What are the hurdles to disparate speaker-driver integration today? Perfect integration possible?

[caesar]

Should we be having speaker integration in hybrid stats, ribbons, horns, etc., in today's day and age? We have advanced computers that may model this stuff, and material sciences improvements are not slowing down.

Or will this always be a limiting factor? How much of this is an art?

Any ideas? Thank you

 

[andromedaaudio]

Off course its not an issue.
Ive heard several designs of several Brands where its
Not an issue, incl my own imo
Not on panel woofer combo s yet , but i havent heard the latest designs

 

[Mark Seaton]

Should we be having speaker integration in hybrid stats, ribbons, horns, etc., in today's day and age? We have advanced computers that may model this stuff, and material sciences improvements are not slowing down.

Or will this always be a limiting factor? How much of this is an art?

Any ideas? Thank you

Unless every driver is physically very small compared to the wavelength its producing, and those parts are very close together vs the wavelengths they cross over, there will always be some "art" in the scientific application of blending the parts. There are a few theoretical next best concepts using extremely steep filters and drive elements with very similar directivity, but even then you will have physical separation of the sources, and the abrupt transition between them. In practice most settle on and prefer gradual transitions and blending between differing behavior of a speaker.

Yes, different driver types have different sonic fingerprints, and you will notice a wart if one component is well inferior to a quality of another, but beyond significant distortions or compression, directivity and how the sound radiates in the room is by far the biggest factor in multi-element integration of a speaker.