Hmmmm...thanks, and that is what I'd use these for. I'll really try them, they did get some decent reviews. They can always go in the bedroom for an ipod if they don't work anywhere else. I was attracted to their having the decoder with the digital inputs. For >$200 it still seems like they may still be a descent value.
Yeah, they are in a niche of their own. While the Creative G5s cost around the same, they lack the integrated decoder and connectivity.
Klipsch has been cutting its prices and the 5.1 Ultra has been $200 at Best Buys nationwide the last 3 months, but I can guarantee you at this point 99% of BBs are out of those, so this is the next best thing.
Just for my edification, what is it that makes the dispersion so directional? The 3" cone or the phase plug ...or the fact that the 2 are mated together (I don't mean to sound so ignorant, I'm just trying to understand).
The phase plug isn't an acoustic device, it just there to cool the voice coil (the phase plugs on my Ascends are freezing cold even hot days) and reduce distortion by adding more voice coil/driver mass. They don't move with the actual flexing part of the driver to produce frequencies.
One-way designs are by nature directional, because high frequencies are the culprit. They cause drivers to shoot forward like a laser (if you ever use a microphone, you'll see what it means; you can measure a 6.5" driver up to 75 degrees to either side at 2m and still get 95% consistent output...on a tweeter, if you are off by as little as an inch in an open chamber, you get basically NO output). This is why there are tweeters (so that the midrange can be properly propogated in a wide area, rather be constricted, and limit the speaker from many people being able to listen to it, to just the person sitting directly in front of it).
This is why in music, they say aim the tweeters to your ears, and at ear-level--because they don't disperse at all (they might bounce about in a small room though, slightly improving dispersion). In home theater, the midrange (vocals) are the most important, so that's why single tweeter designs have worked so far (the highs aren't that audible anyway).
The problem with a 1-way design with 3" drivers is that, first, the highs aren't that audible, but the 3" drivers (which aren't good at reproducing them anyway), are forced to, so the driver dispersion suffers. So, this design really is only going to work for listening in a small area.
...just saw this, based on your other post:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html ...interesting.
Class D and Class T are various designs that were studied in the mid and late 90s and only recently came into fruition, partly because of the market, and partly because of problems they didn't understand (high frequency distortion, which has been more or less solved). They are cheap as heck to make, and are cleaner than analog designs, provide power at the truckloads, and have abysmally low heat generation (because they don't use up huge amounts of idle power. Classic analog designs are like helicopter gas turbine engines. Even if its idle, its still burning a hell of a lot of gas).
Panasonic's digital line as well as the Sonic T-amp are examples of low and medium powered Class-D entry-level products. Some companies, like Sony, Samsung, H&K and various other companies are more interested in a profit, so they've been milking their analog products (their flagship 150W/channel receivers) and they are both trying to maximize profit as well as give digital a big splash when they officially kick it into the market--alot of their market entry digital designs are 250W+ 7.1 behemoth receivers at $5,000 pricetag (they are charging it like an analog product, because more expensive means better, right?) whereas some of the entry-level gear is just as clean, and only costs $100-200, and power wise more than holds its own against current analog flagships in the $1k region in terms of power and distortion.
Z-5500 ftw if you have a bargain available to you.
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