Well, these appear to be a different animal entirely. I've had the pleasure of hearing Cosmos' and spkrman57's creations and they are quite nice. But these are vintage pro sound components, aren't they? Thus probably a far cry from the BOTL contemporary JBLs I was looking at originally.
Thanks Andy for the kind comments. The speakers Ben and Ron are playing with may be different from what you are looking at, but in their original form, these speakers weren't so great either. Tamed with a good and correct crossover, good diaphragm in the CD and a good horn, even the BOTL PA gear today *can* sound quite good. As GordonW pointed out, the horn in the speakers you are looking at is the same horn used in Econowave, the woofer is probably considerably better than many of the woofers used in the econowave projects, and you are only a decent crossover and inexpensive driver away from pretty darn good sound!
As Zilch and the rest of the E-Wave team have shown a way, there are inexpensive ways to make DIY near high end speaker systems.
The real big advantage, in my mind, of this efficient stuff is the dynamics that you can never get from some of the more tame, domesticated speaker system. They simply sound much more LIVE. Sure I love ADS and Electrostats to name a couple, but when you hear a snare drum snap or a bass drum kick on this big pro stuff, it makes you *feel* like you are there in the studio room. When Nora Jones or Carole King belt it out, you can almost feel their vocals. A good efficient system isn't as elegant as, for instance KLH Nine Electrostats, but they are far more lifelike.
Bottom line, could you take the speakers in question and morph them into something better than they are? Hell Yes! The question is, do you want to?
I'd highly suggest that any audiophile, no matter how sophisticated try a second system with some of this stuff.. They just might find something interesting... I have. I won't give up my ADS or KLH Nines, but right now, my main system has somewhat similar speakers in it:
