Opinions on 5" midwoofer choice

[pajazo]

Hi all,

I'm going to design and build a pair of small monitor speakers with Seas 27TDFC tweeters and some 5" midwoofers. The tweeters I already have and I also have some measuring equipment so I can design the crossovers myself if I need to.

Now I can't decide which midwoofers to buy. The enclosure size will be something like 8 liters ported and the crossover point maybe near 2 kHz.

The drivers I have considered so far are Peerless' new HDS basic (830873) and phase plugged (830882) versions and Seas L15RLY/P or CA15RLY.

All of these cost about the same at the local vendor. The phase plugged Peerless has the lowest inductance above 2kHz, but does it matter if the crossover is at 2 kHz? The aluminum Seas has the resonance peak at 9 kHz but John K has designed a crossover for it that could be used.

Of course I will consider other suggestions also.

[Tomv]

I would suggest you buy a Scan-Speak slitted paper midwoofers, their just excellent and you have to mess with all the that crossover problems that metal cones usually create (Peerless is also good but I prefer Scan-Speak)

[mr_push_pull]

Morel has the MW144 5-incher, should have an F3 of 50-55Hz in a 7l or so vented box. It may be the perfect choice for you. Some guru that I know told me that it's the best Morel midbass for a small bookshelf. As a matter of fact I'm planning to buy one myself.

Le is also pretty small.

There is an user of DIY Audio that built a pair of speakers using this driver, don't remember his name, maybe do a search with the drivers name, he might give you some opinions.

[pajazo]

The Morel looks like avery good driver for my purpose, but it would exceed my budget as it costs roughly 2x more than the peerless and seas drivers.
I noticed John Krutke's measurements of 27tdfc with a wave guide and also that a local hifi store sells very similar wave guides that they also use in their speaker kits, so I might buy a pair of them and see if they measure well with the tweeters.

[sberube]

I would definately go with peerless 830860. I've just finished a project using it in a 11 liter enclosure, and it sounds just amazing! (crossed first order with a 47 Ohm resistor bypass on the inductor). I matched it to a Vifa XT19, had to use a 1.1Ohm resistor to attenuate the volume of the XT19, but it sounds amazingly good for the price.

Enjoy!

[mr_push_pull]

Originally posted by pajazo
The Morel looks like avery good driver for my purpose, but it would exceed my budget as it costs roughly 2x more than the peerless and seas drivers.

I guess you're right, Israel has an army to support

[hooha]

Originally posted by sberube
I would definately go with peerless 830860. I've just finished a project using it in a 11 liter enclosure, and it sounds just amazing! (crossed first order with a 47 Ohm resistor bypass on the inductor). I matched it to a Vifa XT19, had to use a 1.1Ohm resistor to attenuate the volume of the XT19, but it sounds amazingly good for the price.

Enjoy!

Glad to hear someone is happy with this Peerless model. I've chosen these over a small handfull of units and will be using a pair of them in an active system with a ribbon (MMT) and a pair of subs.

Should prove interesting...

Mark

[pajazo]

Originally posted by sberube
I would definately go with peerless 830860.

Why did you choose 830860 over the Nomex-cone series? At least here in finland the 830873 and the phase plugged 830882 cost about the same as 830860, the nomex exclusive model being slightly cheaper than the other 5" models. Weird, considering that it ought to be the flagship model of peerless.

It does not have a very smooth roll off but if I use it with waveguided 27tdfc I would cross it over quite low, so a smooth roll off is of little use to me anyway. I suppose the exclusive model should have the least distortion because it has a copper cap over the pole piece. The other peerless models do not have it.

[sberube]

I'd have to say the choice was a combination of price (54$ CAD here), sensitivity (to match the Vifa XT19 I'm using), look (it looks really really nice), low frequency response, and the length to which it goes flat. This guy can provide flat response all the way to 5khz + So wanting to cross over in the 3600-3800 range, this was a good driver. Also, if I failed miserably with my project, I wanted to (re)use the driver to build a TL, and it is close to having the proper parameters for it. Oh, and I don't like the look of the exclusive model with the phase plug

Originally posted by pajazo


Why did you choose 830860 over the Nomex-cone series? At least here in finland the 830873 and the phase plugged 830882 cost about the same as 830860, the nomex exclusive model being slightly cheaper than the other 5" models. Weird, considering that it ought to be the flagship model of peerless.

It does not have a very smooth roll off but if I use it with waveguided 27tdfc I would cross it over quite low, so a smooth roll off is of little use to me anyway. I suppose the exclusive model should have the least distortion because it has a copper cap over the pole piece. The other peerless models do not have it.

[pajazo]

I guess I'm going with the nomex exclusive. I just wish I could get it with black frame and phase plug, but again, the sound is the most important thing in speakers.