No.
It happens with "hard" driver materials (e.g. Seas Excel midwoofers and Accuton ceramic tweets, or Cabasse foamed-plastic midwoofers and their hard dome tweeters) too.
And it doesn't happen with well-designed (i.e. consistent midrange directivity) speakers, despite soft driver materials for mid and tweet (e.g. Phase Tech PC 3.5) or soft driver materials for the woofer (Tannoy 3133GG 12" Dual Concentric). As those two examples show, treble directivity isn't the issue either (The PC 3.5 is very wide directivity narrowing in the top octave, and the 12" Dual is ~90deg in the relevant region, narrowing again at the tippy top.)
The midrange mushroom cloud issue is not a "minor" problem, as someone not quoted claimed earlier. It's a key "tell" that one's listening to canned music.
It is minor imo if the off axis only varies by 3-5dB over a wide range of angles in the off axis. That isn't to say that it's not audible but I'd hardly call that an issue to worry greatly over. Yes I do prefer the way a properly implemented wave-guide system sounds, but I also greatly enjoy designs that exhibit a minor 'mushroom cloud' too.
That said, having now used wave-guides, I would never design a 6" two way without one.
That said, having now used wave-guides, I would never design a 6" two way without one.
I'm still not sure how a midrange power response issue of this magnitude "correlates well" with an amusical spitty character.
Frankly I'm not even sure what a "spitty" character is to you.
When I've used the term "spitty" to describe a sound coming from a loudspeaker it specifically referenced a (visibly with measurement freq./CSD plot) hashy non-linear behavior in the upper treble (often from a poor interface between compression driver and horn). It tends to add a "bright" sibilant character that seemingly extends throughout the treble range.It could be that your "spitty" is my "forward"..
The other issues I pointed out: significant horn-loading from the driver's output (or diaphragm surface sound), or added distortion from the tweeter - could still be the problem (..rather than polar behavior). Even the diffraction issue *could* be - which tends to be a greater issue with a centered tweeter on the baffle. ..or it could be another problem entirely, perhaps break-up of the 7" driver insufficiently attenuated/notched?
I suppose it's all moot though.
-I don't think the OP experiences this problem, or at least hasn't recognized it with his current 2-way (which also has the same sort of polar issue).
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Not sure if this "spitty" character is what your referring too..
When I got it, it was a used unit, the owner had it for a year, new, The pair was a bit forward (too forward for my taste). I installed a notch filter in the 900 to 1200 range. After a year or so, I noticed that the sound was getting dull, I checked my connections, tubes etc, everything was in order. I decided to remove the notch filter and the sound improved and was no longer forward.
When I got it, it was a used unit, the owner had it for a year, new, The pair was a bit forward (too forward for my taste). I installed a notch filter in the 900 to 1200 range. After a year or so, I noticed that the sound was getting dull, I checked my connections, tubes etc, everything was in order. I decided to remove the notch filter and the sound improved and was no longer forward.
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