofer though. I have also used Polk Rti4's and Boston Acoustics A40's in the same setup, and the Pioneers sound the best. It is too bad they no longer make them.

Since I am using both full-range drivers with subwoofers, they are really two-way systems. After my Yamaha RX-V375 configured the Goldwood drivers for my living room, I set the AVR for "big speakers" so I could listen to them alone, and most of the time I do. Without the equalization, they would not be good enough. But with it they sound good to me. So one system uses no EQ and is rather old school (preamp, power amp, CD player), and the other uses it to the max. Peace and goodwill.