Thanks a lot this explains the statement that is the midrange that makes or breaks the sound
i am noticing that speaking of cone midrange the bandwidth is correlated to the cone size (what a discover you may say)
however if the goal is to cover the midrange with just one driver a 4" or 5" unit could reach 4kHz starting from about 300Hz with a steep low cut
nedless to say that the choice is immense
i will look around
on this basis a 3 ways seems to me the most promising solution from small to medium size speakers
the 2 ways big woofer plus horn solution will have the transition placed just in the middle of the critical midrange
a full range just used for the midrange could be interesting instead
well if this happens it means that the more expensive units have some flaws in their design
when the range where the ears are more sensitive is right it will be just a matter to complete with a woofer and a tweeter
and this justifies also listening tests of specific tracks to evaluate the midrange
thanks a lot again Therefore a testing procedure could be first FR and CSD tests
then listening evaluation
hi thank you very much You mean distortion graphs like this one
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/revel-m105-bookshelf-speaker-review.14745/
once established the acceptable distortion level the usable range can be determined easily
thanks a lot i will try to use tweeters above 3kHz In some big speakers the single tweeter works from 5kHz up
and italian speakers designer used to sustain that if the tweeter is used only above 5k the selection procedure will be much less critical as almost all decent ones will work just fine
Ginetto, you are all the time speaking about distortion behaviour of driver units, but showing graphics of louspeakers systems!
Nonlinear distrotion (harmonic and imd) difficult to evaluate between drivers, because driver's sensitivity differs and some measurements are done with fixed voltage, some with fixed spl. So, one must be very careful when comparing data from different sources! And then add to this that different order harmonics change differently with voltage/spl in diffferent drivers!
Best source that I know is www.hificompass.com Distortion is measured with 6 input voltages, and several IMD tests. A thread with discussion here https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/
Loudspeaker driver design and manufacturing is difficult, many aspects must be consired - frequency range, max spl capacity, sensitivity, diameter, membrane material and shape, excursion, motor type and details, spider, surround, frame etc. Sonic performance, production cost, durability, esthetics, marketing to brands and perhaps to diyers, possible special OEM series with special features, etc. And economics, it is business!
When a diy designer starts design process, (s)he has some idea about the total max cost and type of complete speaker, it's size, frequency range in lows, spl capacity, listening distance, directivity goal etc. Then comes number and size of drivers/ways, acoustic principle (sealed, reflex, open baffle, line, horn...) and some idea of each way's frequency range. Only after this one starts to seek for driver unit canditates for each task/way, and distortion performance is one of the criteria. Measurements reveal many aspects and one must decide which properties get most value (spl smoothness / spl capacity / directivity / distortion / CSD waterfall / price / availability etc.)
There are hundreds of manufacturers and brands, but it is safest to stay with the most popular and respected brands and those usually are also often tested by indifferent evaluaters like HifiCompass. If you want to have lowest distortion, look at drivers from Purifi, Bliesma and Kartesian Audio. They are rather expensive too. Very good drivers come from eg. ScanSpeak, SB Acoustics (including Satori), Morel, Accuton, SEAS and Dayton. Of cource there are some specific exceptions in both directions! For PA pro systems there are good brands like JBL, B&C, Eighteen Sound, Precision devices, Eminence etc.
If the loudspeaker system design is poor, the best drivers don't give good sound. If design is good, moderate units will sound wonderfully good.
Nonlinear distrotion (harmonic and imd) difficult to evaluate between drivers, because driver's sensitivity differs and some measurements are done with fixed voltage, some with fixed spl. So, one must be very careful when comparing data from different sources! And then add to this that different order harmonics change differently with voltage/spl in diffferent drivers!
Best source that I know is www.hificompass.com Distortion is measured with 6 input voltages, and several IMD tests. A thread with discussion here https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/
Loudspeaker driver design and manufacturing is difficult, many aspects must be consired - frequency range, max spl capacity, sensitivity, diameter, membrane material and shape, excursion, motor type and details, spider, surround, frame etc. Sonic performance, production cost, durability, esthetics, marketing to brands and perhaps to diyers, possible special OEM series with special features, etc. And economics, it is business!
When a diy designer starts design process, (s)he has some idea about the total max cost and type of complete speaker, it's size, frequency range in lows, spl capacity, listening distance, directivity goal etc. Then comes number and size of drivers/ways, acoustic principle (sealed, reflex, open baffle, line, horn...) and some idea of each way's frequency range. Only after this one starts to seek for driver unit canditates for each task/way, and distortion performance is one of the criteria. Measurements reveal many aspects and one must decide which properties get most value (spl smoothness / spl capacity / directivity / distortion / CSD waterfall / price / availability etc.)
There are hundreds of manufacturers and brands, but it is safest to stay with the most popular and respected brands and those usually are also often tested by indifferent evaluaters like HifiCompass. If you want to have lowest distortion, look at drivers from Purifi, Bliesma and Kartesian Audio. They are rather expensive too. Very good drivers come from eg. ScanSpeak, SB Acoustics (including Satori), Morel, Accuton, SEAS and Dayton. Of cource there are some specific exceptions in both directions! For PA pro systems there are good brands like JBL, B&C, Eighteen Sound, Precision devices, Eminence etc.
If the loudspeaker system design is poor, the best drivers don't give good sound. If design is good, moderate units will sound wonderfully good.
Hi ! yes you are right The problem is that while distortion graphs of loudspeakers are rare for drivers are even rarer
extremely few datasheets show them and usually of uber expensive units Very nice of course but very expensive
thank you very much then i guess that there is no standard for this kind of measurements
i mentioned a magazine that usually adopts the same procedure for all speakers so that they can be compared
i used to think that they are of some values to check the dynamic limits of a speaker
thanks a lot again I will start looking at it immediately to find some good Q/P units
i see and that is the point I was watching a video from Borresen I have been shocked by their almost 100kUSD bookshelves
the designer explained to long work needed to come to a very high performing mid woofer
They tried different membranes magnet material basket designs etc.
i would be curious to know how did they evaluate the different generations of prototypes
for instance they have tried many materials combinations for the cone On what basis they have selected one against the others ? which kind of testing they have performed to rank the various options ?
Unfortunately the reviewer did not ask
thanks again i will read the tests i hope they have a quality rating system
i prefer to stay with home drivers At least as a first approach
i understand the point I have looked at some xovers for instance And some of them are extremely complex with a lot of parts used
Then i see the xover of the Epos es11 Nothing on the woofer and a resistor and a cap in series with the tweeter
This xover topic has caused the birth of many modders I have to make up my mind on this thing
HifiCompass has no ranking. It would be impossible to rank even per only one measurement. How do you rank spl response or distortion with separate lines for each harmonic?
A rather good collection of manufacturer data here https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/
Other respected independent driver testers
https://audioxpress.com/categories/vc-testbench
http://www.zaphaudio.com/ and http://www.zaphaudio.com/blog.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20180307172001/http://medleysmusings.com/category/speaker-driver-tests/
https://www.audioexcite.com/?page_id=178
A rather good collection of manufacturer data here https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/
Other respected independent driver testers
https://audioxpress.com/categories/vc-testbench
http://www.zaphaudio.com/ and http://www.zaphaudio.com/blog.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20180307172001/http://medleysmusings.com/category/speaker-driver-tests/
https://www.audioexcite.com/?page_id=178
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Börresen and Raidho use in-house designed excotic woofers, but they have no idea of how to make good loudspeakers!
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/børresen_x3/
https://www.stereophile.com/content/raidho-td38-loudspeaker-measurements
Epos speakers were cheap and simple and had terribly bad measurements. A cult? https://www.gammaelectronics.xyz/audio_08-1994_epos.html
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/børresen_x3/
https://www.stereophile.com/content/raidho-td38-loudspeaker-measurements
Epos speakers were cheap and simple and had terribly bad measurements. A cult? https://www.gammaelectronics.xyz/audio_08-1994_epos.html
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As you haven't actually heard the speaker, you certainly need to keep an open mind. The Everest waterfall says it is not a bad speaker. Whether it is better than other 'good' speakers can only be reliably checked with DBLTs.
In some 2 decades of DBLTs, the speaker with the best performance by far is a little 5 ltr two way. It came up top in some dozen DBLTs usually against MUCH larger & $$$ speakers. It has a lot of our ju ju but we had other speakers with the same ju ju which, though good, didn't beat this little one. As it is small, it has very limited LF and spl capability. Only a couple of recording engineers realised it had limited LF though they still liked the bass.
I wish I knew for sure why it was so good. About the only thing I think I can replicate is the LF tuning.
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Good morning ! if the testing procedure is always the same a kind of ranking is possible measuring the distortion level at a certain Hz and SPLs
did i say that i am obsessed by distortion ? that for me means deformation
a good example imho are the distortion tests carried out at audiosciencereview.com
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/revel-f228be-review-speaker.23659/
they perform a test at 96dB/1 meter
this speaker aside a little peak around 140Hz should sound pretty clean considering that like i have been told the distortion below 80Hz or so are less perceptible
its a 5kUSD/each speaker by the way Not cheap
thank you very much for the very helpful links
i would love to be able to perform some multitones tests by myself expecially on mid drivers
if the driver has to cover lets say from 300 to 3000 i could use a 300, 1000 and 3000 test signal at high level and see for IMD peaks very easily
the lower the peaks the better the driver
i am sure the sound will confirm the instrumental tests
imho accuracy is the key factor for a faithful reproduction of recordings
moreover the midrange is the key factor for success
unfortunately to cover all the midrange with just one driver is challenging
maybe some planar drivers can i dont know
yes i have been impressed by the discussion on drivers
unfortunately i have not been able to find measurements on the raw drivers Maybe they are not linear by themselves
i am not an expert but the loudspeaker design looks a little too complicated i see many bass reflex loadings on the various drivers
maybe too complex ?
when the drivers are done very right putting them together should not be space science
for instance i would choose for the mid high a quite classic MTM arrangement in a closed box
then i would scaled up in size the mid driver to get a high performing woofer
maybe even a tweeter could be done as an inverted dome with the same design of the mid There will be a kind of coeherence in the drivers diaphragms shape and material All concave drivers of the same material Just with different sizes
thank you very much for the link They have received excellent reviews mentioning their astonishing transparency
i am intrigued by the lack of inductor on the woofer mainly
Truth is that many drivers have an inductor in series and nevertheless must sound very good indeed
this sounds very interesting It is what i have in mind i.e. sat above a bass box
I do not understand why people prefer monolythic speakers very heavy and imposing
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I spent much of my previous life investigating this and most of the results are in the AES papers I linked to. THD tests like audiosciencereview and most major speaker makers (including us) did, are NOT among the instrumental tests that are confirmed by listening tests.
That's not to say I don't chase low THD & Intermod too. But if I can improve some other spec that DOES give better sound, I would gladly lose a little (or even a lot) of THD performance in exchange.
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The features that allow this (and there are some very good reasons for doing this) also result in the bass unit having poor THD.
I do this in my most successful design. Once, one of the three best small speakers you can buy and the second best selling speaker in Europe for some 7 yrs.
You probably know this, but drive units manufacturers offer response curves and T-S parametres on their sites. You might find them useful. Some even offer standard implementations - Supravox for example
i see However i think that all depends on which are the priorities I look for accuracy mostly In everything
said very trivially if i send in a 1kHz single tone i would like to get a 1kHz single tone out All other signals will be something generated by the playback system and not present in the original signal
once we agree on the importance of accuracy it will be extremely easy to discriminate an accurate speaker from a less accurate one
all those words like musicality transparency haze harshness etc. should have no place in speakers testing
take a very uncommon test for speakers a response to square wave i am sure that some speakers will output a better SW than others
this will make them more accurate
i would like to see a 1kHz spectrum measured at the speakers I have never seen this Why ? why some test procedures are not applied to speakers ? after all they are integral part of the audio chain
is that better that is difficult to define If you cannot define something we are talking of sensations
an arbitrary waveform correctly designed will tell a lot of things about the accuracy of a playback system Speakers included
I cannot bear a system that generates own sounds Unacceptable
do you mean that it is possible that a speaker with poor THD can sound really good ? interesting and i can quite accept this that means that THD tests are not helpful to evaluate a speaker
what is hard to me to accept is a speaker with very low THD that sounds poorly
Well sincere congratulations indeed ! may i ask which speaker is ? i am very curious now
when a speaker is a best seller it must be really something special indeed
Hi,
there is million ways to think why THD of single driver would not matter, for example take two drivers, one has greater THD but the other has bad cone breakup peak. Now, listen these both untreated and the one with with the cone breakup peak likely sounds worse, as it's sound of the driver itself, a peaking frequency, and not sound of the music. The other driver with high THD might have it high due to suspension issue, which manifests itself at low frequency as 2nd order harmonic, which is sound that relates to the music (and not the driver!), and makes bass peceptually more impressive due to how auditory system analyzes lows from their harmonics.
Now, if both of these were candidates for a subwoofer application and low passed accordingly, perhaps the cone breakup peak doesn't matter at all as it's way above pass band, but the higher THD driver might still sound better due to the higher 2nd order distortion making bass more impressive perceptually, because auditory system can construct fundamental from harmonics and find the sound more impressive depending on what you are looking for.
On the other hand, if the drivers were for a two way speaker bass section, and the cone breakup was treated appropriately with a passive parallel notch in series with the driver, then the cone breakup peak might not matter at all, but the high low frequency harmonics would make inter modulation distortion for the whole bandwidth and the other driver now wins. Unless you turn this as a three way mid driver, then both likely work just fine due to high pass filter cutting out the excursion. They both could work just fine in any configuration depending on your application, if you always listened at low SPL perhaps the distortion is never audible on either on any speaker configuration and you could have bought a third one.
So, if your system must perform at limits of it's capability then the distortion stuff matters, because you now have your system planned and know what kind of performance the driver need to have in order to meet the performance expectation and not sound bad. If you do not know what driver performance is required, then buy few candidates and compare. If no money to buy, then buy the better one just in case. If no money to buy the better one then only option is to buy the cheaper one. Distortion is no issue basically, quite uninteresting in the end as you just buy suitable driver and problem solved. If distortion was a problem, it's a system design problem, because of bad system design for the use case. So, all the importance is in the system design and not just from distortion perspective but in every way.
If you know the listening situation and how much SPL and bandwidth your system must have, it's easy to calculate required SPL capability, which now functions as basis for how big of system you need to design to have it with "low distortion good sound". If your system size is limited due to aesthetics for example, then you might have to use top shelf low distortion expensive drivers to meet the goal. On the other hand, if you just specify big enough system that meets the system target and then some, the distortion is likely never an issue no matter the driver.
One should avoid the absolutely cheapest bad measuring stuff of course, and perhaps the most expensive top performance stuff is not really needed, so there is plenty of selection in between to choose from which all likely work pretty much similarly, within the performance limits your system design imposes.
Have fun 🙂
there is million ways to think why THD of single driver would not matter, for example take two drivers, one has greater THD but the other has bad cone breakup peak. Now, listen these both untreated and the one with with the cone breakup peak likely sounds worse, as it's sound of the driver itself, a peaking frequency, and not sound of the music. The other driver with high THD might have it high due to suspension issue, which manifests itself at low frequency as 2nd order harmonic, which is sound that relates to the music (and not the driver!), and makes bass peceptually more impressive due to how auditory system analyzes lows from their harmonics.
Now, if both of these were candidates for a subwoofer application and low passed accordingly, perhaps the cone breakup peak doesn't matter at all as it's way above pass band, but the higher THD driver might still sound better due to the higher 2nd order distortion making bass more impressive perceptually, because auditory system can construct fundamental from harmonics and find the sound more impressive depending on what you are looking for.
On the other hand, if the drivers were for a two way speaker bass section, and the cone breakup was treated appropriately with a passive parallel notch in series with the driver, then the cone breakup peak might not matter at all, but the high low frequency harmonics would make inter modulation distortion for the whole bandwidth and the other driver now wins. Unless you turn this as a three way mid driver, then both likely work just fine due to high pass filter cutting out the excursion. They both could work just fine in any configuration depending on your application, if you always listened at low SPL perhaps the distortion is never audible on either on any speaker configuration and you could have bought a third one.
So, if your system must perform at limits of it's capability then the distortion stuff matters, because you now have your system planned and know what kind of performance the driver need to have in order to meet the performance expectation and not sound bad. If you do not know what driver performance is required, then buy few candidates and compare. If no money to buy, then buy the better one just in case. If no money to buy the better one then only option is to buy the cheaper one. Distortion is no issue basically, quite uninteresting in the end as you just buy suitable driver and problem solved. If distortion was a problem, it's a system design problem, because of bad system design for the use case. So, all the importance is in the system design and not just from distortion perspective but in every way.
If you know the listening situation and how much SPL and bandwidth your system must have, it's easy to calculate required SPL capability, which now functions as basis for how big of system you need to design to have it with "low distortion good sound". If your system size is limited due to aesthetics for example, then you might have to use top shelf low distortion expensive drivers to meet the goal. On the other hand, if you just specify big enough system that meets the system target and then some, the distortion is likely never an issue no matter the driver.
One should avoid the absolutely cheapest bad measuring stuff of course, and perhaps the most expensive top performance stuff is not really needed, so there is plenty of selection in between to choose from which all likely work pretty much similarly, within the performance limits your system design imposes.
Have fun 🙂
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Hi thank you very much I guess that nobody would use a driver that shows a breakout without a filter that cut the breakout out ?
i am watching some interestin 4" full range and almost all present a strong +10dB peak around 10kHz
a low pass filter i guess is mandatory
my initial question was about the opportunity of THD tests Could they be of any value ? after all the discussions i guess not
very interesting Of course you are right A very important topic is the one about the band within which the ear is more sensible
any problem in this range will be preceived more easily and could be less tolerable than one at the extremes of the audio band
this is very important because narrows the problems boundary from 300 to 5kHz This could be the range to focus
to cover this range with just one driver makes sense Not easy to do
this is very true but raises a question How do you establish the capability limits ? i am not playing with words
i see that is some pro studio monitors there is a max available SPL usually linked to a frequency and a distortion
My point is that is the distortion that fixes the limits So THD measurements can be very valuable
https://www.thomann.de/it/neumann_kh_120_ii.htm
- SPL massimo: 116,8 dB
i am focusing now the midrange the core of a speaker and also i am looking fro tracks that can be helpful to assess the midrange quality from a driver I am loosing hopes about measurements i do not see a consensus
how ? lets say that i would like max 100dB/1 meter from 50 to 15kHz How can i calculate required SPL capability ?
never For me aesthetics do not matter They can be wood cabinets painted black and they will be fine
i find that look distracts from listening
yes this is what i am aiming at
you mean that low distortion implies also high price ? this is a very important issue clearly
again very right But could you elaborate on bad measuring ? do you have an example of bad measuring stuff Sorry i cannot read between the lines You mean a rough FR ? a bad CSD ? i am trying to fix a selection criteria based on instrumental measurements
Thank you i have to find some fun in headache It is very complicated
Even if manufacturers did, my skepticism would not fully believe them and I would want the drivers third party tested. Perhaps the manufacturers know that anyone who delves so deep into the performance of a driver will also want them independently tested so they don’t even bother? Purely guessing.
If you want to have flat anechoic frequency response, there has to be 100db/1m capability the whole bandwidth, for bass, for mid and for tweeter. If your concern is only 3way speaker mid as an example here, then it has to be capable of 100db at the low xo at 300Hz so power handling and excursion needs to be within some sensible margin from maximum if you want to listen long time and sound not change too much.
Since mid is likely in a closed enclosure, you can directly use volume displacement to SPL table to see how much of a volume displacement is needed to reach that SPL, which directly translates to excursion your driver needs to do since the driver size (cone area) is likely already specified. From this you can estimate is the required excursion within xmax of the driver for example. Same applies for the bass of course, but here you need to also account for a port output if it's a reflex system so this stuff is easiest to do in a simulator.
Example: here some 5" driver in enclosure the simulator picked for it. On SPL chart it already shows that 100db is within power and excrusion limits at 300Hz so it would work on first glance. I now see it needs about ~40W of power to do 300Hz 100db and that excrusion goes beyond xmax about at 100Hz without highpass filter. I now know this driver would not give 100db system being doing bass duty as well. Anyway, put highpsas filter at 300Hz and it's obvious xmax isn't even close to limits but power is about max the driver can take. From this we could assume such power starts to heat the system up so expect sound to change due to heat if you listen at 100db / 1m.
What else, since the driver isn't ran on it's resonance and excursion is low the suspension doesn't likely make much distortion. Hysteresis might make some, also Le(x), perhaps Bl(x) does some, so here more expensive advanced motor that tries to reduce hysteresis and linearize Le, would make less distortion than cheap driver with simple motor might give more. But, since the driver would be run on close to it's thermal limit on peaks the most audible issue might be compression due to heat and perhaps hysteresis distortion. So, perhaps look for driver with more handling capacity, or make sure the heat is dissipated somehow somewhere. If you consider 15db peaks for music, and listening distance be 2m away, 100db/1m leaves about 80db average listening level at listening spot peaks touching the 100db mark, 40W power.
These are simple metrics you can use to estimate the performance, to make sure the system is rather erred to be more capable, than not capable enough.
The same driver in bass duty could do max about 95db / 1m in a reflex box hitting xmax with 18W of power.
Remembering xmax is often expressed when THD makes 10%, or what ever the manufacturer happened to use, klippel stuff or anything, it's quite high distortion already and the bass excursion would distort the whole bandwidth quite nicely.
Manufacturer data is often marketing talk, all numbers are not taken at same operating conditions but in special absolute maximums. For example the speaker you picked up as an example states 44Hz -3db point, and max SPL of 116.8db. To make 113,8db at 44Hz with a 5" woofer the woofer would need to make something like 30mm of one way excursion in reflex box, which isn't obviously happening so the decibel number is likely measured with some cone breakup peak at some kHz sine tone or something silly, with max distortion boosting it the last inch of .8db. Or, the system DSP likely compresses and high passes the lows with increasing SPL to keep the woofer within it's few millimeter xmax, so as you crank the system to output the stated 116db the low end is still at perhaps highpassed to 100Hz and still way less than 116db, while the output is just crazy distorting high mids.
Fear not, the numbers lie to other direction as well! 80db (C weighting!) average at listening spot is already quite loud playback volume and casual listening might be way below this, so 100db target at 1m could be just fine, unless for disco party for bunch of people.
Well, anyway, I hope I answered some of your questions 😀
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^from the above example, you can harvest a lot of thought. For example how to select a driver for mid duty? You likely would want to use a driver that is specifically designed for midrange use, low excursion use, so that the suspension is not optimized for high xmax but for example for high damping cone resonances. Anyway, try to figure out how well the driver is designed for the particular use case, which simplified means stuff that is important for bass performance are sacrificed in order to get better compromise on the mids. Manufacturers often state which drivers on their catalog are for mid and which are for bass use. If no such thing, perhaps try to narrow down selection by looking simple metrics like lowish xmax, and enough power handling. You could look from the pictures and technology remarks from the datasheet, and manufacturing year, to kind of estimate how good the motor might be. By luck you'll find klippel distortion data for it and perhaps even polar maps to see how the cone breakup is and so on. You might be able to use a planar to get rid of motor and so on.
I'm not too deep into this stuff, so these are like the basic common sense things I'd look for, I cannot suggest a good midrange driver because I've only heard few. If distortion data or waterfalls of a driver are somehow way different than other similar drivers, then it's likely a bad driver and you might ditch it. Price might indicate performance but not necessarily, a mid / cheap priced driver might have very good performance if you look from oem manufacturers who mass produce this stuff. Top priced drivers might be quite average as it's game of status and audiophilia, many customers do not understand anything else than the price tag and golden binding posts 🙂
So, to answer to title of the topic, when your system design is done and you are looking for suitable drivers, perhaps pick out few that fit the bill and what seem interesting to you, measure and listen in application to find out if there is any significant difference. If no difference between them, then also measure the distortion and select the one that measures better if the price is right. With my limited experience I'd say most suitable drivers sound likely quite the same, and if you really want to improve sound make sure the system design is top notch and the system is properly adjusted into the room and listening situation.
I'm not too deep into this stuff, so these are like the basic common sense things I'd look for, I cannot suggest a good midrange driver because I've only heard few. If distortion data or waterfalls of a driver are somehow way different than other similar drivers, then it's likely a bad driver and you might ditch it. Price might indicate performance but not necessarily, a mid / cheap priced driver might have very good performance if you look from oem manufacturers who mass produce this stuff. Top priced drivers might be quite average as it's game of status and audiophilia, many customers do not understand anything else than the price tag and golden binding posts 🙂
So, to answer to title of the topic, when your system design is done and you are looking for suitable drivers, perhaps pick out few that fit the bill and what seem interesting to you, measure and listen in application to find out if there is any significant difference. If no difference between them, then also measure the distortion and select the one that measures better if the price is right. With my limited experience I'd say most suitable drivers sound likely quite the same, and if you really want to improve sound make sure the system design is top notch and the system is properly adjusted into the room and listening situation.
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I am out of words...
About driver characteristics, measurements, speaker design
https://klippel.de/
https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/klippel/Files/Know_How/Literature/Papers/Loudspeaker regular signal distortion caused by design_part 1_Klippel_Werner.pdf
https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design
https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/loudspeaker-design-cookbook-8
http://euraudio.dx.am/en/designprinc.htm
https://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/speaker_design_pt1_energy_e.html
Software
https://loudsoft.com/about-loudsoft/
https://kimmosaunisto.net/
Read carefully and Good luck!
Greetings, Juhazi
About driver characteristics, measurements, speaker design
https://klippel.de/
https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/klippel/Files/Know_How/Literature/Papers/Loudspeaker regular signal distortion caused by design_part 1_Klippel_Werner.pdf
https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design
https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/loudspeaker-design-cookbook-8
http://euraudio.dx.am/en/designprinc.htm
https://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/speaker_design_pt1_energy_e.html
Software
https://loudsoft.com/about-loudsoft/
https://kimmosaunisto.net/
Read carefully and Good luck!
Greetings, Juhazi
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