Help me pick a 4-5" midrange.............

[Roger Hill]

Have had an Usher 8137A pair and LCY-130 ribbon pair around forever. At 79, with only a little high frequency hearing left, it is time to use them. First on the agenda is measurements so that I can do time aligned driver placement. Once I know the offsets I will design the cabinets. Lean toward Paul Carmody's " Tarkus " style cabinets because of their flexibility. JohnK tells me that he now likes LR4 sound as well as transient perfect filler driver sound. I will experiment with both. Bass alignment sealed, Q =.707 target.

What I value most in speakers and amps is the ability to resolve the finest detail in in the input signal. An example of what I mean by this is that in one of the Mozart piano concertos there is a quiet passage where the violins are playing pizzicato notes in unison with the piano. On most speakers, one cannot hear anything but piano, the speakers being unable to resolve the differences in overtones; on my TP SkanSpeak speakers one hears both. So, one of my crossover options will be a filler driver TP because I like my basement speakers so much. The problem with current speakers is that they are big and ugly, with little chance of going to the living room due to low WAF and they are too unwieldy and heavy for me to move up and down stairs. (getting old sucks!)

The mids I am considering (so far) are the Tang Band 1337, Aurum Cantu 130F1 and the SkanSpeak 10F8424, all 8 ohm drivers to make life easy for my tube amps. With all this as preamble, are there other mids that I should be considering? Thank you for your well considered and expert advice.

[PWR RYD]

Most definitely consider the Tang Band W5-2143. I have used this driver as a midrange in an open baffle project and a monopole project. Super low distortion and great detail.

[Billet]

Which Mozart Piano Concerto are you referring to? If I have a copy, I'll give it a listen...

[Roger Hill]

Billet, I shouldn't have shot off my mouth. I have all 27 of them, but I think it was one of the late ones. I'll start listening to them again and send you a PM when I find it.

[a4eaudio]

If you don't mind, please post here rather than PM'ing Billet, I'd like to know too

[Roger Hill]

PWR RYD that does look good, extended range, 8 Ohms and 90 dB. Thanks

[Roger Hill]

Billet and a4eaudio, I am still looking for it. You will find almost the same situation toward the end of the second movement of Beethoven's first piano concerto. Will keep searching for it. It is definitely in the middle movement of the one I am looking for. Will post when I find it.

[Billet]

Don't spend too much time on this, I was just curious and hoped it would be a easy question with a quick answer. I will check my collection for Beethoven's First Piano Concerto.

[tvrgeek]

Several here have suggested the Wavecor drivers as very good and low distortion. Like SB, you have your choice of cone material. If you don't mind taming the aluminum cones, the Dayton RS series are quite low distortion. Efficiency seems to be the issue with small cone mids. I have been contemplating the larger planer or ribbons that can cross low enough to multiple 5 or 6 inch.

[Billet]

It may be too large for your application, but the Dayton PM180 could be a good candidate. I have some PM220s and they clearly have a more detailed midrange than any of my other lower cost drivers.

[Roger Hill]

What I have found so far:
Mozart cto #21 starting at 7:00 into 2^nd movement
Beethoven’s cto #1 a bit of what I describe starting at 7:30 into 2^nd movement
Neither is the passage I am looking for which is more extended. I'll continue the search.

tvgeek: I've looked at the Wavecor. Their 4 1/2" speaker would work but looks to be a bit more work to smooth the hi-end portion of its response curve. Thanks for alerting me to them. They appear to have great low-end response.

[Geoff Millar]

I know and love the later Mozart Concertos, but I can't think of the one referred to in your first post, I'll just have to listen to them all again, what a drag!

All of my recordings of those works are relatively old, either LPs or CD transfers of recordings from the 50s and 60s.

The oldest is the 1951 Mozart 21st by Dinu Lipatti, great performance but 78-era mono sound. That recording sounds 'better' on my Classix II - the DC160 in which is often derided as having high distortion - than on our reference speakers which use the low distortion RS180P. The hiss and crackle of the recording is less obvious on the Classix. However, I still hear all the music on either speaker, but maybe the recording doesn't bring out the subtleties of the orchestra as well as a later recording.

An A/B comparison of the music is going to have to be done.

The recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by Julia Fischer is also a good test for speaker quality; as well as being a great performance, the sound is beautiful and will showcase the quality of your system.

I add that you're lucky to still have such good hearing, I'm a baby boomer and can only hear up to about 10,000 Hz.

Geoff

[Paul K.]

In my CD of Mozart's 21st piano concerto, the second movement is only 6:12 long!?
Paul

[Roger Hill]

Paul: I am referring to the Ashkenazy/Philharmonia recording in which the 2nd movement is 7:48 long. I have a perfectly atrocious recording of Beethoven's 9th (Boulez conducting) which is some seven or eight minutes shorter than the Szell recording. Absolutely awful!

[tvrgeek]

It may be too large for your application, but the Dayton PM180 could be a good candidate. I have some PM220s and they clearly have a more detailed midrange than any of my other lower cost drivers.

Really efficient, but looks hard to tame if used above about 1800 or so. I was looking at some of the drivers marketed as full range like Mark, Fostex and Fountek. The Dayton 2 inch dome seems to be highly rated where the Morell is universally not. I am also looking at the Peerless ceramic 1 1/8 dome to just lower the crossover enough I don't need the mid. My current living room are 7 inch Seas with 1 inch domes @ 1700. Flat too low for a 1 inch. I played with some Silver Flutes cutting out the dust cap and putting in phase plugs. Made them a lot better, just not as good as much better drivers. Physics, not magic.

I used to hear above 22K. I have been pretty careful not going to Who concerts stoned, but time does get to us and the inner ear fluid thickens... My wife can still hear like a dog making her quite sensitive to midrange distortion that is now above my hearing.

Eventually my stereo will be a Sony table radio in the nursing home. Keeping one on the shelf actually.

[Roger Hill]

To Geoff, Billet and tvgeek: While I am fussy about the high frequency end of the spectrum, I don't hear it at all. I can appreciate what the mic picks up and how I know it is there is that I feel it. The very high frequencies are what gives the spl pressure wave its suddenness. The loud strike of a timpani has a lot of HF content, I don't have to hear the hf to know it was there, I react to the suddenness of the arrival of compressed air and the sound of the lower frequencies. My hearing now cuts off at about 5,000 Hz. Bring up an online tone generator and you will be amazed at what a high frequency 6,000 Hz really is. Based upon years of "training," my brain fills in the vibration information that is concomitant with the pressure change. Not hearing above that doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the music at all. The only part of a beloved music passage where I lament the loss of hearing is in the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th (Chorale) symphony. After a tremendous crescendo and pause, the orchestra comes back very softly with the triangle beating time. I can no longer hear the triangle and I miss it. In another recording, a bass drum is used rather than the triangle. Works for me. As you age, there will be other physical things that you will miss more than your ability to hear high frequencies. But there are also benefits to getting old: I can't die young, I am immune to early onset Alzheimer's and if I ever buy a new car, it may come with a lifetime warranty .........;-) BTW, my wife is the envy of the bat community. If I put on a solo violin, she runs from the room plugging her ears. I am convinced that she can hear 25 kHz and she doesn't enjoy classical music at all.

[Steve Lee]

They hear EVERYTHING . . .

:D

[tvrgeek]

But they hear best the comment made across the room at a noisy party.

My big band CDs were what made my wife run from the room until I finally built speakers good enough. I knew it was the speakers as we could go to a club and hear live Jazz much louder with no problem. Tweeters. Tweeters were the key. HD and more important IMD from breakup.

I used to think transients were HF and not bass, "slow" base being insufficient midrange. I have learned better. They help, but for tympany, that initial wave front matters. Moving lots of air fast. Low Q bass drivers are the key.

[oldloder]

Would also love to know which Concerto you've referred to ... I listen to the TB 1337's and AC 130F1's daily and would be happy to tell you if I can hear those pizzicato delights.

[Roger Hill]

please tell me how you rate those two drivers for ability to resolve complicated detail without sounding harsh. Which do you prefer? Of the 25, I would also like to know which one I referred to.........

[Roger Hill]

Would an MTMW using these cause more brain damage than a relatively sane old guy should take on? Particularly don't like the truncated frames but I am sure that I could ultimately figure it out.

https://www.parts-express.com/scan-s...BoCO0MQAvD_BwE

[Geoff Millar]

Flush mounting those would be a pain, I think.

Many Peerless drivers have that shaped frame but can be flush mounted, as the frame is thin and designed to be surface mounted anyway. I tried several times to flush mount the SB16pfc, which also has an awkward shaped frame, and gave up!

Geoff

[fpitas]

Would an MTMW using these cause more brain damage than a relatively sane old guy should take on? Particularly don't like the truncated frames but I am sure that I could ultimately figure it out.

https://www.parts-express.com/scan-s...BoCO0MQAvD_BwE

I think that an MTM of some sort is your best bet, if detail retrieval is your thing. My experience is that you get a more "focused" sound, almost like headphones. Probably from the restricted vertical dispersion. Truncated frames will allow you to get the minimum driver-driver distance in an MTM.

[dst]

Roger: You may want to look at the Morel or PE dome mids. I would also consider SB Acoustics mids. If your hearing is now cut off around 5K, instead of the ribbon you may look at crossing over from the Usher fairly low to a full range driver. Make sure to give the Trout Quintet a spin on the turntable when done. At age 64 a recent hearing test had me still good to about 12-13K, which made me happy. Not too much fishing for me in recent years. Will retire in the months ahead and significantly ramp up the days on the water in 2021. I have wrapped up a few new rods in anticipation. I will need to find some old phone cord to tie up a few nymphs! Enjoy the music.