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Why are coaxials so rare?

sigbergaudio

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Vertical directivity isn't actually all that critical when you're seated in the hot seat listening to two speaker stereo music, unless you suddenly get up from your seat to stand up. There are quite more than "a few examples" of loudspeakers with discrete drivers that deliver pinpoint imaging. I for one have owned many, including ones I have designed and built.

People have different observations, impressions and likely also different taste in what parts of the music reproduction is important to them. The myriad of different speakers and speaker designs are a testament to that.

I for one will find it very hard to go back to a traditional design after hearing a good coax speaker. I have yet to hear a discrete driver design that sound quite like it. I respect that others may feel differently. :)
 

abdo123

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As some might know by now I like good coaxial designs and have owned a few as I like their advantages, there is one thing though that is easier to implement with non coaxial drivers, that is different horizontal (usually wide) and vertical (usually narrow) directivity which can be advantageous at some listening configurations. On the other hand you can do such with good pseudo coaxial configurations like below one, which are not easy or cheap though:

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Source:

Do you happen to own one of these? or now a place where we can listen to them?
 

thewas

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Do you happen to own one of these? or now a place where we can listen to them?
Unfortunately not, they are DIY by a German hobbyist who does audio projects often at a higher level than most industry.
 

abdo123

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Unfortunately not, they are DIY by a German hobbyist who does audio projects often at a higher level than most industry.

Tbh i always wondered why a 'hobbyist' with this much skill level remains a hobbyist and does not become the industry.
 

abdo123

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He might earn more money now than he would if he were to commercialize his DIY stuff.

yeah but at some point wouldn't you rather switch to the industry you're passionate about?

Beside when you already have solid designs ready already you don't need to do anything yourself, you can get other people to manufacture and do marketing.
 

sigbergaudio

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yeah but at some point wouldn't you rather switch to the industry you're passionate about?

Beside when you already have solid designs ready already you don't need to do anything yourself, you can get other people to manufacture and do marketing.

That you're good at building one-off speakers doesn't mean you're good at (or even interested in) starting a company. Commercializing a product or a company is lots of work, and most of it is NOT about building speakers. :)

If you are going to hire someone to do all the boring stuff from the start, you need a lots of initial funding, since it can take years before your company is profitable.
 

Frgirard

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The oem
That you're good at building one-off speakers doesn't mean you're good at (or even interested in) starting a company. Commercializing a product or a company is lots of work, and most of it is NOT about building speakers. :)

If you are going to hire someone to do all the boring stuff from the start, you need a lots of initial funding, since it can take years before your company is profitable.
+1

It reminds me of all those people who tell me they want to be independent and who to the question "How are you going to find clients?" responds with a blank.
 

abdo123

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The oem

+1

It reminds me of all those people who tell me they want to be independent and who to the question "How are you going to find clients?" responds with a blank.

With People like Amir and Erin reviewing anything (reasonable) that people send them i think it's much easier to market today than it used to be 10 or 20 years ago.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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With People like Amir and Erin reviewing anything (reasonable) that people send them i think it's much easier to market today than it used to be 10 or 20 years ago.
+9999
If the speaker measure so well, the people are going to start a fight for buy them lol
 

aac

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Vertical directivity isn't actually all that critical when you're seated in the hot seat listening to two speaker stereo music, unless you suddenly get up from your seat to stand up. There are quite more than "a few examples" of loudspeakers with discrete drivers that deliver pinpoint imaging. I for one have owned many, including ones I have designed and built.
Questionable
I have speakers with coax drivers and "normal" speakers. The sense of "distance" is much better on coaxial.
 

audio2design

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Regarding pinpoint imaging, better overall directivity, specially in the vertical plane, plus time aligned tweeter/midrange voice coil meaning better step response...I'm sure you could find a few examples of well engineered discrete drivers speakers that accomplish this...but the list of measured speakers by Amir is accessible to anybody and tells a different story when looking at the bigger picture...


Except there is little evidence that time alignment and perfect step response is even critical. Our auditory system only processes timing information over a narrow frequency window, primarily 200Hz - 1Khz, rapidly declining after that. That is likely why time alignment and step response has not correlated well to listener preference.
 

audio2design

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Vertical directivity isn't actually all that critical when you're seated in the hot seat listening to two speaker stereo music, unless you suddenly get up from your seat to stand up. There are quite more than "a few examples" of loudspeakers with discrete drivers that deliver pinpoint imaging. I for one have owned many, including ones I have designed and built.

If that is critical a line array is better (though expensive) and is far more immune to room interaction.
 

AnalogSteph

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And Tannoy were earlier...
Though they don't seem to have got it right yet :).
And they weren't the first either. The Eckmiller coax was earlier (patent DE701662C, filed 1937, granted 1941), and the first patent was filed as early as 1928 (US1895071A).

Getting them right is, in fact, the crux of the matter. That being said, I don't think there have ever been as many affordable coaxes as there are today.
 

antennaguru

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To enjoy the plate blockage of the woofer's tone just like the old Jensen Co-Axial and Tri-Axial 6" X 9" car stereo speakers from the 1970s? I thought that bad idea went away, but it goes to show you that what's old is often new again - bad idea or not...
 

antennaguru

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You can have pint point image without a coaxial but you will never get any better than a coaxial.
That is just not true. I do own a set of small KEFs with coaxial drivers for the sake of comparison with other speakers. Not only don't they image any better than MANY other non-coaxial speakers using multiple discrete drivers, but they are extremely power limited. The KEFs play OK, in their small way at 85 dBA SPL - but they get terribly compressed and distorted well before they get to 100 dBA SPL. I don't think it's just the KEFs that have this limitation...
 
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