Crossover-less Speakers


I'd like to hear from those of you who transitioned to crossover-less speakers. I have a pair of Thiel CS 2 2s. I like 'em but I'm curious about the full-range crossover-less speaker types. I'd like to know what speaker you have and what speaker you traded up from. Are you getting the full range from your spkrs? Are you experiencing any peaks and valleys in the frequency response? Are you happy with the lows or are you augmenting with a powered sub? Thanks.
mdeblanc
I was pressured into declaring myself a dealer after I mentioned that, as a "Listening Post", I have the potential to receive a commission.
All Zu speakers are sold factory direct. I have no inventory to sell. However, if you come to my house and audition my speakers and buy a pair from Zu and keep them beyond the trial period, I can be paid a small commission. Since I live in the middle of nowhere and no one has ever come here to audition my speakers in the 15 or so months this arrangement has been in place, I haven't felt too much need for disclosure in every comment I post. The guys in Audio Circle chose to make a big deal out of something that only exists in theory.
I do not advertise for business and the only speakers I have sold have been my personal pair. I sold my Druids and MiniMethod sub to my former neighbor who replaced a pair of speakers he had bought from me 18 years earlier. I replaced the Druids with a pair of Definition Pros which I sold after a year to purchase the upcoming Zu Presence speaker. At present I don't have any Zu speakers but that is supposed to change within 2 weeks.
I am certain that I have influenced the sale of many pairs of Zu speakers and I have never received any money for my efforts. I guess you could say I am evangelical about the topic.
So, Duke, you or someone else can divert this thread further by making me the topic - or - We could return to the topic at hand.
If I understand correctly a field coil driver uses an electromagnet rather than a permanent magnet in the motor. Is that correct?
Have I survived scrutiny?
Thanks for responding, Macrojack, and fully disclosing your affiliation with Zu. I was pretty rough on you there, but now I can see that there are two sides to it.

In my opinion the readers have a right to judge for themselves whether or not an affiliation matters, or is merely theoretical. Some will misjudge you out of an innate prejudice against anyone who believes in a product enough to be officially affiliated with it, but methinks it best to err on the side of disclosure. Of course, memakes not the rules.

To answer your first question, yes - a field-coil driver uses an electromagnet rather than a permanent magnet, typically connected to a battery or a power supply. I've been told the theoretical advantage is that a battery or power supply's voltage is more constant than is the flux of a permanent magnet (even an Alnico one) under dynamic conditions, but don't know whether that's really true. One very cool thing about an electromagnet is that you can vary the strength of the magnet (and thereby the Qes, and thereby the frequency response) by adjusting the voltage applied to the field coil. You can tailor the driver's characteristics to the enclosure, to a certain extent.

To answer your second question - I think you did great!

Duke
Duke, Macrojack wih all due respect, if one knowingly has the potential to profit from a recomendation (sales pitch?) no matter how remote the possibilty, I believe the integrity of this forum, demands disclosure. I post this not to point fingers, but to hopefully maintain the high standards Audiogoner's have come to expect.
I didn't disclose anything because I didn't have anything to disclose. Try to get beyond the theoretical and read the actual facts.

1.- I do not actively pursue business.

2.- I do not have any inventory investment to recover.

3.- I do not have the ability to broker a deal.

4.- I am not given referrals by the manufacturer.

5.- I am clearly not trying to conceal anything or deceive
anyone.
6.- I have made NO MONEY from Zu.

7.- Nothing I have written here has invited or encouraged
anyone to do business with me without disclosure.

8.- I promote Zu because I am very impressed with the
company and its products and because I know that many of
you would benefit from trying them.
I migrated from two systems using crossover-based dynamic speakers to crossoverless and won't be going back. Since that transition, the reduced tonal, spatial and transient coherence, along with the truncated dynamics proximate to the crossover frequencies, are too distracting and intolerable. My crossoverless speakers are Zu Druid and Zu Definition. Both cover the range from 38Hz - 12.5kHz with a full range driver that acoustically rolls off at both ends. The Zu supertweeter is not in the signal path of the FRD, and is rolled in on a simple high-pass filter at 12kHz. In the Definition, the sub-bass active array is rolled in on a simple low-pass filter at ~40Hz.

Once you hear a speaker that addresses the discontinuities of multi-driver design by eliminating crossovers and avoiding any sonic transitions in the heartland frequencies of the music sound spectrum, you *may* still elect a mild crossover speaker such as a Sonus Faber, but it's quite likely you'll not again want to be without the holistic music representation of a well-balanced, well-sorted FRD-based speaker.

Phil