I should not have bought those Satori 7.5” woofs for what I was intending. I think I will attempt a 2 way TL with them despite their low Qts. I do not think it necessary to spend a lot on mids. It seems to be the easiest band to reproduce.
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They should do 2k pretty easily, yeah?
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Anyone else care to opine on the midband being the easiest to produce? In a three way such as a Philharmonic with a BMR mid?
Easiest how, tho?
In a 3-way, the midrange is usually the pain in the arse to integrate. And it’s not like directivity issues just go away.
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My 2 cents: I’ve come around to thinking the midrange driver, in three ways is primary, with bass and highs (while important) as secondary to this critical area. So I often look for midranges that can play an extended range - as much of the voice range the better, then look to woofers and tweeters to fill around the midrange. More so than when a midrange is employed to fill a gap between the woofer and tweeter its implementation / application is then a narrow(er) band.
If however we have a fav open sounding tweeter and a kick ass woofer then maybe easier midrange selection/ implementation.
What I find so interesting about this hobby is each project can start out with differing goals from which we make a plan (and a little sawdust) often with our own slightly differing solutions. A bit of art and science (and with engineering a balancing act of compromises).
So, don’t know if the midrange implementation is easier, just depends upon it’s application for the project (ie used as a primary or secondary driver).
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I’ve used this BMR on three, 3-way designs so far. This particular driver, the Tectonic BMR TEBM46C20N-4B, was very easy to work with on all of them because it had a very smooth response, both on and off axis. Also, the BMR technology produced a very wide horizontal polar response. The directivity was a reasonably close match to the non-waveguide tweeters I was using.
Downside is that the BMR could not handle much power. It also had a fairly cheap plastic basket. And now it is NLA. I wish someone would make another driver just like it, using the same technology but with a rigid cast frame, better power handling, and lower distortion. Keep the driver size in the 3 or 4 inch range for a 3-way. I think 7.5" is probably too big for a midrange, unless you build a 4-way and use it as the lower-midrange or mid-bass speaker.
I wouldn’t say that the midrange is the easiest to produce. Instead, I would suggest that you can make it easy to produce by selecting the right driver combinations, cabinet shapes, and spacing distances.
I like the Tymphany TA6.
Distortion is low through the passband, and its curves resemble that of a large dome tweeter.
I also really want to try the SB10PGC21-4.
Cheers,
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Sorry I meant to say reproduce, like I did the first time. If the range of human hearing were limited to little more than the voice range then we would all be satisfied with a single driver and AM radio and we could debate other topics.
That is a low cost driver, so I will assume that you agree with my statement.
Well, it kind of depends on the use-case also. How loud does it need to go and whether you want adequately low distortion or state-of-the-art low distortion.
The SB10PGC21-4 ($18) has an xmax of 2.25mm, sensitivity of 84dB, and power handling of 20 watts.
The state of the art 6.5” 4-ohm Purifi midrange (not woofer) ($535) has xmax of 4mm, sensitivity of 93dB, and power handling of 250 watts.
Beware of tuning this driver too low.
I’ve done builds with Fb ~33Hz and Fb ~40Hz. The bass was far better in the latter.
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As others have stated, I agree that midrange frequencies are very important, and why I usually prefer 3 ways over 2 ways. I once was working on a monkey coffin 3 way with a peerless TC9 mid, and I could not get it dialed in - it just sounded crappy on certain musical passages. After several weeks, ripped it out and dropped in a peerless HDS 830870 and it sounded much better.
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Midrange is the most important thing to get right for me personally. That said I am a self admitted bass head due to my many years of hard hitting car audio bass systems. Bass is just what gets you dancing, tapping your foot, or banging your head. But to my ears since I started down this diy rabbit hole, speaker are either great, just good, or even bad based on the clarity and low HD of the midrange. I hear that right away now.
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Thanks Craig. I find words such as yours, said in a explanatory manner, much more helpful than memes.
At first I thought your example was a bit extreme but then I realized that my BMR example was also extreme.
Double edge sword IMO. We are most sensitive to that frequency range, so most audio products focus on that range. This makes it easy enough nowadays to make something that you can legibly hear the midrange… BUT since we are so sensitive to it, it can be difficult to fool the ear into believing it isn’t just a reproduced recording.
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