Agree with much of what you say here.
We must however be realistic about what a single 5 or six inch driver can do.
I am going to be reviewing some of the speakers in the R series, which use a variation of the Uni Q driver, with additional
bass reinforcement and larger cabinets. Jeff Fritz calls the R series one of the best bargains in audio today.
http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php/features-menu/opinion-menu/293
My Def Tech BP7000SC speakers are dual D'Appolito speakers which means that each enclosure has four 6 1/2" midbass/midrange drivers and two tweeters. So I went from having eight 6 1/2" woofers and four tweeters down to the LS50s with a single woofer/tweeter per speaker. Think I wasn't *scared* about how that was going to impact the ability to fill my room with sound? I was. Think I wasn't *scared* the first time I hit the mute button to un-mute the preamp and thought it all might be a joke? I was.
I did make the mistake of selling the LS50s short at first and I was very wrong for doing that. I will try and never repeat the mistake of being too quick to judge something. I judged the LS50s before they were broken in and before the custom made Sound Anchor stands arrived. I was using a pair of Paradigm monitor stands that barely weighed more than the LS50s and were not very stable while my Sound Anchor stands were being built. Tim called me out for "speed dating" the LS50s and when I thought about it, he was right.
I decided to unbox the Sound Anchor stands and set them up in my listening room and optimize the placement of the speakers. The Sound Anchor stands weigh 75 lbs each and provide a very stable platform for the LS50s. Just replacing my Paradigm stands with the Sound Anchor stands resulted in a huge jump in SQ. You would think there would be a huge difference in sound between the BP7000SC speakers due to the disparity in the number of drivers that are moving air. The reality is my worst fears never materialized with regards to having a shrunken soundstage and small images upon a small stage.
With regards to using subs with the LS50s which you think is too hard to pull off and you think you will lose the cohesiveness of the LS50s, it's simply not true unless you are someone who turns up your subs to the point that they are always 'there" and stick out like a sore thumb and always make their presence known because they are too loud. I have four subs with each sub having a 14" driver driven by their own 1800 watt amp and each sub has two 14" passive radiators. If you couldn't see the subs, I don't think many people would have any idea how many low frequency drivers were in the room. It does give a foundation to the LS50s in terms of true bottom end that they are incapable of on their own, but yet the magic of the LS50s shine through (which is their cohesiveness and purity of sound).
Recently I switched back to listening to the Def Techs to recalibrate my ears to their sound and let the chips fall where they may. I immediately became aware of the sound the Def Tech enclosures were adding to the sound as it thickened up the bass in a muddy sort of way and I no longer had the incredible purity of sound that the LS50s give you in spades. Many people who have heard both the LS50s and the Blades prefer the LS50s and I think I know why. The bigger the enclosure is and the more drivers that are mounted to it, the more it gives the enclosure a chance to sing along with the music and stamp its sonic thumbprint on the sound. I think that is the genius of the LS50. The enclosures are very small and beautifully engineered and built so they lend little to nothing of themselves in terms of coloration.
The LS50s deserve all of the praise that is being heaped upon them by the reviewers and in my opinion don't deserve some of the caveats that are being tacked on to them.
