I must confess it did not occur to me that they might be passive rather than active and I missed the audiophile price. PMC seems to be a strong brand. I was costing an active 2 way using reasonable components available to DIYers and coming to about £750-£1000.On this subject - if the total driver price of a pair passive pmc tb2s is around £100 - and the speakers cost £1350 - where is all the money going ? Surely the cabinet,foam and crossover are not that expensive ?
PS Why do you think the midwoofer costs £30?
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Why do you think the midwoofer costs £30?
Over the years PMC have increased prices to painful levels and far beyond inflation.
Their passive XB2 sub contains one £350 driver, no xover components and retails at £5250+VAT.
I must confess it did not occur to me that they might be passive rather than active and I missed the audiophile price. PMC seems to be a strong brand. I was costing an active 2 way using reasonable components available to DIYers and coming to about £750-£1000.
PS Why do you think the midwoofer costs £30?
saw it on ebay
Coaxial drivers have advantages and disadvantages.
What are they ?
That is not necessarily a particularly reliable source. For the cheaper speakers in their range a company like PMC is likely to have custom drivers assembled for them using off the shelf parts. They are unlikely to use a complete off the shelf driver available to DIYers. Now and again over-ordered OEM drivers with non-standard parameters do appear on ebay at relatively cheap prices. But it is ebay.saw it on ebay
For a 6.5" near field monitor a reasonable tweeter is likely to start at about £25 with some gains to be had spending more and with a reasonable midwoofer starting at about £35 with some gains to be had at £70-90 and perhaps small gains spending more. Your budget of £100 looks a bit too small, although not greatly so, if you wish to match the equivalent quality of your current speaker drivers.
The main advantage of a well designed coaxial is the controlled directivity they have in the both the horizontal and vertical directions. The main disadvantage is the distortion of the tweeter output by the moving midrange cone and diffraction off the edges. The latter seems to be a sufficiently large problem to prevent their widespread adoption.
That is why companies build strong brands.Over the years PMC have increased prices to painful levels and far beyond inflation.
That is not necessarily a particularly reliable source. For the cheaper speakers in their range a company like PMC is likely to have custom drivers assembled for them using off the shelf parts. They are unlikely to use a complete off the shelf driver available to DIYers. Now and again over-ordered OEM drivers with non-standard parameters do appear on ebay at relatively cheap prices. But it is ebay.
For a 6.5" near field monitor a reasonable tweeter is likely to start at about £25 with some gains to be had spending more and with a reasonable midwoofer starting at about £35 with some gains to be had at £70-90 and perhaps small gains spending more. Your budget of £100 looks a bit too small, although not greatly so, if you wish to match the equivalent quality of your current speaker drivers.
The main advantage of a well designed coaxial is the controlled directivity they have in the both the horizontal and vertical directions. The main disadvantage is the distortion of the tweeter output by the moving midrange cone and diffraction off the edges. The latter seems to be a sufficiently large problem to prevent their widespread adoption.
ah ok cheers. No the 100 quid isnt my budget thats what I estimated the PMC drivers cost . Id probably be willing to spend up to £1000 (thousand) on both speakers. I found the exact drivers my model used and looked for prices online. Remember Im going to build a three wayer. Thanks for your informative posts.
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I'm getting the impression to start with I might simply be better building a three way kit - anyone got anymore good recommendations for kits (please remember I want a three way 25hz-20 khz) ?
Hmmm... I just repeated your search using the PMC part number and saw photos of standard Vifa drivers with standard Vifa labels on. Labels like that would not normally be put on drivers assembled to a manufacturers spec. In fact a manufacturer can usually pay a small amount extra to stop labels being put on standard drivers. The signs are that I was wrong and PMC were using off the shelf drivers rather than ones with parameters optimise for their cabinets.I found the exact drivers my model used and looked for prices online.
Hmmm... I just repeated your search using the PMC part number and saw photos of standard Vifa drivers with standard Vifa labels on. Labels like that would not normally be put on drivers assembled to a manufacturers spec. In fact a manufacturer can usually pay a small amount extra to stop labels being put on standard drivers. The signs are that I was wrong and PMC were using off the shelf drivers rather than ones with parameters optimise for their cabinets.
Well it might even be worth my while selling them and building some others from a kit with the money - I think I could probably get 500 pounds for them - what do you reckon ?
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The main advantage of a well designed coaxial is the controlled directivity they have in the both the horizontal and vertical directions. The main disadvantage is the distortion of the tweeter output by the moving midrange cone and diffraction off the edges. The latter seems to be a sufficiently large problem to prevent their widespread adoption.
I disagree about both claims! Please check test results of modern 3-way speakers with coaxial mid-tweeters! KEF Blade and other models and TAD Reference models. TAD Compact Ref One is very similar to KINGROY! These utilize special drivers and my suggestion SEAS C18 (and perhaps even MR18) is on par with those. Even the veteran coaxial T18 is quite good. LR2(with notch for cone resonance peak) or LR4 xo around 1.6-2.5kHz is usually best choice.
I think that a speaker like fully active KINGROY4 is a wonderful studio monitor speaker!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Jon Marsh has a bubbling project with C18 http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...speaker-project-what-goes-around-comes-around
and so has a Norwegian guy too http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?42869-Seas-C18EN001-coax-in-open-baffle
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In all fairness PMC use a customised version of Volts RV3143 for the XB2 with a doped cone. The one freely available is not doped.
On the other hand most Volt drivers are made to order anyway so I don't think it costs PMC much extra over the standard one and it will still be less than the money we would have to cough up for one.
On the other hand most Volt drivers are made to order anyway so I don't think it costs PMC much extra over the standard one and it will still be less than the money we would have to cough up for one.
I disagree about both claims! Please check test results of modern 3-way speakers with coaxial mid-tweeters! KEF Blade and other models and TAD Reference models. TAD Compact Ref One is very similar to KINGROY! These utilize special drivers and my suggestion SEAS C18 (and perhaps even MR18) is on par with those. Even the veteran coaxial T18 is quite good. LR2(with notch for cone resonance peak) or LR4 xo around 1.6-2.5kHz is usually best choice.
I think that a speaker like fully active KINGROY4 is a wonderful studio monitor speaker!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.![]()
Jon Marsh has a bubbling project with C18 http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...speaker-project-what-goes-around-comes-around
and so has a Norwegian guy too http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?42869-Seas-C18EN001-coax-in-open-baffle
Whats the price of the kingroy4 ? I couldnt find prices for other Seas kits either....
Can you say why?I disagree about both claims!
I am not wholly unfamiliar with coaxial drivers. I used to have a pair of KEF Q1s in the kitchen a few years ago and the DIY speakers I am currently (supposed to be) working on use the coaxial mid/tweeter from the KEF R series. I bought the drivers to play with because I was unexpectedly disappointed with an audition of current KEF speaker and wanted to find out why and see if I might be able to do better.
Madisound have a kit here which includes the original SEAS write up. SEAS themselves have removed the kit from their list of DIY designs. Does anyone know why?Whats the price of the kingroy4 ? I couldnt find prices for other Seas kits either....
Madisound have a kit here which includes the original SEAS write up. SEAS themselves have removed the kit from their list of DIY designs. Does anyone know why?
This looks like a nice speaker - is there a cheaper amp than the hypex ? Also - is there a three way kit that uses those three way amps someone posted earlier ?
Also is there any measurements for the time based response of the kingroy anywhere ? waterfalls etc
Can you say why?
Please read test reports of Blade and TAD eg. from Stereophile and SoundStage. Do they complain about intermodulation or distortion or edge diffraction problems? Do you see anything susceptile in measurements of TAD?
TAD Compact Reference CR1 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
KEF R And Q series speakers have quite simple crossovers and suffer a bit from issues you mentioned, I agree. 2-way coaxials are even more problematic because of large cone movement.
Madisound full kit price for a single KINGRO4Y is 1080$ Drivers alone would be around 800$ But MR18 would cut some 200$ per speaker.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...as-kingro4y-king-roy-active-speaker-kit-each/
My personal choice would be
SEAS MR18 2x 219,- 438,-
SEAS L26RO4Y 2x 252,- 504,-
Minidsp 4x10HD +plugin 509,- Total 1500,-$ (has both balanced and unbalanced outputs)
Plus diy-boxes and some random amplifiers lying around (6 channels) for starters. It is easy to put huge amounts of money in carpentery and amplifiers, only the sky is limit! You can do that later on if you want - this is the grain and salt of DIY audio!
Goes a bit over 1000,-£ though...
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Please read test reports of Blade and TAD eg. from Stereophile and SoundStage. Do they complain about intermodulation or distortion or edge diffraction problems? Do you see anything susceptile in measurements of TAD?
TAD Compact Reference CR1 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
KEF R And Q series speakers have quite simple crossovers and suffer a bit from issues you mentioned, I agree. 2-way coaxials are even more problematic because of large cone movement.
Madisound full kit price for a single KINGRO4Y is 1080$ Drivers alone would be around 800$ But MR18 would cut some 200$ per speaker.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...as-kingro4y-king-roy-active-speaker-kit-each/
My personal choice would be
SEAS MR18 2x 219,- 438,-
SEAS L26RO4Y 2x 252,- 504,-
Minidsp 4x10HD +plugin 509,- Total 1500,-$ (has both balanced and unbalanced outputs)
Plus diy-boxes and some random amplifiers lying around (6 channels) for starters. It is easy to put huge amounts of money in carpentery and amplifiers, only the sky is limit! You can do that later on if you want - this is the grain and salt of DIY audio!
Goes a bit over 1000,-£ though...
Wait a sec - are you saying 1500 dollars for the speaker,cabinet and the amp ?
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