Dear friends,
Full range speakers are those whose cabinets do not have tweeters or woofers.
They may have 1 or more full range drivers or dual cone speakers.
They usually lack low end Bass extension but are usually excellent performers when mated with a suitable subwoofer or two...
Sibilance is usually minimal in these speakers.
Since there is no overlapping of frequencies as normally seen between Tweeter/midrange/woofer in cheaper 2/3 way speaker towers, sound seems more consistent and the presence is more realistic.
I will start this thread talking about the Bose 161, a true full ranger with fantastic 3 dimensional imaging. But as expected, they lack bass and require a dedicated sub with which, they are truly world class.
And, if you are going to use a subwoofer, they will not burn a hole in your wallet.
They have 2 large excursion 4" drivers in each cabinet.
But they, when installed decently, have a rare quality of beautiful 3D imaging which crossed over 2/3 way speakers really lack.
Frankly, They are among the best i have ever heard.
Now I have made a beginning.. now I welcome fellow members to post your love/hate relationships with true full rangers.
I have also heard some awesomely decent sounding dual cone driver speakers. I am including dual cone speakers in this genre.
So friends, please post your love hate relationships with full rangers.
Looking forward to all your posts,
Yours,
Subcenter2009
Hello Subcenter2009,
You haven't responded to the thread that has grown quite a bit. I just hope that you are well. I have no problem with you being a silent observer.
I contributed to your thread by sharing at least one design option that will give a 'true' fullrange experience as it produces top bass, great presence and sweet treble all in a single enclosure and without having to get into a crossover design.
As you mentioned before, the sibilance is one property for listening to full range speakers. It makes the vocals realistic and treble a joy to listen to rather than being 'attracting' for first 2minutes and irritating there after.
It seems that we have two things in common: love for full range speakers and Bose.
Earlier you mentioned several models of Bose including the legendary 901 but made no mention of the acoustimass speaker sets.
Allow me to share my thoughts on these two:
Bose 901: This, to my knowledge, is the only Stereo speaker/ enclosure design, in the world, that allows you to 'hear' BOTH the speakers from ANY listening position! So besides being a fullrange speaker design, with all its advantages, it allows 'stereo from anywhere' as a USP.
1/9 of the total sound is made to reach our ears directly from the speaker and 8/9 through multiple reflections, thus resembling a LIVE sound stage.
So will my post # 16 be valid for Bose 901 also? Of-course!!
Bose 901 is never sold as a speaker set. It is always accompanied by its own equalizer. It was passive, earlier and is active, more recently. But I am not 100% sure of this.
It is this equalizer that helps overcome the short comings of the full range speaker and allows it to be used with ANY amplifier.
Remove the equalizer and Bhuss@@#%*#, the magic is gone!!!
So can we remove the equalizer and still retain the magic by using a valve amplifer or 10% of the worlds' specially designed amplifiers?
This is the question I will leave open. The owners of 901 can perhaps answer this.
Acoustimass Speaker System: This is not just a sat-sub type of a speaker system. There is more to it. The sub, or the acoustimass module as it is called, receives fullrange signal and it produces 'band-pass' output by an 'acoustic filter' in the form of its enclosure design. This eliminates almost all of the drawbacks associated with passive crossover filter design such as component tolerances, drift over temperature and in-efficiency. Both designs, however, retain one common feature: complex design!
More details of the acoustimass speaker system:
The woofer design uses an acoustic filter and hence this 2.1CH sat-sub design allows operation from only 2.0CH amplifier!
Remember, since the woofer receives the sum of left and right channels, this summing after the power stage does introduce crosstalk!!
I have used the Bose Acoustimass III and V speakers and driven them through my 3CH amp described
here and the audioDSP described
here.
No more cross-talk!!
The acoustimass speaker system can still be treated as a fullrange system for the reason that Bose themselves rightly put it:
The crossover is shifted well below the vocal range, where it is most damaging, to a region where our ears are most direction-insensitive!
Do you agree?
In fact, my speaker system design that I have described
here is also based on the same design principle.
Well, I hope that you will add more features that I may have missed and happy fullrange listening!
Regards,
Ravindra.
