5'' midwoofer that can play loud and clean

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I'm trying to pick a 5'' woofer for bass duties, and I'm looking for one that can play loud and clean and sound good in the lower mids to cross to something in the caliber of a Scanspeak 10F. EQ will be used to extend the bass response in a sealed box, so I primarily care about how it performs near Xmax. Since it seems like every woofer has 5mm of Xmax, I care about how clean the driver is at 5mm of excursion. Planning to use 4 woofers in each speaker to get enough displacement for bass output. The enclosure will be very small, about 6L shared between 4 drivers, so the motor strength needs to be high. The small size is on purpose, as I want to try to get as much bass as possible from a small speaker.

These are the woofers I'm considering

1. SEAS ER15RLY: This driver has been used in speakers praised for its bass power and midrange clarity. Doesn't really have the appearance of a woofer that can put out a lot of bass though.

2. SB Satori MW13P: The neo motor provides a lot of motor strength, and the distortion seems very low. This will clearly also sound very good for mids. Quite expensive though.

3. Tang Band W5-1685: This is the 5'' version of the TB W4-1720 that I used in a previous design. Bass performance was superb on the 4'' all the way to xmax, and the mids sounded very good too, so I know the 5'' is going to deliver even more. However, the driver is a bit too deep and way too heavy to be used in multiples for a portable speaker at over 7 pounds each (vs 2-3 pounds for most 5'').

4. Peerless 830945 SLS 5.25'': Looks excellent on paper for bass duties, but I'm not sure if it'll sound good in the lower mids.

5. SB Acoustics SB15NAC30-8: Looks like a quality driver with a nice low fs.

6. Scanspeak 15W/8530K: If I had money I'd just get this and call it a day, but it is too expensive.

Could anyone with experience with any of these drivers comment on how they behave when pushed near its xmax limits? Feel free to suggest other drivers you think would work well. Thanks!
 
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C=2πr
S=π r^2

yes, sorry: radius and double radius tells you the lenght
and area tells you about the surface
:p

so we have a product and a quadratic product.
Once you enlarge the circle, say 1 ", the S(urface) will enlarge much more.
In a loudspeaker this implies a major Vas (according the suspensions are the same ) etc. etc.
 
Hmm, I'm not clear how you are going to arrange 4 5" woofers with magnets in the box, a midrange and a tweeter in a 6 liter cabinet. If using for lower midrange too then it seems like you could run into all kinds of issues. What is your target SPL and F3 for this system? Any constraints height, width, depth or just want to show you can get massive bass out of 6L? Initial thought would be to side mount 1 or 2 8" subs, they can output deep bass is small cabinet with eq... Surface area wise, 2x 8" is > 4x 5". Xmax in some 8" drivers is huge so a single 8" can likely outperform 4 5" speakers and will be easier on budget, work better in 6L and sound better.


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If you move up to a 6.5, the Anarchy woofer does well sealed and has plenty of xmax.

Great woofer, unfortunately it would make the speaker too big and no longer a "small" speaker.

In executing the design criteria, be mindful of Hoffman's Iron Law for bass production.

SEAS Prestige L16RNX 6" Aluminum Cone Woofer (H1488-08) - 8 ohm
Though labeled a 6" woofer, the Linkwitz Seas L16RNX has a 146mm/5.75" outside diameter flange.

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...l16rnx-6-aluminum-cone-woofer-h1488-08-8-ohm/
Zaph|Audio

I missed that driver since it is labeled as 6'', but that looks like a nice driver. The link on Zaph audio is interesting too, but I'm sort of confused by some of its comments. He's describing the Tang Band W4-1720 and W5-1685 as merely average for bass distortion when I thought the performance was exceptional.

Hmm, I'm not clear how you are going to arrange 4 5" woofers with magnets in the box, a midrange and a tweeter in a 6 liter cabinet. If using for lower midrange too then it seems like you could run into all kinds of issues. What is your target SPL and F3 for this system? Any constraints height, width, depth or just want to show you can get massive bass out of 6L? Initial thought would be to side mount 1 or 2 8" subs, they can output deep bass is small cabinet with eq... Surface area wise, 2x 8" is > 4x 5". Xmax in some 8" drivers is huge so a single 8" can likely outperform 4 5" speakers and will be easier on budget, work better in 6L and sound better.


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Yes, there are constraints on dimensions. I'm thinking of no bigger than 14'' x 6'' x 6''. I want it to look like a sound dock, but of course this one is completely on steroids. Therefore it cannot have an awkward dimension. The plan is to have the 4 woofers in a dual opposed WTMW speaker. This way not only it'll fit in a nice dimension like 14'' x 6'' x 6'', but the dual opposed configuration cancels mechanical forces. This allows me to use 1/4'' BB to minimize the size of the speaker and the speaker won't move from all the woofer blasting.

I thought about side mounting too, but it will cause too many problems. The obvious one is the awkward dimension. Even if I can get past that, I can fit at most one 8'' in 6L, and the cabinet would be very unstable with the 8'' blasting, which means I have to use thicker wood, like 3/4'', which would make the speaker much bigger just from the wood itself.

And yes, I wanna show I can get massive bass from a 6L box. That's like 90% why I'm doing this. The value factor is a solid 1/10, but the fun factor is undoubtedly 11/10.
 
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By what metric did you think the Tb w4-1720 had exceptional bass? I have them in a very small bookshelf design and would say the bass is surprising considering the tiny enclosure, but not too good if you turn it up much. Zaphs measurements are probably spot on, our ears will put up with a fair amount of distortion in the bass range.
 
By what metric did you think the Tb w4-1720 had exceptional bass? I have them in a very small bookshelf design and would say the bass is surprising considering the tiny enclosure, but not too good if you turn it up much. Zaphs measurements are probably spot on, our ears will put up with a fair amount of distortion in the bass range.

In .25 cubic feet tuned to ~45 hz, the W4-1720 can easily hit > 90dB @ 1m into the 40's. Is that huge bass, no. But considering it's a 4" speaker it is impressive. I have a pair used as computer speakers and the bass is surprising for the driver size....


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To add on to that, my last build was a W4-1720 tuned to 47Hz in a 0.07 cu ft cabinet. With some careful DSP tuning, a pair can put out some astounding, subwoofer bass at normal to above average volumes. The W4-1720 stays clean all the way to Xmax. Sure, it gets ugly real fast if you push it beyond xmax, but before that point it just performs.
 
OP--just to confirm: you're doing for 5" mid/woofers for a narrow cabinet? 2x5", you might as well spend the same amount of $$ on a single 7" or 8" woofer, where you'll get the same amount of displacement and should be able to buy a better motor and similar box size.

Simpler to do a two way than a TMM or MTM setup if narrow baffle isn't the priority.
 
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In .25 cubic feet tuned to ~45 hz, the W4-1720 can easily hit > 90dB @ 1m into the 40's. Is that huge bass, no. But considering it's a 4" speaker it is impressive. I have a pair used as computer speakers and the bass is surprising for the driver size....

Like I said, surprising. I would like to see the distortion at 90+db at 40hz because mine start to sound pretty bloated before that. Maybe I have "golden ears" but I don't think so. These are in the speedster design, so much smaller than yours. I do love them as desk-tops.
 
Sorry guys, I linked the wrong woofer. The correct link is for the Linkwitz Pluto version, the Seas L16RN-SL.

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...estige-l16rn-sl-h1480-5-aluminum-cone-woofer/


Posted by Jed, post #315 at bottom of 9th page in thread linked below. In the thread both the Seas L16RN-SL (for sealed) and Seas L16RNX (for ported) are addressed.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...ni-and-center-channel)/page9&highlight=L16RNX

" Dennis, I don't rave about woofers very much but this L16 is amazing. It makes you hear detail in bass and has all the subtle textures that were missing in most other woofers I've heard. In fact, it might have lower distortion than my Aurasound NS10s from 100-400hz (gotta do a new distortion comparison of the two)."
 
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Like I said, surprising. I would like to see the distortion at 90+db at 40hz because mine start to sound pretty bloated before that. Maybe I have "golden ears" but I don't think so. These are in the speedster design, so much smaller than yours. I do love them as desk-tops.



When I said 40's I was meaning upper 40's:). I'd have to go back and find the SPL trace but I think it was 92dB at 48hz measured via Smaart RTA in room with music. Didn't hear anything nasty. Just to be clear this was not an anechoic measurement. I was just surprised and had smaart handy so took a look...


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