Of course, I don;t have any commerical interest in DCA whatsoever. In fact, Dave Merrill is a friend who I respect for his single minded pursuit to bring affordable audio to beginning audiophiles. Dave belongs to that hard core band of north american single driver afficianados who know the differences between the different variants of the Rat shack/fostex 4 inchers, and who can differentiate between a zigma hornet & a PAWO horn. I myself own and have listened to a lot of these single drivers, and usually they need bass augmentation, and in some cases a supertweeter.
OFten, they have objectionable frequnecy aberrations as well.
But the DCA 5.5 in a PAWO horn is the first setup I hav eever heard that does NOT need ANY twewakng, no passive components, no notch filter, no BFC circuit; NOTHHING in the path between the amp & the driver, and STILL sounds great without serious compromise.
AS mentioned before, I recommend this setup strongly.
Here is the catch: Dave was selling these for $90-$100 a pair (a very very reasonable price if you ask me), but he had very few initial drivers. THe PAWO horn BTW is an excellent design, available on the web, and shoould not cost more than $300 to build if you get a carpenter to build it for you. If you build it yourself, should be even less, like a $100-$150.
NO curves in this horn! GREAT WAF! Very elegant design.
I thinkd Dave's initial set of drivers is gone (fortunately I bought a spare pair!)
For example, Mark M, an audiophile buddy & owner of a mega buck audio note system, decided to buy one or two pairs of these drivers on the spot after listening to them in my house. This should reassure you that I have not lost my mind, these are indeed good!
In order for Dave Merrill to get another batch, i thnk he needs to order a few hundred from his source at least. So if you are interested, and for the money, frankly, you;d have to be crazy NOT to be intereted, I recommend you email Dave and tell him of your interest. If he gets enough emails of interest, he may be motivated to get another batch made.
Otherwise, I fear this driver will fade into legend. And we don't want that.
-akhilesh