[Tom Wood]

[size=10pt]So after falling in love with my UE-11's again this festival season I got to thinking about what other moulds were available and all the usual suspects came up, amongst the normal artist testimonials one other thing was similar - the amount of claims that more drivers = greater headroom before distortion. Now I’m not sure about anyone else but i think if the SPL going through my in-ears was enough to make them distort then I wouldn't have much of a career left as a sound engineer - let alone any ears left. [/size]
 
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[size=10pt]I'm beginning to think that the great monitor wars are actually becoming the great driver wars and the question is do more drivers always make a better monitor and more worryingly is it right that companies justify putting up to 8 drivers in a monitor on claims of greater volume before distortion when the levels a user would have to reach before distorting their monitors would be quite frankly dangerous?[/size]
 

 

[semisight]

Is it right? Perhaps morally gray, especially as the differences become so subjective.
 
I don't think the only claim is that they provide greater headroom (if it is, they should fire their marketing teams). Having more drivers theoretically allows for better tuning of the crossovers.
 
I personally would like to see a 4 way crossover IEM over a new 10 driver monstrosity. With the advancements made in BA driver technology over the past few years, confining BAs to a smaller frequency range ought to produce cleaner sound when well tuned.