I quite like the 170Z0, but it needs a LOT of break-in to loosen up that surround; it also needs a larger than normal cabinet volume with a bass reflex vent about 2 octaves below the high-pass. Done well it’s like a damped electrostat.
Von Schweikert had a good loudspeaker with them. (mine I used as a radial up-firing mid., and I’d also describe the driver as an upper mid..)
Von Schweikert had a good loudspeaker with them. (mine I used as a radial up-firing mid., and I’d also describe the driver as an upper mid..)
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Even the ATC needs a very steep filter to get to 250Hz, and it’s still a bad idea. So yeah, upper midrange.
I had it in a big floor standing cab tuned low , also Z2 version in a smaller cab. I kept expolinar alnico ribbon. Not many of those around. Not as transparent as Raal tweeter but what is? I keep kicking my silly **** for not keeping Raal ( the one only available to OEM ) It was like a distilled water , no sound of its own, meh
There is a more or less consent about names of frequency ranges and "Midrange" doesn't start at 100Hz ;-) Just the first pages I found with google:
https://www.teachmeaudio.com/mixing/techniques/audio-spectrum
https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/understanding-the-different-frequency-ranges
https://www.cuidevices.com/blog/understanding-audio-frequency-range-in-audio-design
250-500Hz is lower midrange, 500-2kHz is midrange.
Testing the sound of a not-fullrange speaker in fullrange is worthless.
Listening to resonances which never ocour in an implementation (lowcut of midrange) is as useless as listening to missing low end that will be delivered from the next driver. (highcut of midrange)
A complete speaker is a combination of A LOT of filter functions. (You can see the frequency response of every chassis as a compination of filters. Cabinet adds/changes filters. Crossover. And then room ...) The art is to combine these to get a linear response!
Switching off half of the frequency range, listening and judging for the WHOLE SYSTEM ... doesn't have a lot of value.
https://www.teachmeaudio.com/mixing/techniques/audio-spectrum
https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/understanding-the-different-frequency-ranges
https://www.cuidevices.com/blog/understanding-audio-frequency-range-in-audio-design
250-500Hz is lower midrange, 500-2kHz is midrange.
Testing the sound of a not-fullrange speaker in fullrange is worthless.
Listening to resonances which never ocour in an implementation (lowcut of midrange) is as useless as listening to missing low end that will be delivered from the next driver. (highcut of midrange)
A complete speaker is a combination of A LOT of filter functions. (You can see the frequency response of every chassis as a compination of filters. Cabinet adds/changes filters. Crossover. And then room ...) The art is to combine these to get a linear response!
Switching off half of the frequency range, listening and judging for the WHOLE SYSTEM ... doesn't have a lot of value.
Yeah, and in full system context midrange quality also depends on balance of the system. For example, peaks due to room modes making bass "boom" masks the mids. As soon as effects of room are dealt with the midrange suddenly sounds very good, even though it was not affected anyway as such, but bass was, and balance of system as whole. Or, whether there is third way for bass or is it the same woofer reproducing bass and mid as well. How about the enclosure if there is one, is there a port and how well it was implemented, what's the positioning, and so on.
So, if someone heard most euphonic midrange in a whole system context, the midrange driver is only part of the whole, and everything with the system must have been quite optimized and relatively problem free in order to give the impression of very good midrange. It is possible to use the most euphonic midrange driver in such a system, where the sound ends up being average, while "lesser" driver in better optimized system could giveth more euhophonic sound.
Coffee break philosophy:
A driver is just one thing in a soup, a potato, while the soup could taste like pork or summer, or yesterday. To make good soup, also seasoning must align with all the ingredients and even if end result was ideal ideal soup, eating it alone does not give same emotional impact as sharing it with others. Sharing with others could be more important than absolute quality of the soup. Point is, quality of the potato matters, but also everything else matters
So, when giving or taking advice, be sure you are aware of the whole context before giving too much value on any single aspect as there seldom is anything particular magic bullet quality in anything, and it is all things combined that makes or breaks it. This applies to searching perfect midrange driver as well. You could buy the best one, but the sound depends on how the system is implemented.
Make a thought experiment: think about any driver that is ideal, no resonances, no distortion, just pure bliss, made from unobtanium or anything. Now think about what the polar response of that is? Shrink size of the transducer to get better highs, now where the bass went? I mean, even purely imagination based system around ideal transducer and idea of perfect midrange fails as soon as sound wavelength is added to the mix, which is simplest thing one can do to imagine with audio, and which is basis for everything acoustics. Now, make the thought experiment with different mindset; what if I had ideal transducer, how would the rest of the system need to be for best sound, and what best sound means first of all?
Takeaway with these thought experiments is that poor knowledge on context and the system as whole makes detailed information just noise, details without context are meaningless as they could be true or wrong, or anything between, depending on the context.
It is perfectly possible though, that if you have a system that is well balanced out and all you do is change one driver in there for another that is same size, and the system is adjusted again for best sound, that there is some difference in distortion for example, that makes some difference in sound quality. The sound got better because one could tune better sound from the system with better driver. But, use the same driver on some other system or tuning, or change room or positioning, and the sound changes again, for better or for worse, without changing the driver!
Have fun searching for best midrange sound! I suspect that when it's found, every aspect of the speaker system was dealt with as well so it's 1000x more work than trying to compare cone materials of single transducer. I mean, since wavelengths of midrange are similar in size to us humans, to most objects we have in living room including the speakers themselves, drivers, about 90% of all loudspeaker issues land on midrange, so it's quite a soup. Midrange problems are not just from driver material, or from midrange driver, or even from the speaker, but from everything including room acoustics and psychoacoustics!
So, if someone heard most euphonic midrange in a whole system context, the midrange driver is only part of the whole, and everything with the system must have been quite optimized and relatively problem free in order to give the impression of very good midrange. It is possible to use the most euphonic midrange driver in such a system, where the sound ends up being average, while "lesser" driver in better optimized system could giveth more euhophonic sound.
Coffee break philosophy:
A driver is just one thing in a soup, a potato, while the soup could taste like pork or summer, or yesterday. To make good soup, also seasoning must align with all the ingredients and even if end result was ideal ideal soup, eating it alone does not give same emotional impact as sharing it with others. Sharing with others could be more important than absolute quality of the soup. Point is, quality of the potato matters, but also everything else matters
So, when giving or taking advice, be sure you are aware of the whole context before giving too much value on any single aspect as there seldom is anything particular magic bullet quality in anything, and it is all things combined that makes or breaks it. This applies to searching perfect midrange driver as well. You could buy the best one, but the sound depends on how the system is implemented.
Make a thought experiment: think about any driver that is ideal, no resonances, no distortion, just pure bliss, made from unobtanium or anything. Now think about what the polar response of that is? Shrink size of the transducer to get better highs, now where the bass went? I mean, even purely imagination based system around ideal transducer and idea of perfect midrange fails as soon as sound wavelength is added to the mix, which is simplest thing one can do to imagine with audio, and which is basis for everything acoustics. Now, make the thought experiment with different mindset; what if I had ideal transducer, how would the rest of the system need to be for best sound, and what best sound means first of all?
Takeaway with these thought experiments is that poor knowledge on context and the system as whole makes detailed information just noise, details without context are meaningless as they could be true or wrong, or anything between, depending on the context.
It is perfectly possible though, that if you have a system that is well balanced out and all you do is change one driver in there for another that is same size, and the system is adjusted again for best sound, that there is some difference in distortion for example, that makes some difference in sound quality. The sound got better because one could tune better sound from the system with better driver. But, use the same driver on some other system or tuning, or change room or positioning, and the sound changes again, for better or for worse, without changing the driver!
Have fun searching for best midrange sound! I suspect that when it's found, every aspect of the speaker system was dealt with as well so it's 1000x more work than trying to compare cone materials of single transducer. I mean, since wavelengths of midrange are similar in size to us humans, to most objects we have in living room including the speakers themselves, drivers, about 90% of all loudspeaker issues land on midrange, so it's quite a soup. Midrange problems are not just from driver material, or from midrange driver, or even from the speaker, but from everything including room acoustics and psychoacoustics!
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Oh yes, what ever feels most fun to keep you motivated! As it's a hobby, anything goes.
Motivation for my post was to try and speed the process up, by illustrating importance of context. Awareness of context hopefully reduces confusion with all the details we like to concentrate on, and helps find path forward toward some goal by understanding what is meaningful for each of our goals with each of our context, and what is not. If some information seems vague then ask more about context where it is based on so that usefulness in your context can be reasoned. For example, if there is subjective evaluation some driver being better than the other, it is mandatory to know what was the listening condition, otherwise it's just random information which could lead astray, true in some context, false in another, and not knowing either of the context is what makes it random advice, not very useful.
Chasing details without being aware of meaningfulness doesn't lead anywhere. Although could be fun and start to accumulate pieces of useful information from here and there, which should eventually lead to some path towards something. For example, realizing being lost in details would lead to realization that there needs to be a goal and a context, in order to find the path I should be taking. So, meaningfulness depends on the goal and context, and if there is no goal, also context becomes irrelevant, and anything goes.
If goal is to build speaker with best cone material midrange transducer, then why not, just be aware that best midrange driver is not analog to best sound! If goal is to get best sound instead, the context (your room, pshychoacoustics and subjective preference and listening skills, speaker(s), the whole system) becomes important and meaningfulness of any advice could be opposite than with some other goal, or even same goal with another context, which is important to understand. Different context, different meaning.
edit. this post has huge edit, losing my thought here, again posting in a hurry well, hopefully there is something useful in it.
Motivation for my post was to try and speed the process up, by illustrating importance of context. Awareness of context hopefully reduces confusion with all the details we like to concentrate on, and helps find path forward toward some goal by understanding what is meaningful for each of our goals with each of our context, and what is not. If some information seems vague then ask more about context where it is based on so that usefulness in your context can be reasoned. For example, if there is subjective evaluation some driver being better than the other, it is mandatory to know what was the listening condition, otherwise it's just random information which could lead astray, true in some context, false in another, and not knowing either of the context is what makes it random advice, not very useful.
Chasing details without being aware of meaningfulness doesn't lead anywhere. Although could be fun and start to accumulate pieces of useful information from here and there, which should eventually lead to some path towards something. For example, realizing being lost in details would lead to realization that there needs to be a goal and a context, in order to find the path I should be taking. So, meaningfulness depends on the goal and context, and if there is no goal, also context becomes irrelevant, and anything goes.
If goal is to build speaker with best cone material midrange transducer, then why not, just be aware that best midrange driver is not analog to best sound! If goal is to get best sound instead, the context (your room, pshychoacoustics and subjective preference and listening skills, speaker(s), the whole system) becomes important and meaningfulness of any advice could be opposite than with some other goal, or even same goal with another context, which is important to understand. Different context, different meaning.
edit. this post has huge edit, losing my thought here, again posting in a hurry
well, hopefully there is something useful in it.
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lower midrange, middle midrange, and upper midrange = midrange.
But a driver usually has to span at least an octave below that lowest freq. for most crossover integration. That is a tough ask for a small Sd driver with little excursion that can achieve higher Spl’s at low distortion.
Perhaps the 80 to 200 hz PRAT is important. But I have heard good loudspeakers with cut offs around 100 to 150 hz !
A 200 hz to 3000 hz cuto-off for the midrange makes sense. Then a 5" or 6" should suffice. Some really like a 8" or more though for the midrange. Maybe it is making sense too if a horn or a modern big tweeter that can goes low.
A 200 hz to 3000 hz cuto-off for the midrange makes sense. Then a 5" or 6" should suffice. Some really like a 8" or more though for the midrange. Maybe it is making sense too if a horn or a modern big tweeter that can goes low.
https://stereonomono.blogspot.com/2018/12/mbl-300e-speakers.html
Here you have one with 140 Hz cross to a mid .
Wilson Audio crosses low as well and probably many others
Here you have one with 140 Hz cross to a mid .
Wilson Audio crosses low as well and probably many others
Rhedeko lovers are a small club indeed ! I wondered if it was one because of the blue cone.
Here we had some old drivers that sounded good : old cabasse one (not all their drivers) and also Siare which is less known abroad. They fall in the musical loudspeaker that are not fidel, often. But who care if it is the one one likes. The guys from Audax came for many from Siare.
https://www.facebook.com/Cabasse/po...can-you-tell-us-which-one-i/4195674800549985/
Here we had some old drivers that sounded good : old cabasse one (not all their drivers) and also Siare which is less known abroad. They fall in the musical loudspeaker that are not fidel, often. But who care if it is the one one likes. The guys from Audax came for many from Siare.
https://www.facebook.com/Cabasse/po...can-you-tell-us-which-one-i/4195674800549985/