Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?

2a3nut,

Lowthers, and other full range drivers are amazing in their ability to tease out detail and perk up music. For me, almost all implementations I've heard were just too rough and peaky and seemed to "shout" too much for my taste (I still like the speaker). The most interesting Lowthers were the ones with the field coil magnet structure. The best implementation I heard of Lowther drivers was a three-way system made by Horning--a modified Lowther driver was used as a wideband midrange driver.

For full range drivers, I prefer Feastrix drivers. They have the same sort of issues with peaky response and poor bass, but, not nearly as much so as Lowthers. Unfortunately, they are WAY more expensive than Lowthers. A really interesting newcomer to the full range game is the Taiwanese firm Tang Band. I heard a few speakers using their full range driver, both in full range speakers and as midrange/tweeters in two-way designs. They manage to deliver the kind of dynamics and liveliness of full range drivers with surprisingly natural tonal balance. The Tang Band speakers are also MUCH cheaper than the competition.

I recently heard a system that uses an old Western Electric 756 full range driver as a woofer midrange in a two way design. This was a quite nice sounding system whose primary weakness was a lack of deep bass.

Larry,
I always enjoy reading your well informed input and opinions. Have you heard the PHY drivers and in partic ular the 12 inch version?
Regards,

Chrles1dad,

I don't think I've heard PHY drivers. If you have, I am interested in what you think. I find that you provide a lot of interesting and well informed comments in this forum as well.

Thanks Larry,
No I''ve not heard them but always read good comments about them.Given your vast exposure I thought you might have had the opportunity.
Regards,

Another "full range" speaker that I heard that really blew me away (don't know why I forgot about them until now) is a circa 1940 Jensen field driver (13" cone, built in tube power supply). I heard a system that uses this driver crossed over to a tweeter at, I believe, 8 khz (all but the highest octave being reproduced by the Jensen driver). This is the best overall sound I have heard from a full range or nearly full range single driver system. There was very little of the midrange peakiness of full range drivers--the sound was rich and warm and good with even large symphonic works (a problem for other full range drivers like the Lowthers), and bass was surprisingly decent. It is VERY unfortunate that this is an extremely rare speaker and there have been no successful attempts at cloning this driver.