Which midrange driver to work with Audax HD-3P?

[Spherion]

Hello!

Finally I decided that the speakers I am going to build will sport an Audax HD-3P tweeter. Bearing im mind the fact that it's only rated at 70W and Xo freq. is 5 KHz and above I have some
questions:
- what midrange driver would suit HD-3P and would play
without any problems up to 5 KHz. I also mean dispersion...
I thought about new Scan Speak midrange driver 12M/4631G00
(data at http://www.d-s-t.com/scs/index.htm), but it's a new
driver and unfortunately there's not much info about it yet
- will HD-3P, crossed at, say 5KHz be able to play loud without
any compression? I was wondering abou the Pmax rating
of this driver, so is there anything to worry about?

Any suggestions, opinions, commest welcome.

Thanks!

Best regards,

Spherion

[Spherion]

Anyone? Please...

btw. the Pmax of HD-3P is 50W, my mistake

[pinkmouse]

Hi Spherion

I have used the HD3P lots, and it is a superb driver, much better than anything else in it's price range, and better than a lot more expensive ones as well!

The only driver I use with it these days is the HM100ZO, but that is mainly because no one else does a reasonably priced driver that works so well, so high. The HM100 has a little cone breakup at 5k, but it is bearable, and to be honest, not many mid drivers go that cleanly up to 5k anyway.

The lowest you can get with the HD3P is about 4.8k, as it drops off fairly quickly below that, and you have to rebuild the crossover that comes with the driver to do it. This means, from what I see at the Scan Speak site, that their mid should be ok as long as you can cope with a slightly directional sound.

Bear in mind that Audax rate the power handling of their speakers fairly conservatively, and also when you get to 5k and above, you don't actually need much power for the highs.

[Spherion]

Hello Pinkmouse,
Thanks for reply...I was looking for a good tweeter for a while.
Ribbons (Raven etc.) are too expensive for me, so I decided to
go for HD-3P.
What would you say about sonic qualities of HD-3P, I simply like
to know second opinion. To my ears it is slightly polite, but
doesn't have that specific 'textile' sound od (even HQ) domes...

Probably I'll stay with 'default' crossover. I can live with that
slight directionality - now I am listening to ESL's, so I got used to it

Considering what U say, I will be able to play really loud with HD-3P? You know, sometimes I have to make a small party

Best regards,

Spherion

[pinkmouse]

Hi Spherion

I think what you call polite, is merely the lack of distortion from the driver, it doesn't seem to have any of that hard nasty distortion that all dome tweeters seem to exhibit, (especially metal domes... I hate metal domes...)

When your ear gets used to this lack of distortion, all of a sudden things become much more 3d, with a pleasing sweetness, but still very high definition, hi-hats sound like real hi-hats, and violins and such have an accoustic naturalness that is lacking with other drivers. The sound is revealing, yet not tiring, you can listen to them for hours on end, and I do

As for party volumes, they do go pretty loud, but as with all good hi-fi speakers, they are not meant for continual party levels. But then again, I have never had any problems with them not being loud enough at any of my parties

[Spherion]

Hi Al,
Yeay, I think you're right about the lack of distortion.
I listened many times to very good conventional domes,
like Revelator and they simply sounded harsh to me.
Not a case with HD-3P

I think I'll probably go for the combination of that newest
Scan Speak midrange and HD-3P. I feel that it would be
a better soluction than HM100Z0.
This SS mid has a sensitivity about 90.5 dB (on paper, at least),
do u think I will have to attenuate HD-3P? If so, then how much?
And will I have to make any mods to the orginal crossover,
or just leave it as it is?

Oh, one more thing - is HD-3P very dierctional, how does this
matter look like?

Best regards,

Spherion

[pinkmouse]

Hi again

I would leave everything as it is for now, until you have built and measured the response of the drivers in the cabinet. You will have to tweak other things then, so you might as well wait 'till that stage before you change anything.

As for directionality, it is pretty good up to about 16K, then has a slow roll off at 30 degrees of about 8db/octave, but flat up to 30k in line.

[Spherion]

Tkanks again, Al!
So, the first thing is to play with AD-3P as it is form the factory
and work on the crossover for mid and bass first, am I right?

Considering your opinion, the directionality od HD-3P won't
bother me.

Well, finally, some more questions emerged. For example,
I suppose I will need a very fast bass driver, so that It will
keep up with the rest (I assume that this new 12M SS mid
is also a fast and detailed driver). What bass driver would
U suggest? I have a 32 sq meters room and I am thiking
about good 10" or 12" driver.

And, there's also a problem of enclosure. It should make
the best of some qualities of the both of these drivers
(spead, transparency)... I thougt initially of separate bass
and mid/high enclosures, so that I can make the enclosure
for mid and tweeter as narrow as possible. Is this a good idea?

Thanks,

Spherion

[pinkmouse]

Got to sleep, working in the morning, will reply in full later, cheers!

[Spherion]

Me too, actually, there's even one hour later in Poland

Greetz,

Spherion