Most of my time with SET has been with full range drivers. My first SET friendly speakers were a set of Cabasse farella 401, and that was a lot of years ago. I spent some time with the Altier First Horn, and eventually ran a set of Audio Nirvana Super 12 in a 2.8 CF cabinet for quite a few years. Bought the Sachiko cabinets off of Audiogon from the builder in California and had them shipped up here. Owned them about 4 years now.
Started with the recommended driver for them 206E, and was really underwhelmed with the driver. Pretty coarse sounding, and that says something cause the AN drivers are not exactly linear. Eventually found a pair of Fostex 208 Sigma- first generation- drivers for the cabinet, which is what I am currently using. Better driver all around, more even in tonal balance, more refined sounding, it was all around a better performer. The cabinets are wired up with Cardas SE 15, Cardas copper binding posts, and parts Express Sonic Barrier in the compression chamber. Yes I did listen to hte speaker with poly fill batting at the throat before putting in the SB, and things did sound better with the latter.
Actually I have no complaint about the top end of the Fostex drivers, it is fairly open and nicely balanced. What I am looking to do is improve the harmonic texture of music, the better high efficiency speakers I have listened to do a better job at this in my experience. just the opinion of a simple pig mind you. Not that the Sachiko sound bad at all, they are very very good....but I am of the opinion that they have become the limiting factor. I do use a sub with them, an Infinity Cascade Model 15. A bit of an unconventional choice, but it has the traits to be a pretty good audio sub. Cabinet is stout and inert, just shy of 100 pounds as I recall. 4 smaller diaphragm drivers...6 inch square...so not a lot of cone mass to try to control. Does use Infinity bass management system, which works reasonably well. I run the Sachiko full range, and roll the sub in at slightly below 50 hertz.
One more thought. So if I were to locate a pair of Altec 604 drivers, do you suppose I could get away with having a cabinet built for a kilo buck unfinished?
Regards
Mister Pig