Your favorite 4-5” midrange driver?

@Draki : I had the 15M/4624G00 and 15W/4524T02 limited edition both as mids in a 3-way. They were not bad but somehow I replaced both at the end because they did not convince me from sound. Both also had cone brakup issues ~1.2kHz measured worse than in the datasheet. If I would ever take a discovery 5" as mid again I would try out regular 15W/8424G00 or 15W/8434G00, their cone behavior seems more controlled.
 
  • Like
Reactions: IamJF and Draki
@IamJF : Thanks! What do you find so special about them? Have you experience and comparison with this 5" PA mids? There are some nice appearing drivers out there of that kind: PHL 930, Faital 5PR160, Sica 5M1.5PL, BMS 5S117, and some from B&C and Beyma look all well usable as HiFi mid.
I don't used them personally. I planed a project with the "fullrange" PHL 5" but it didn't fit cause they didn't go deep enough. But it was one of the best options I can found, their THD measurements look real, it has a small footprint for membrane size and the 8" PHL chassis I measured where one of the best in the market. (Better as FaitalPro, 18Sound and Beyma)
The special thing of the drivers I tested was that they also have very low THD at low levels - better as the other PA drivers and better as many HiFi drivers.
 
Thanks for sharing your experience! Had once (2007?) build a speaker with B17-1220 as midwoofer; it had somewhat unusal FR, but sounded really nice in the mids. In the lows it did not convince me. But PHL has good reputation here, you also get some of their larger 10-12" woofers with parameter sets fitting home or studio application.

PHL has sorted their product product portfolio during the last years and not long ago their website;
nice that they have distortion and Klippel data for many of the drivers now:

https://www.phlaudio.com/products/index.html
 
Some fresh 5" mid from Seas, the ML15RCY/TP:
https://www.seas.no/images/stories/prestige/pdfdatasheet/H2009-04_ML15RCY_TP_Datasheet.pdf

Looks promising and catches me somehow more than a MR13TX. Have a TAC/GB here, should give a nice combination...

1734775027179.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: motokok and PKAudio
9,4 - 6 = 3,4 / 2 = +/- 1,7 mm coil overhang. So the datasheet value is wrong as ianbo and tktran already pointed out. For a mid to be used from 250-300Hz upwards fine for me.

For a pure mid the sensitivity is only about 1-2 dB higher than the SB15NBAC black alu cone with a copper sleeve.

Yep, the NBAC also came in my mind first as a competitor, great midrange and cone breakup is even higher (10kHz instead 8kHz) thanks to the stiffening ribs. I assume that the Seas will be at least double the price, expecting ~150.- € or so.
 
Looking for folks experiences with 4-5” drivers used as dedicated midrange/midwoofers…..doesn’t matter if it’s a commercial speaker system or DIY effort. Purely subjective of course……since it’s covering the most important part of the frequency spectrum, to me…..that’s all that matters.

I‘ve been eyeballing this guy for use as a mid

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/292-662--visaton-b100-spec-sheet.pdf
Post in thread 'About midrange driver choice in a 3-ways speaker' https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...hoice-in-a-3-ways-speaker.392650/post-7271358
 
Some fresh 5" mid from Seas, the ML15RCY/TP:
https://www.seas.no/images/stories/prestige/pdfdatasheet/H2009-04_ML15RCY_TP_Datasheet.pdf

Looks promising and catches me somehow more than a MR13TX. Have a TAC/GB here, should give a nice combination...
IMO it's yet another manufacturer missing the mark on what a dedicated midrange should be. FR is usable and I'm sure it's distortion performance is quite good, but...4 ohm, barely touching 90dB/2.8v/1m at 1kHz, we can do better. It claims to be designed for closed box use, while also having 48Hz Fs and Qts of 0.32. I've no doubt that this driver is simply a midwoofer with motor xmax cut in half. A dedicated midrange only needs to achieve ~300Hz bottom end output, Fs can be 2-3x as high, tighten that thing up, increase sensitivity a few more dB so that little 1" VC plays effortlessly through the midrange.

This speaker honestly looks like they took MCA15, added some more copper in the motor, change cone to Aluminum, add phase plug, and then VC needed to be 4 ohm to keep sensitivity up. There's 20 years improvement of loudspeaker RND in there somewhere, I'm sure.
 
looks like they took MCA15, added some more copper in the motor, change cone to Aluminum, add phase plug, and then VC needed to be 4 ohm to keep sensitivity up. There's 20 years improvement of loudspeaker RND in there somewhere, I'm sure.
Eh, that's a fair amount of things 😎 I'll wait for price and reviews. Their writeup implies they designed this for an entire Titan 3-way (with new Titan tweeter, also), which may limit its broad appeal, but is fairly interesting of itself (compact box with homogenous materials and modern drivers at less than Excel prices), and may indeed complement / be quite OK for those parameters. The Titan L16 and L19s are oddballs without this partner.
 
Given that there is no official way to specify xMax that is not surprising,

dave

Have you ever looked at the Seas website or at one of their datasheets? Like most manufacturers of drivers in the hi-fi market, they give a figure for linear coil travel based on the geometry of the coil and magnetic gap. Simple but useful.

Yes, we all know that it's not the whole picture, that BL is a curve, not a straight line, and you can specify linear xmax in all sorts of ways, based on BL variation or distorion percentage or whatever.

If you took the trouble to look at what Seas do, you'd know that they always present their date like this:

Voice Coil Height: x mm
Air Gap Height: y mm
Linear Coil Trave (p-p): x-y mm

The maths isn't complicated. (Though when the coil is underhung the calculation becomes y-x, obviously.)

However, this particular new driver, the ML15RCY/TP, has the following instead:

Voice Coil Height: x mm
Air Gap Height: y mm
Linear Coil Travel (p-p): 2(x-y) mm

Can you spot their error? Or do you need me to explain it further?
 
  • Like
Reactions: GM
Seas playing the PA manufacturers game with weird Xmax values is a pity.
And yes - sensitivity is pretty bad for a real midrange. Just using a smaller coil to save some weight and that's it ... a pity again.
Membrane and frequency response looks really good.
Qms is not very high - I would like to see a less stiff surround. Membrane resonance is very high and the rest seems stable, it should be fine.

For the usual 84,3dB sensitivtiy HiFi Speaker that's for sure a great midrange. For big speakers ... no.
 
Tang Band W4-1337SDF 4” full range.

Also good as a mid with suitable high resolution tweeter and appropriate sub.

https://www.parts-express.com/Tang-Band-W4-1337SDF-4-Titanium-Full-Range-Speaker-264-916

Extraordinary resolution and microdynamics. Insane level of detail with an “etched” quality. Perfect for people who like an analytical sound. Amazing reproduction of big band recordings.

As a full range works best with some DSP EQ as it has a couple of peaks above 10K, but which are less prominent off axis.

I used it in a back loaded horn tuned to 60Hz and was very happy with the results.

IMG_4426.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Looking for folks experiences with 4-5” drivers used as dedicated midrange/midwoofers…..doesn’t matter if it’s a commercial speaker system or DIY effort. Purely subjective of course……since it’s covering the most important part of the frequency spectrum, to me…..that’s all that matters.
PHILIPS XH 1730 > with the center tweeters removed.
  • 50 watt RMS
  • 93 dB/W/m
  • IMPP cone
  • Butyl-rubber surround

http://www.hifi-forum.de/themen/produkte/philips/xh-1730

Used as 6x units per channel in an open-baffle vertical array with crossover frequencies of 600Hz and 4KHz.

A 6 ohm load able to be driven to very high SPL with very low distortion.

Very smooth & coherent midrange performance over a wide range.