New Eton midrange...

[Wolf]

https://www.madisound.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=9040

https://www.madisound.com/store/images/3-401.jpg

Kinda $alty, but it is ceramic...
Later,
Wolf

[DoubleTap]

Looks interesting, but as always it seems I'd wish for a bit more sensitivity.

[r-carpenter]

Looks interesting, but as always it seems I'd wish for a bit more sensitivity.

my thought exactly. :)

[Pete Schumacher ®]

No kidding. It's a 3" mid, designated a mid, and they don't put enough motor strength on it to get the sensitivity up. It's not like you would need to use something that small below 400Hz anyway, so why not hang a powerful neo motor on there and optimize the performance for the range a 3" mid can reasonably cover.

It does look good on paper though, for a small low sensitivity 3-way.

You could double them up for a MTM upper section, but now you're over $400 for each side . . . ouch. :eek:

[MagicO309d]

They're sold by the matched pair, the cost per driver is about $110. Are they a good value for $100 drivers?

[gowa]

In my experience, I would say Eton makes a fine product. I think that would be a good shoot out driver.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

They're sold by the matched pair, the cost per driver is about $110. Are they a good value for $100 drivers?

Well, at rated power, the best you can expect is about 100dB@1m. That's probably OK for most people, but certainly not for HT in a larger room if you expect loud sustained passages.

[r-carpenter]

They're sold by the matched pair, the cost per driver is about $110. Are they a good value for $100 drivers?

Good point. At a $100 a pop they may be a good value. It's hard to say for sure till some independent measurements are posted. If the distortion levels are as low as Revelators then it's possibly an excellent value. All tho there's SB Acoustics for $50.

[J_Shea]

Eton also has a pair of newer drivers using what looks to be the same frame and magnet structure with 4 ohm voice coils. One has a treated paper cone, the other I can't tell if it's magnesium, or ceramic coated magnesium.

http://www.etongmbh.de/en/products/car-hifi/multiple-way-systems/pfc-80-new/1/pid/215/

and

http://www.etongmbh.de/en/products/car-hifi/multiple-way-systems/3-401-mitteltoener/1/pid/199/

They also have a nifty little small flange 1" tweeter with a ceramic coated magnesium dome:

http://www.etongmbh.de/en/products/car-hifi/tweeters/cx-290-kalotte-28mm/1/pid/143/


The info on Eton's website for the midrange that Wolf linked to states that it would be an ideal match with the 26HD1 or the "28HD1" which does not appear to have been released yet. I'd be interested in a ceramic dome with a low Fs that could be used at a fairly low crossover point. Well, interested in a theoretical design possibility sense rather than a going out and buying a bunch of them sense anyway.

[timw]

This 3" midrange driver is an important development for Eton. Hopefully this is the first of several drivers in this line. If the Eton supplied distortion graph is indictive of the actual performance, Eton has used a new improved motor design. Note the low odd distortion through the range. The stiff cone with break up above 10kHz will result in the related 3rd and 5th odd harmonic peaks to be 2 kHz or above if present. This will keep the 1 to 2 kHz distortion very low. The previously released Eton Symphony line with the hexacone cones did not have very low distortion motors. This is an important acknowledgement by Eton, and in a driver than is expensive but not exoticly priced. Check Zaph's driver tests website and look at the 1 to 2 kHz distortion, particularly odd order distortion, for midranges and midwoofers in general. Hopefully more manufacturers will continue to follow suit. Peerless has also been moving this way in their Exclusive HDS lines. Of course Seas and Scanspeak have been using low distortion motors with Faraday rings for years.

[MagicO309d]

Even if used MTM, the Eton mids would still be over $100 cheaper than using a single Accuton mid. There would be a nice efficiency advantage too but the question still remains about how the Eton performs overall.

[dlr]

Well, at rated power, the best you can expect is about 100dB@1m. That's probably OK for most people, but certainly not for HT in a larger room if you expect loud sustained passages.
For a HT I might consider something different, but maybe not even then. There seems to be too much emphasis on absolute SPL anymore. That driver has an excellent response up to 20K, making its use as a mid easy. The lowpass is going to match a target far into the stop-band. It will also allow use of a small tweeter crossed fairly high. You could make up the difference in cost with a less expensive tweeter.

It might be better as part of a 4-way, though.

Matched pairs? How often do you see that? For a driver of this type it's almost unheard of, at least to me.

The closest competition may be the Scan-Speak Discovery 10F/4424G given cost vs. performance.

dlr

[J_Shea]

How much bandpass gain could be expected with this driver used as a midrange from say 400Hz to 4kHz?

[dcibel]

IMO ETON only represents good value when compared to Accuton. ;) they are generally overpriced for what you get.

[dlr]

IMO ETON only represents good value when compared to Accuton. ;) they are generally overpriced for what you get.
I've thought so in the past, but this driver deserves closer examination.

dlr

[timw]

The prior Eton kevlar nomex honeycomb cones (hexacone) have always been very good. If the new updated motors perform, they will be in a higher value/performance catagory.

[lunchmoney]

Why do they need to be "matched pairs"?

Are they so inconsistently made that this is necessary?

Veneer is "matched", because the wood grain varies... but drivers?

:confused:

[dlr]

Why do they need to be "matched pairs"?

Are they so inconsistently made that this is necessary?

Veneer is "matched", because the wood grain varies... but drivers?

:confused:
Drivers are often mismatched, sometimes expensive ones. Dunlavy bought Vifa tweeters. In an interview he was asked about them. Hhe said that he wanted to buy matched pairs, Vifa would not do it. IIRC when asked what he did at that point, he said that he threw away half of them.

Midwoofers and midranges were notoriously mismatched. This was most often manifested in the mid to upper midrange/lower treble, right where they were often crossed to a tweeter and in the range where our ears are most sensitive. I could show you some examples of just how much variance occurred. Matched pairs is a real benefit.

Compare red to blue 1-2K (Morel MDT20):
http://www.speakerdesign.net/tweeter_tweaks/lambs_wool_tests/graphs/mdt20_new_units_spl_iec.gif

Compare red to blue, tweeter Fs also reflected in the FR not shown (Morel MDT30 - old version):
http://www.speakerdesign.net/tweeter_tweaks/lambs_wool_tests/graphs/mdt30_1_and_2_z.gif

Pair matching (SB Acoustics before my tweaking them):
http://www.speakerdesign.net/raw/gif/raw_sb25stc_onaxis_spl.gif

I've got four Vifa PL11's that vary quite a bit, primarily 1-3K, just don't have posted measurements at my site.


dlr

[DoubleTap]

IMO ETON only represents good value when compared to Accuton. ;) they are generally overpriced for what you get.

Anytime a product has no competition, value has no bearing in the discussion. Accuton drivers are the only ones that do what they do, whether you like them or not ... so basically they can charge whatever they want.

[J_Shea]

Anytime a product has no competition, value has no bearing in the discussion. Accuton drivers are the only ones that do what they do, whether you like them or not ... so basically they can charge whatever they want.

They can charge whatever people will pay.

[MSaturn]

There's nothing magical about Accuton.

Their prices are silly for the performance "increase" (if you get one) you get.

I'm not saying they're terrible performers, just that there's no obvious benefit to the hundreds-of-dollars in premium.

Also, Morel is not a good company to judge QC by. Back when I was a sucker for self-punishment, I used their tweeters; tons were out of spec.

Matched pairs are a dubious benefit to well-made drivers coming from a well-controlled production and delivery environment. Besides, the only thing they're talking about is linear distortion - non-linear has nothing to do with pair-matching, and it is arguably more important, since non-linearities cannot be accurately accounted for in a crossover without significant tradeoffs. see the variance in RS28-Fs - I've been lucky enough to get the good ones - for an excellent example of this. Non-linearities deviate by 20dB or more, but the linear distortion is within 1dB, which is debatably audible.

[Jeff B.]

How much bandpass gain could be expected with this driver used as a midrange from say 400Hz to 4kHz?

Well, bandpass gain is determined by the other two drivers and their slope, but you could figure about 2 dB is typical for S=10 as you proposed.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

Well, bandpass gain is determined by the other two drivers and their slope, but you could figure about 2 dB is typical for S=10 as you proposed.

If he were to move to LR4 at both cross points, I doubt he's have any bandpass gain at all.

[J_Shea]

Thanks, bandpass gain suddenly makes a lot more sense. The closer the crossover points are the greater the gain, and the shallower the slopes of the drivers above and below the bandpass, the greater the gain.

[Theresa]

Good point. At a $100 a pop they may be a good value. It's hard to say for sure till some independent measurements are posted. If the distortion levels are as low as Revelators then it's possibly an excellent value. All tho there's SB Acoustics for $50.
I love my Eton tweeters but none of their bass/midrange speakers have distortion near as good as ScanSpeak, esp. the Revalators. I see no reason to believe, from what Eton itself says, that these little mids will have any lower distortion than other Eton mids and woofers. Its a shame, ceramic encased magnesium works wonderfully with the tweeter.

[dantheman]

We're not really very worried about nonlinear distortion are we? Unless it's gross, it's not an issue.

Dan

[neildavis]

I love my Eton tweeters but none of their bass/midrange speakers have distortion near as good as ScanSpeak, esp. the Revalators. I see no reason to believe, from what Eton itself says, that these little mids will have any lower distortion than other Eton mids and woofers. Its a shame, ceramic encased magnesium works wonderfully with the tweeter.

I've never been overly impressed with the "old" Eton mids. I've used one of the 5" drivers quite a bit (4-260?) and compared it to other good quality mids in a fixture that used an active 3-way system with steep slopes. The old Eton mids are good, but there are better drivers available.

However, this new midrange unit looks very promising. If you compare the distortion curves that Eton provides, the new driver is vastly better, at least on paper (this different is huge). The impedance curve is very flat compared to the older units, indicating an improved motor. And the price is competitive with other high-quality mids. If this cone material works well with the tweeter, it probably will also be effective for the mid. I'll probably put a matched pair on my list of candidate birthday gifts. :)

[r-carpenter]

We're not really very worried about nonlinear distortion are we? Unless it's gross, it's not an issue.

Dan

Hi Dan.
What happens if you subjectively compare 2 identical size loudspeakers using same tweeter, same crossover topology, woofers of the same size, loaded same way but using different diaphragm material. Let's say ceramic and paper. And let's say that woofers in the pass band have FR within .3db. Would you say that their acoustic signature (what we see in the impulse, waterfall, distortion plots) is what makes them audibly different? If not then what does if any?

[Theresa]

I have the Eton Symphony 7 kit from Madisound except it's in a PE curved enclosure and actively crossed over. The tweeter is magnificent but compared to the ScanSpeak 7" slit cone the mid-woofer is not very good. I am interested in these mids and will buy them IF the motor has been upgraded with such things as shorting rings. Exodus makes a number of drivers with the xbr2 motor but are inefficient in comparison to other designs but has very low distortion. For subs I use their 12" and 15" drivers and they are very low distortion.

[dantheman]

Hi Dan.
What happens if you subjectively compare 2 identical size loudspeakers using same tweeter, same crossover topology, woofers of the same size, loaded same way but using different diaphragm material. Let's say ceramic and paper. And let's say that woofers in the pass band have FR within .3db. Would you say that their acoustic signature (what we see in the impulse, waterfall, distortion plots) is what makes them audibly different? If not then what does if any?
Never personally did it. I've never seen it done in any scientific way. You? It would need to be a blind test as well otherwise the eyes will dictate. How much difference you figure it would make? Do we know that they would sound different? You've implied that. The difference between -50 dB of distortion and -55 is nothing to loose sleep over--especially when you throw in how we mask these low order distortions in speakers--we even mask them in instruments. That's my point. Bigger fish to fry. CSD is also real good at showing linear distortion we can't readily hear in the midrange. Believe you me, I'm all about diaphragm materials. Just for different reasons.

Dan

[r-carpenter]

Never personally did it. I've never seen it done in any scientific way. You? It would need to be a blind test as well otherwise the eyes will dictate. How much difference you figure it would make? Do we know that they would sound different? You've implied that. The difference between -50 dB of distortion and -55 is nothing to loose sleep over--especially when you throw in how we mask these low order distortions in speakers--we even mask them in instruments. That's my point. Bigger fish to fry. CSD is also real good at showing linear distortion we can't readily hear in the midrange. Believe you me, I'm all about diaphragm materials. Just for different reasons.

Dan

I haven't implied that they will sound different no, but I haven't said that they will not either. My concern is that now it's very common or at list it is my perception to generally discard distortion levels for as long as they are low. This approach further goes in to a $ value of a driver and everything gets mixed in together.
I have done a comparison between ZA14 and Fountek similarly loaded with all described conditions and found very little if any audible difference. Similar drivers. Not a scientific approach by any means. No statistics.
I am interested in such an experiment. Would you be interested in setting up conditions and just generally help and participate?

[dantheman]

I can't say I really would be--at least not driven to do so. I'd help out if I could setting up the test, but getting drivers/speakers and participants might not be easy. Dr. Geddes has done some experiments that are relevant to the discussion, but not exactly what you are looking for. It would be fun to do if there was a desire to participate from others.

Here's a PPP: http://www.gedlee.com/downloads/Sound%20Quality%20Improvements%20in%20Compression% 20Driver%20Systems.pdf

Dan

[r-carpenter]

I can't say I really would be--at least not driven to do so. I'd help out if I could setting up the test, but getting drivers/speakers and participants might not be easy. Dr. Geddes has done some experiments that are relevant to the discussion, but not exactly what you are looking for. It would be fun to do if there was a desire to participate from others.

Here's a PPP: http://www.gedlee.com/downloads/Sound%20Quality%20Improvements%20in%20Compression% 20Driver%20Systems.pdf

Dan

Well, let's see if there's any interest in DIY communities.
I can certainly build boxes, crossovers, measure and verify basically ... leg work.
Any interest guys?? NY DIY other DIY groups?