Peerless NE180W-08 can one do better?

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read the first post... 300Hz to 2KHz band ..."

Lightening the cone comes at a cost - loss of damping of cone resonances/breakup and dramatically increasing the Fs giving non-existent bass. The later is certainly true for the 1752NdU as Fs=120Hz whereas SEAS/Peerless/SS/etc 6.5" typically have Fs=25-45Hz. I have no idea about the former because PHL don't even give a frequency response in their datasheet, but i'm not hopeful.

You must be talking about bass / mid drivers.... You will find plenty of threads on those where many people like the heavy cone / weak motor & rubber surround designs you recommend.

Back on topic, the OP requested suggestions to cover the 300Hz to 2KHz band, I think you will find low Mms / high Bl drivers are the way to go.
 
Sim for PHL 6 inch mid-Range

Here is a sim for the PHL 6 inch mid.
It easily reaches 115dB continous SPL at 300Hz, with over 6dB of headroom before its max Xmax at this point.

At my 4 meter listening position I measure around 75dB average SPLs, but when I am in the mood I can hit 105dB peak's and it all still sounds effortless.... Ask the neighbours!

I built an asymetrical 5 litre sealed box using 24mm birch ply and used 2.5 litre of wall damping / bitumen pads and Twaron (Angel hair) stuffing. Allow 0.5 litre for the air volume occupied by the driver.
 

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You must be talking about bass / mid drivers.... You will find plenty of threads on those where many people like the heavy cone / weak motor & rubber surround designs you recommend.
An 88dB/1W/1m midwoofer is capable of more than 120dB/1m on an 80Watt amplifier. Excursion/linearity will become a problem long before output power does in a home hifi system.
Compare SS 18W/8531 (low eff, low fs) to Beyma 6MI90 and B&C 6MD38 (high eff, high fs)
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/18W8531G-HD.gif
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/6MI90-HD.gif
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/6MD38-8-HD.gif
Having higher efficiency does not guarantee lower distortion at moderate/normal listening levels. Sure, the latter two may do better at a very high output level, at which point probably all of them are going to be producing noticeable distortion. I personally never listen louder than ~95-100dB/1m, so I will take the driver that delivers lower distortion at that level. More often than not that is the 'low efficiency' design.
 
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Hello Guys,
Thanks again for the outstanding suggestions. I really appreciate the dialogue from this thread as it aids in learning more about loudspeaker design considerations and proper driver implementation.😀 I'm starting to compile a list of possible drivers and will begin researching each.

Best,
Rich
 
Mmmmn...Wrong on many levels...Back to basics might help?

An 88dB/1W/1m midwoofer is capable of more than 120dB/1m on an 80Watt amplifier. Excursion/linearity will become a problem long before output power does in a home hifi system.
Compare SS 18W/8531 (low eff, low fs) to Beyma 6MI90 and B&C 6MD38 (high eff, high fs)
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/18W8531G-HD.gif
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/6MI90-HD.gif
http://www.zaphaudio.com/6.5test/6MD38-8-HD.gif
Having higher efficiency does not guarantee lower distortion at moderate/normal listening levels. Sure, the latter two may do better at a very high output level, at which point probably all of them are going to be producing noticeable distortion. I personally never listen louder than ~95-100dB/1m, so I will take the driver that delivers lower distortion at that level. More often than not that is the 'low efficiency' design.

Lets give you all the help you can get and assume your 100 watts is AES power and not the often quoted audiophile driver "peak" power. Also lets assume your driver is a perfect flat 8 Ohm load all the way down.... (The driver will have a rising impedance below its box resonance and make it impossible to produce anywhere close to the theoretical best results below)

To be clear lets use your 88dB/1W/1m mid-woofer example:
1 watt = 88dB for 1 watt (2.83 volts IF its a flat 8 Ohm load)
2 watt = 91dB
4 watt = 94dB
8 watt = 97dB
16 watt = 100dB
32 watt = 103dB
64 watt = 106dB
128 watt = 109dB

So the driver is destroyed at 109dB with 128 watts...Thermal overload.
100 watts would max out at below 108dB....
Your 120dB is simply wrong.
 
8 inch bass mid Vs 6 inch mids... Whats your point?


The weak 8 inch SS 18w is a bass - mid-range designed to bass and midrange ie compromised on both compared to a dedicated midrange and dedicated bass driver.

The two Pro drivers are dedicated 6 inch mid-range only... What are you trying to say with your comparison?

The min crossover for the beyma would be 200Hz to 300Hz
The min crossover for the B&C would be 300Hz to 400Hz.
Used correctly they would easily outperform your 8 inch SS example in any midrange applications.... Power response ( dispersion / room coverage) low distortion / power handling / SPL's and time domain (CSD plots).
 
size makes no difference... Comments still 100% valid.

The size makes no difference.... I didnt bother to check out the link!

Its still bass mid not a midrange driver.

just guessing as I cant be bothered to link it.... High Mms, low Bl, rubber surround, designed to be loaded in a small ported enclosure, crossed over at 2Khz....Yawn Yawn....
 
I'm not sure whats to get. At a normal listening volume the Scan speak driver is better in every possible way. I'm not saying that the other two don't have an application which they are better suited (PA usage at high volume perhaps? Or for some reason you must use a 0.1Watt amplifier?), just that for home listening at moderate volumes on a normal amplifier (50W or better), the Scan is better.
 
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I'm not sure whats to get. At a normal listening volume the Scan speak driver is better in every possible way. I'm not saying that the other two don't have an application which they are better suited (PA usage at high volume perhaps? Or for some reason you must use a 0.1Watt amplifier?), just that for home listening at moderate volumes on a normal amplifier (50W or better), the Scan is better.

I don't think you are the one with the comprehension problem here. The 18W is clearly as good as or better than any of those mentioned in terms of linear distortion. It has slightly higher HD, but with a 2 kHz crossover it'll be ~<0.3% HD2 and HD3 vs ~<0.1% HD3 for the 15M or PM180, and ~0.1% HD2 for the NE180.

Most of the other suggestions in this thread cost twice as much as this group so I don't even understand why they're part of the discussion when the topic is basically, "What driver around this price range is a better choice for my application than this?" Of course the Satori's a little cleaner, as it should be for almost twice the cost. The ES180Ti (which was obliquely referenced) is in the same class as the non-Satori group for distortion but the sensitivity is low, it costs about as much as the Satori, and its most distinguishing feature, namely very clean bass, would not be useful in this application.

If I were OP I'd use the 18W I had on hand and accept a slightly lower system sensitivity. It's not like there are many high-sensitivity woofers that will play deep bass in the first place. Maybe mount it close to the floor for maximum boundary gain, since a 6" mid can cross low. Maybe use shallow slopes and bandpass gain to help out the mid.
 
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The size makes no difference.... I didnt bother to check out the link!

Its still bass mid not a midrange driver.

just guessing as I cant be bothered to link it.... High Mms, low Bl, rubber surround, designed to be loaded in a small ported enclosure, crossed over at 2Khz....Yawn Yawn....

Yawn yawn indeed you seem to be one of these people who's blinded by things that really don't matter.

The size obviously makes a considerable difference when concerning correct driver integration.

The weak 8 inch SS 18w is a bass - mid-range designed to bass and midrange ie compromised on both compared to a dedicated midrange and dedicated bass driver.

The two Pro drivers are dedicated 6 inch mid-range only... What are you trying to say with your comparison?

The min crossover for the beyma would be 200Hz to 300Hz
The min crossover for the B&C would be 300Hz to 400Hz.
Used correctly they would easily outperform your 8 inch SS example in any midrange applications....

Power response ( dispersion / room coverage) low distortion / power handling / SPL's and time domain (CSD plots).

The power response is governed pretty much exclusively by the drivers size and by its integration to whatever is above it. Use a 6-7" wave-guide, crossed appropriately, with any of those drivers and the power response is going to be, essentially, identical. The same would be true for a naked dome too, although the end result would be far less impressive.

Obviously the more sensitive drivers will suffer less from power compression and be able to reach high maximum SPLs before falling to bits but if you do not need this...then the scan has better linearity.

If you do want higher sensitivity and want to maintain good levels of performance then as I said before, the 8 ohm 6ND430 would be the way to go. Superb distortion, usefully more sensitive and a smooth frequency response. There's also the B&W FST driver, difficult to obtain, expensive and far more limited in application, but otherwise a dedicated mid with high sensitivity.

High sensitivity is nice to have, if you can have it without sacrificing other parameters.
 
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