Recommendation for high sensitivity speakers

[Dusty Chalk]

Have you ever heard single driver speakers? Make sure you hear them first (or at least, in your head, when you buy them, buy them to try them, not to marry them). Their sound is not for everyone. (I personally like them at the levels I usually listen, but every once in a while, I like to crank it, and that's when they fail.)

[JimP]

Omega responded and said they can ship to HK (big surprise as I'm paying for it). Good point DC, I'll try to find a local dealer with single driver speakers this weekend and check, before pulling the trigger. These wouldn't be for cranking -- headphone's only for rocking out. But I want more substantive than just background music...you know in my den, where I ponder cerebrally about the technical merits of the R10s, and things like that.

[JimP]

OK not that anyone cares, but I put an order in for an Omega Super 5

http://www.omegaloudspeakers.com/super5.html

This is much smaller than the Super Hemps, but probably better suits my den purposes. Who knows, if this experiment works out, I may pursue a full size high efficiency speaker in the future, as some of you have recommended.

[aardvark baguette]

Stretch the budget, and the Cain & Cain IM Ben is out of this world.

I was looking at these online earlier this week, and one vendor was offering free shipping

[Augsburger]

Have you ever heard single driver speakers? Make sure you hear them first (or at least, in your head, when you buy them, buy them to try them, not to marry them). Their sound is not for everyone. (I personally like them at the levels I usually listen, but every once in a while, I like to crank it, and that's when they fail.)

When you say "fail" what do you mean? I agree with you for the most part there is a distinct type of sound from single drivers you either love em or hate em. I have heard a few of the Cain and Cains and really didn't care for them, it seemed like too much of the music was being left on the disk.

[boomana]

I have heard a few of the Cain and Cains and really didn't care for them, it seemed like too much of the music was being left on the disk.

I've heard better speakers than my Abbys, and they definitely need a sub, but I have no idea what you're saying here. I'm listening to them now, and that comment makes no sense to me.

[aerius]

When you say "fail" what do you mean? I agree with you for the most part there is a distinct type of sound from single drivers you either love em or hate em.

To broadly generalize, when you crank a single driver speaker the sound craps out and all kinds of nasty colourations become blatantly obvious and annoying. Up to a certain volume level, the colourations are relatively benign and even charming, but push past that point and it quickly gets shouty, hard, farty, and annoying, not to mention suffering massive dynamic compression. Single drivers can't play Motorhead at Motorhead volumes.

[Augsburger]

I've heard better speakers than my Abbys, and they definitely need a sub, but I have no idea what you're saying here. I'm listening to them now, and that comment makes no sense to me.

What I meant by my comment was that when I heard some of the same jazz tracks I heard on the Abbys or Bens played through other speakers the music on other systems seemed more revealing like live music. The Cain and Cains didn't reveal the same depth and detail I had heard from other speakers. Strings on the C&Cs didn't have the oomph or decay, the brush work on one jazz piece seemed a bit off or veiled the piano seemed a bit recessed. These observations are why I stated that to me what I heard from the Cain and Cains seemed that "too much music was being left on the disk".

[Dusty Chalk]

To broadly generalize, when you crank a single driver speaker the sound craps out ... Up to a certain volume level, the colourations are relatively benign and even charming, but push past that point and it quickly gets ... annoying, not to mention suffering massive dynamic compression. Single drivers can't play Motorhead at Motorhead volumes.

Yup, pretty much what aerius said. My Spendors were the same way -- they sounded great at lower volumes, but they were easily pushed past a threshold where they initially started compressing, and pushed further they distorted. I do not find driver-based distortion pleasant in any way other than for the purposes of guitar tone. Give me a good optical compressor any day.

Yeah, maybe 'fail' is too strong a word, they don't break. They just 'fail' to deliver music musically.