3 octaves, 400hz-3200Hz … whatcha gonna do?

One of my perennial favorites in this range, is the venerable Audax PR170.

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/pro-sound/audax-pr170m0-6.5-midrange-100db/

It has the impact/transient speed of a horn, without a lot of the difficulties in making horns "behave". A pretty simple crossover will make these do extraordinarily well in this range.

It's no longer produced- but even better- if you could find a pair of the Focal 7V313 "Polyglas" midrange drivers- those are like the PR170s, only less efficient- but with better control of breakup modes at the top end of the response.

http://nedlab.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/7v313.pdf

One of the very finest sound systems I was ever involved with setting up, had this as a central element. The midrange output of this system was impeccable. Astonishing resolution, great speed. With pretty simple crossovers- no real "trickery" required.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
It's the passband of a 4-5" midrange driver. I would lean towards a 4" if the clean SPL requirements are moderate. If higher then perhaps a 5" or mulitple 4" drivers.
IMG_0377.jpeg
 
In a 3 way with a woofer and tweeter a wideband driver has too low a sensitivity and power handling to keep up and provide adequate clean SPL. A midrange driver is required for this configuration. Multiple wideband drivers in a line array or circle around a tweeter would work though. As might a desktop speaker. So it depends.
 
Well sir, step into my parlor...

These are all mids I've used myself -

B&C DCM50 on a BIG WG
SS 18M8631T
Jantzen JA800HMQ
Audax HM170CO
Eminence Beta 8A
SB 6MW150D
Seas U18RNX-P
Seas CA18RNX
Satori MR13TX
B&C 6NDL38
Peerless NE149W
Visaton B80
Peerless P830870
PRV 5MR450-NDY *
Celestion NTR06-1705B *
Audax PR170MO *
* steep HP filter required
 
@mayhem13 Are you unhappy with the performance of your M74As? Based on a previous discussion we had, I thought you crossed them at 400 hz and were happy with their performance?

Granted, I wouldn't cross them that low myself, but crossed at 600 hz 2nd order they sound pretty good to me, at least better than most mids from a perspective of accuracy and low THD.
 
One of these days I’ll get around to building an array of these paired with the Dayton ND20F-4 dome tweeters….ive got enough on hand to build 1 side back in the day when the TC9 was $10 and the ND20 was $9
 
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PR170/PHL 1120- Has great reviews, I am considering them for bedroom setup, foam surround life span is an achilles heal though!
I have scanspeak 12MU, which I want to sell now, after reading about pr170.
It's actually possible to replace the foam surround on a PR170. I've done it. There are replacement cones for the RCF-made clone of the PR170 (I can't remember the part number, sorry)- the foam surround from those can be carefully removed from the cone, and used to replace the PR170 surround. It requires cutting down the outer diameter of the flat foam from the RCF, about 2 millimeters in radius (all the way around)- but it works just fine.

Regards,
Gordon.