Help selecting best midrange driver

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I am building an open baffle speaker that ideally would have a midrange that can easily cover 500hz up to 7-10khz. I want this to be able to handle dynamics very capably so a driver that can easily handle a 250-300hz crossover would be nice so that it can handle higher power levels at 500hz without distorting. Also both my other drivers are about 96 db/w so if I can get a driver that has up to that high of sensitivity that would be nice as well.

Obviously there is most likely going to be some compromise since that would be a pretty nice driver if it could do all of that. I definitely don't think I want a driver larger than 3" to have good off-axis response, and it definitely has to be able to handle a crossover no higher than 500hz. The sensitivity is where I'm most flexible, but since this is the lowest sensitivity driver in the speaker, it is pretty important as well.

Thanks for any help!
 
SS 10F is very good. It can be used fairly low on a wide baffle (J Gerhard did it I believe on his mini MPL). However, the best off axis dispersion is achieved with this driver on a narrow portion of the baffle (NaoNote II or LX521-like baffle) in which case it has to be crossed higher and a larger lower mid driver has to be added. (I added Visaton B200 in this application under the 4 ohm version of SS 10F; in hindsight I wish I used a driver with more linear stroke than that of B200 but ... hindsight is always 20/20 😉)
 
Hi,

The best driver often depends on what design principles
you are using (and abusing). 96dB 3" ? in your dreams ...

rgds, sreten.

Ya, after doing some research I've quickly come to realize this... as you have seen in my other thread talking about the ff85wk haha. 86.5db is quite the sacrifice...oh well.

it sucks cause it seems that most of the 3 inchers have quite a bit more low end extension that I need, but not the sensitivity and those always seem to be tradeoffs. It'd be nice if one of the manufacturers made a 3 inch with less extension but higher sensitivity, unless theres some mechanism I'm unaware of that limits that.
 
If I plan to use my speaker as a "nominal 8 ohm impedance" would using a 4 ohm midrange be out of the question? Since the midrange only covers 500hz up to 6 or 7khz it may draw more peak current, but there's not much average power draw in that range and so it wouldn't effect the overall loading on an 8 ohm rated amplifier, especially a good one. Or is that just out of the question to have a 4 ohm mid on an 8 ohm speaker? I remember seeing B and W's 800 series speakers rated for 8 ohms yet they had a minimum impedance of 3.1 ohms and it wasn't at this high of a frequency.
 
The Audax PR170 might be worth a look - it's close to the 97dB and will cover the 500 - 8kHz pretty well and even tho it's marketed as a pro-audio driver, is remarkably smooth - quite usable lower down in a B2 alignment - maybe a bit of passive shelving around 5k - about a $100 at Madisound, I think ...
 
These are essentially the same drivers of 30 years ago - we used them in 30 litre B2 cone chambers and 12dB Xovers at about 200Hz and rarely had a failure - I didn't, but plenty of others tried them in OB back then but raised the Xover to about the recommended 500 area - this was back in the era of mainly analogue systems so might be different now.

There are a number of FR drivers (or extended range drivers) that'll work very well in OB if the Xover is kept well up in the midband - not sure how significant the Xpd or Xmax spec becomes when FR drivers applied in this way - depends a bit on how you view the reproduction with undamped/low damped system, I think - listening area, volume, transient response, etc, etc.

There are a lot of the Fostex drivers used in OB arrangement over the years, if you like that sound, and they generally have an Xmax about the 1mm - the Wild Burro Betsy has about 2mm but down a bit on efficiency at 93 and the Mark Audio 10Ps have much bigger cone travel but much lower efficiency at about 88, I think - Scan and Seas both have some drivers in this area too, from memory - lots of options
 
The Audax PR170 might be worth a look - it's close to the 97dB and will cover the 500 - 8kHz pretty well and even tho it's marketed as a pro-audio driver, is remarkably smooth - quite usable lower down in a B2 alignment - maybe a bit of passive shelving around 5k - about a $100 at Madisound, I think ...

+1

Actually, +2... use a pair per side. That's what I do, xover at 500Hz.

Same as Magnetar: Re: Audax PR170M0 Question, Magnatar? Anyone? - Magnetar - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Cheers,
Mike
 
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