Two Way Speakers: Is That All There Is?

[emaidel]

. The only gotcha was that the Motorola piezo could be "spitty" with the wrong amp like a Crown.


On the other hand, we also sold Magnepan, Dayton-Wright and Acoustat. As my moniker suggests, I have always been drawn to the .

Sorry, but I didn't mean to cut off all of what you said.

I have to agree with you too. While I preferred Magneplanars and Magnepans to my DQ-10's, there was a considerable difference in cost. While placement of the DQ-10 can radically alter its sound and imagining properties, the placement of electrostatic panels presented even greater obstacles, which, in my living environment, couldn't be overcome.

Insofar as the piezo tweeter, the "spitty" characteristic often did disappear with a better amplifier. Jon Dahlquist himself said that, since they only start to work at 12,000HZ, most people wouldn't hear any difference anyway. I replaced mine because one failed, and and feel that the replacements sounded better, but trying to actually define what it was that was better was a bit difficult.

I know I don't hear anything above 12,000HZ, and that little if any musical material even exists at such frequencies, but there's that elusive character - "air" - that can't be dismissed. With the replacements, there was a decided improvement in the "air" surrounding certain instruments, which made the speaker more musical.

There's another website - sa-cd.net - on which members post their comments on the SACD medium, players and recordings. Some of those members adored certain recordings by a label - BIS - until they learned of the manner in which BIS started out their recordings (actually PCM, and then converted to DSD in post-production) and all of a sudden, the previously hailed-to-the-heavens discs were now alll but unlistenable. Those members have been regarded by others on that site as those who "listen with numbers, and not their ears." I think a similar comparison could be made to the use of the piezo in the DQ-10: simply knowing that it was there, and knowing how awful a piezo sounded when used as a regular tweeter in a cheaper speaker, was enough to claim that it was a poor choice and had to be replaced.

[Mark of Cenla]

I prefer 2.1 systems that use one full-range driver and a subwoofer. In our living room we have tower speakers with a Goldwood 8" full-range driver in the front driven by our Yamaha AVR. In the back of the towers are Dayton Acoustics Reference 8" woofers driven my a Sherwood stereo receiver and crossed over at 100hz by the Yamaha receiver.

In our bedroom, where I do most of my listening, the speakers are 4" Pioneer drivers in homemade boxes. It is driven my an Audiosource Model Amp One/A power amp. The subwoofer is a Sony. I really like the open quality of full-range single drivers. Peace and goodwill.