Help and comments on midrange upgrade welcome

[leifislive]

Hi,

I am (re)considering a midrange upgrade for a Vifa PLW18 and Vifa XT ringradiator design (XO: 2.5k). which seems to have some problems with the 1k-3k region especially with string sounds, since my design goal is to have a natural string sound on orchestral music.

XO thought to be 350 (1st) and 2500 (2nd).

I am wondering, whether such an upgrade will help, or whether a complete new design is more promising...
looking for affordable (<100$) speakers, I thought of one of the following:

eton 4/300
vifa PL11 W/M or 13 MN
audax HM 130/100
peerless HDS 134

may be scanspeak 8640...

do you have any comments or suggestions on that plan?

new system would be usher 8137, mdm 55 and huiquiphon OW II, as discussed in another thread.

thanks and regards

leif

[5th element]

Maybe you just dont like the sound the vifas produce with strings which is entirely possible. I have made a two way with a budged vifa tweet and a older vifa mid/bass C20WJ. These most deffinatley do not sound crap with strings, far from it they sound very good. So maybe an upgrade is not required just a change.

Or another thing to consider is the rest of the system is not helping and its not the speakers which are to blame at all.

[tech.knockout]

I am wondering, whether such an upgrade will help, or whether a complete new design is more promising...

when you chuck a midrange driver in, its not an upgrade its a completely new design, requiring new crossover work, etc. Whether you want to do this or use completely different drivers is up to you and the difficulty of designing crossovers for them( your capability).

[sreten]

I note you just say c/o 2.5Khz, which sets my alarm bells ringing.
Baffle step compensation and all that, also two PL18's are needed
for a reasonable three way with the drivers mentioned.

You could try this well developed c/o first:

http://www.partsexpress.com/projects...la/nebula.html

sreten.

[leifislive]

Hi

thanks for your replies

@5th element:
Don't get me wrong, I don't think they sound crappy, not at all, I am very satisfied with their performance beside two very little facts I got aware of while developing my ears along my speakers:

- in "choatic" orchestra music (all instruments are close together in a narrow frequency spot (example Bruckners 8th symphony first movement)) I wish I had the "airy" sound of a concert hall, I can tell immediately under these circumstances, these strings (and especially violins) do not sound like I am used to (I am playing cello in several orchestras), they sound "boxy" compressed, a little distorted, "direct", hard to discribe
In other words, it lacks some "naturalness" in some cases, independent of volume and low frequency reproduction of the plw 18

- I sometimes miss some details and clearlyness of the recordings, lower instruments (cello, bass, bassoon) have problems to be as clearly audible as they are as in my AKG 241 headphones

@ tech.knockout
this is a question on definitions

@ sretren:

this XO is a helpful alternative, however, I do not have this version of the PLW... bad luck, I would have to exchange my PLW, which might be worthwile considering, not sure yet... would like to listen to it before
I remember you seem to be very aware of the baffle step issue, could you tell me why? Baffle step compensation shouldn't be a major problem, yet radiation pattern could be more sort of a problem.

this, and my gut feeling, is why I tend to prefer a 2x8'', 2'' and 0.75'' project. it may be best optimized for string and orchestra reproduction.