PE buyout 4" looks a bargain!

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This thread silk purse from sows ear contest? got me looking at low cost drivers, and whilst it's probably not one to use for that, I thought it could make a very good driver for a low cost MTM W(W) three way! or a TMMW(W)....

4" Treated Paper Cone Woofer 16 Ohm

With 16 ohms impedance two in parallel will still be 8 ohm amp friendly and with a super flat FR it could easily cover from say between 200 - 300 Hz and 2Khz.

Pair it with a small faceplate tweeter that can be crossed at 2k and a high efficiency woofer (or pair of woofers) and you should be able to make a pretty decent three way.

Shipping would kill it for me (otherwise I'd get a few to experiment with) but thought I'd put it out there.

This is the freq response graph posted on the PE website. For under $8 a pop it looks like a bargain!

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Tony.
 

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I'm thinking small near field "two and a half way" when I see those speakers. With small xmax of 1 mm they won't play very loud when used as a "woofer." It won't cost very much either though, and might sound pretty good.

PE offers some odd but interesting speakers sometimes. They had 8" 12 ohm woofers for pretty cheap a couple years ago; I think you could get 4 for around $50. I should have gotten 4 and built a 6 ohm "two and a half way" with them. I'll bet it would have been pretty good for $50 in woofers. :) They were just average woofers, but with two of them.... :wiz:
 
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Thought I'd do a sim of two of these in parallel in a small sealed box, crossed over at 300Hz 2nd order (electrical) LR active.

With 40W input it manages to stay below the 1mm xmax, and will output a max 108db.

Sim results attached. I'd say pretty respectable for use as a midrange in a lowish powered system.

Tony.
 

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With 40W input it manages to stay below the 1mm xmax, and will output a max 108db.

I wonder how much power compression you'd get. 108 dB is pretty loud.

Some speakers have more than others. Typically more efficient "pro" speakers have less. And you can hear it too; high efficiency and low compression = "effortless" sound. My 15" three ways were very flawed but they always had excellent dynamic response. And some commercial speakers intentionally compress dynamic range with light bulb type devices in series with the drivers :eek:. Some of you know what brand I'm talking about. They make the speakers sound terrible on purpose!:mad: You can really hear it when you turn up the volume - the sound just becomes jumbled and annoying.
 
Is that 1mm xmax for real? Seems low for a driver like that.

It's an $8 driver. There has to be a compromise.

Cheap drivers always have low xmax. Under $20 8" woofers often have only 2 mm. 3mm is typical, anything more is "generous."

When you're thinking about building speakers, you have criteria in mind. You pass right over cheap drivers because the limitations are obvious. If you weren't fussy, then you'd buy some off the shelf speakers, which would probably have 6.5" woofers with 3 mm xmax. Because you know, most inexpensive speaker systems have very cheap drivers.

It is a challenge to derive good performance from inexpensive drivers. Some of them would be decent in a large enclosure. Modern cheap stereos often have equalization to compensate for poor bass response. This is only practical with integrated designs. Some of these units cost around $100 yet provide room filling sound.
 
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