Single full range drivers

[transformer-coupled]

Do headphones count?


At what output (SPL) was that FR measured?

exactly!!! headphones are fullrange single driver speakers and nobody says "oh well with only one driver cannot be fullrange"

 

[transformer-coupled]

That is something that Mark Audio attempts to do as well. They don't use whizzer cones, but employ diaphragm geometry and thickness to get the beaming issue under control.
Mark has a different view of cone break-up, though. One I tend to share.
In the single driver builds I've done I never measured abrupt phase reversing or high Q FR peaks. It's more a gradual, distributed shift from pistonic behavior to vibrating surface, in my own experience and measurements.
Not saying it's like that with all possible drivers, though. Just the few I worked with.

+1 also for Mark Audio single driver filterless loudspeakers diy, they perhaps dont measures perfect or even very bad but the feeling when listening is like the signal goes straight from amp to drivers without lossess and withot the distortion of any active or passive xover, definitelly it feels it benefits of it.

 

[fineMen]

+1 also for Mark Audio single driver filterless loudspeakers diy, they perhaps dont measures perfect or even very bad but the feeling when listening is like the signal goes straight from amp to drivers without lossess and withot the distortion of any active or passive xover, definitelly it feels it benefits of it.

As you say, distortion of a x-over is avoided. But how much is the distortion of a cable? Should a speaker be wireless then, again avoiding the last bits of misinformation? On the other hand, how much is the distortion of the speaker itself, especially with one-ways? Basically, what are the relative proportions cable :: x-over :: driver? Maybe you don't believe in countable proportions but grant each source of error its own signature. An individual voice independent from its magnitude and hence, as you may say, recognizable in every case, huge or tiny. Because it is the quality, not the quantity that counts (pun not intended).

This would be an interesting approach which dates back way beyonf the ancient Greeks and Arabs. Maybe the usability of math is overestimated? For a hammer every problem is a nail, and since we have math ... ?

You may be happy to have this standpoint confirmed by a physicist (bear with her at least up to minute 04:00 ff):

 

[Dilliw]

I've done single driver and there's no real way to get happy with them; you are either adding a sub or adding a tweeter. Back when clean power and clean sources were hard to come by they made sense.

 

[holdingpants01]

there are curious little monitors that uses single driver, closed box, but also DSP and an amp to linearize them: http://www.dmaxaudio.com/en/sc5
unsurprisingly most reports say their biggest downside is beaming

 

[stevenswall]

+1 also for Mark Audio single driver filterless loudspeakers diy, they perhaps dont measures perfect or even very bad but the feeling when listening is like the signal goes straight from amp to drivers without lossess and withot the distortion of any active or passive xover, definitelly it feels it benefits of it.

Would you consider a TV to not have any losses if it couldn't show deep red or purple and only showed orange-greenish blue?

 

[Frank Dernie]

exactly!!! headphones are fullrange single driver speakers and nobody says "oh well with only one driver cannot be fullrange"

Size

 

[transformer-coupled]

Size

Acording manufacturer, the Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 M driver measures covering almost all audible band and prety flat for a single driver filterless loudspeaker, i wish be measured here for confirmation on this, perhaps im wrong

 

[transformer-coupled]

Would you consider a TV to not have any losses if it couldn't show deep red or purple and only showed orange-greenish blue?

I wish some body send here a Pearl Sibelious or any a not-commercial diy loudspeaker also built on Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 M driver, perhaps is flatter response you could even imagine as we hear, perhaps not, some day independent measurements like here in ASR will tell all the truth, until that im enjoy it a lot diy lounspeaker plan pensil 10.3

 

[transformer-coupled]

I've done single driver and there's no real way to get happy with them; you are either adding a sub or adding a tweeter. Back when clean power and clean sources were hard to come by they made sense.

try some used cheap second hand Alpair 10.3 M driver.... perhaps you will be surprised, i thouth the same, all the "fullrange" drivers had no bass and no treble just like a portable radio with integrated mono speaker old... but this is different, they got it flat response from 80hz to 20khz! edit:::: thats i s what manufacturer says, its sopunds to me flat but perhaps im wrong please im not advertising it

 

[RayDunzl]

Would you consider a TV to not have any losses if it couldn't show deep red or purple and only showed orange-greenish blue?

The visible spectrum only covers about 0.8 octave, not the 10 or so that you'd require from a speaker, so, not a fair contest.

 

[312elements]

I wish some body send here a Pearl Sibelious or any a not-commercial diy loudspeaker also built on Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 M driver, perhaps is flatter response you could even imagine as we hear, perhaps not, some day independent measurements like here in ASR will tell all the truth, until that im enjoy it a lot diy lounspeaker plan pensil 10.3

Did you check out this post?

Interview about Measurements with Pearl Sibelius Speaker Designer

Thomas & Stereo posted this interview with Harley Lovegrove and much of the discussion is about speaker measurements. Harley provides numerous insights on speaker design and discusses the pros and cons of a implementing a flat frequency response. I enjoyed the discussion and wanted to share.

www.audiosciencereview.com

From personal experience, I can say that the measurements of the MA drivers are consistent with my experience. It's a pretty cool driver for what it is. It has VERY limited use cases that make sense IMO. I love mine. I absolutely love them. They do some things really really well. Similarly they do some things very poorly. I have to listen to these off-axis and the sweet spot is quite narrow. Not narrow like you can't move your head, but if the speakers are about 6' apart and you're about 6' away from them then you're locked inside your chair. The treble tips up on axis and then rolls off off-axis.

Box design greatly influences bass response. In my experience somewhere around 100hz in a sealed box the bass starts to roll off. You can design a box to get it to dig deeper, but I choose instead to crossover to a pair of subwoofers at around 150hz. With a crossover that high, I found that bass could be localized which limits subwoofer placement.

So people that complain about single driver speakers... I get it. You're not wrong. There are better choices for most scenarios. If you can minimize the inherent flaws or downsides then there's actually a lot of upside. I probably wouldn't use these in a home theater. I wouldn't put them in my living room. I think they'd probably make solid desktop monitors. Personally, I have a little listening room with a single chair, and I like these speakers in this room, better than anything else I've tried.

 

[transformer-coupled]

Would you consider a TV to not have any losses if it couldn't show deep red or purple and only showed orange-greenish blue?

im agree with you that MQA looklike scam, some hacker had access to files in tidal hifi and they say its just flac, they say, perhaps im wrong

 

[transformer-coupled]

Did you check out this post?

Interview about Measurements with Pearl Sibelius Speaker Designer

Thomas & Stereo posted this interview with Harley Lovegrove and much of the discussion is about speaker measurements. Harley provides numerous insights on speaker design and discusses the pros and cons of a implementing a flat frequency response. I enjoyed the discussion and wanted to share.

www.audiosciencereview.com

From personal experience, I can say that the measurements of the MA drivers are consistent with my experience. It's a pretty cool driver for what it is. It has VERY limited use cases that make sense IMO. I love mine. I absolutely love them. They do some things really really well. Similarly they do some things very poorly. I have to listen to these off-axis and the sweet spot is quite narrow. Not narrow like you can't move your head, but if the speakers are about 6' apart and you're about 6' away from them then you're locked inside your chair. The treble tips up on axis and then rolls off off-axis.

Box design greatly influences bass response. In my experience somewhere around 100hz in a sealed box the bass starts to roll off. You can design a box to get it to dig deeper, but I choose instead to crossover to a pair of subwoofers at around 150hz. With a crossover that high, I found that bass could be localized which limits subwoofer placement.

So people that complain about single driver speakers... I get it. You're not wrong. There are better choices for most scenarios. If you can minimize the inherent flaws or downsides then there's actually a lot of upside. I probably wouldn't use these in a home theater. I wouldn't put them in my living room. I think they'd probably make solid desktop monitors. Personally, I have a little listening room with a single chair, and I like these speakers in this room, better than anything else I've tried.

didnt saw thank you!

 

[transformer-coupled]

Did you check out this post?

Interview about Measurements with Pearl Sibelius Speaker Designer

Thomas & Stereo posted this interview with Harley Lovegrove and much of the discussion is about speaker measurements. Harley provides numerous insights on speaker design and discusses the pros and cons of a implementing a flat frequency response. I enjoyed the discussion and wanted to share.

www.audiosciencereview.com

From personal experience, I can say that the measurements of the MA drivers are consistent with my experience. It's a pretty cool driver for what it is. It has VERY limited use cases that make sense IMO. I love mine. I absolutely love them. They do some things really really well. Similarly they do some things very poorly. I have to listen to these off-axis and the sweet spot is quite narrow. Not narrow like you can't move your head, but if the speakers are about 6' apart and you're about 6' away from them then you're locked inside your chair. The treble tips up on axis and then rolls off off-axis.

Box design greatly influences bass response. In my experience somewhere around 100hz in a sealed box the bass starts to roll off. You can design a box to get it to dig deeper, but I choose instead to crossover to a pair of subwoofers at around 150hz. With a crossover that high, I found that bass could be localized which limits subwoofer placement.

So people that complain about single driver speakers... I get it. You're not wrong. There are better choices for most scenarios. If you can minimize the inherent flaws or downsides then there's actually a lot of upside. I probably wouldn't use these in a home theater. I wouldn't put them in my living room. I think they'd probably make solid desktop monitors. Personally, I have a little listening room with a single chair, and I like these speakers in this room, better than anything else I've tried.

thank you so much for the explanation and insight on this, very interesting, i also enjoy it

 

[dasdoing]

you are either adding a sub or adding a tweeter

Indeed, even the majority of multi-way subwoofers necessitate a subwoofer in today's music landscape, especially with modern pop music.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Acording manufacturer, the Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 M driver measures covering almost all audible band and prety flat for a single driver filterless loudspeaker, i wish be measured here for confirmation on this, perhaps im wrong

A cone that size will be full of breakup modes over the top 3 or 4 audio octaves. Paper will start to break up at a lower frequency than ally, so worse in that respect, but the peaks probably won’t be as big which may be better.
The fact that quasi-static reasoning is behind a lot of hifi products does not mean the laws of dynamics have been repealed.
A controlled breakup speaker wit asymmetry to even response out a bit, like NXT or BMR work well but a cone like this can not.

 

[fineMen]

try some used cheap second hand Alpair 10.3 M driver.... perhaps you will be surprised, i thouth the same, all the "fullrange" drivers had no bass and no treble just like a portable radio with integrated mono speaker old... but this is different, they got it flat response from 80hz to 20khz! edit:::: thats i s what manufacturer says, its sopunds to me flat but perhaps im wrong please im not advertising it

Physics speaks against single driver speakers. It it wasn't due to many other problems, intermodulation cannot be avoided. I'm not referring to motor generated IM, but to phase modulation aka Doppler effect. There is nothing one could do about it, because it is inherent to the dynamic driver, and only mitigated with strict bandwith limiting for the individual driver..

The single driver thing has its followers for reasons that are clearly understood. I see it as an educational toy, so why not? But the real thing, namely to produce sound with bearable distortion, wide bandwith and reasonable dispersion at comfortable levels is something else.

The Sibelius guy--I didn't watch the whole interview, though, presumably doesn't know about the difference between a microphone and a human ear, and what recording technology really is for. Quite a narrow bandwith ;-)

 

[312elements]

thank you so much for the explanation and insight on this, very interesting, i also enjoy it

To offer a little bit more from personal experience. The smaller speakers in the MA line perform better than the larger ones if you don't need the bass from the driver.

Where these speakers truly shine is on singer songwriter acoustic material and small ensemble jazz. These are examples of music that play to inherent benefits of the drivers capabilities. A well designed box that minimizes or eliminates diffraction can also go a long way to leaning into the experience here. Most other types of music sounds perfectly acceptable (with a subwoofer or two), but they really shine on the material that has a lot of presence in what is usually the crossover area. These probably wouldn't be my first choice for someone who listens to metal, progressive rock, or large orchestral music. Should a speaker be limited to specific types of music? Ideally not right? If you know what you like and this fits the bill, then they can be quite amazing.

 

[Dilliw]

try some used cheap second hand Alpair 10.3 M driver.... perhaps you will be surprised, i thouth the same, all the "fullrange" drivers had no bass and no treble just like a portable radio with integrated mono speaker old... but this is different, they got it flat response from 80hz to 20khz! edit:::: thats i s what manufacturer says, its sopunds to me flat but perhaps im wrong please im not advertising it

Well there's still people out there trying to get the last few hp's out of a flathead Ford or an air cooled 1500 Beatle engine. When technology solves most of the problems we turn our engineering into art, and in today's world single drivers are just beautiful art. There's no reason to live with their limitations other than to just appreciate the artistic, simplistic nature of their design approach. Once you appreciate them you can always add a sub...