best 4.5" midrange drivers under $1K

Shadorne, I may not be reading it right but the ATC was tested at 100dB and distortion was 30dB below the signal. the Tang-band distortion 40dB below the signal, of course not at 100dB. I have no doubt the ATC is the better driver.

Auudioism, I have used that titanium Tang-band driver. For the price, and at low dB, it's a nifty little driver. The good news is that is it clean sounding with low distortion and is pretty fast. However the bumped up H-F IS audible (at least to me) so you either need to cross over below 5-7kHz or attenuate the H-F if you go full range. Don't expect a lot of bass but then again, it doesn't require the power of the Flex Units either. I like it better than any Fostex driver I have heard but still not as much as my modded Tang-Band W4-616 that I am playing with now.
A Jordan JX-92 is much better than the T-B in every way but the sound was pretty thin to my ears. Zaph has spec's for [url=http://www.zaphaudio.com/5.5test]Jordan[/url]

Cdc,

SPL level is 20 * Log (Absolute THD) - therefore ATC would appear at 60 db SPL down if it were on the same kind of SPL plot. For 0.1% THD you get = 20 * Log (0.001) = 60 db SPL. This may cause all the confusion in the comparison. There is very little out there that is so low - especially the 3rd harmonic which is much more detrimental then the 2nd and appears to be down around 70 db SPL ( this low level may be capable to show up problems of electronic distortion).

You may be right about the level - in any case that driver has no problem at 100 db SPL as it can go to 121 db SPL with 10 db of headroom at 0.3% THD, as in the implementation in the 300's

Hi again, found this company on the web, its based on eastern europe i guess. its a handmade one.

http://www.zr-speakerlab.si/midrange.html

Looks like its piece of art but dunno how its sound

EJ Jordan JX92S 45Hz - 20K awesome driver and they've been at it forever.

If my understanding is correct, Feastrex has some odd prototype components sitting around from which they could put together a pair of 5-inch drivers that would surpass your performance requirements but would probably not quite live up to theirs, and thus could not be sold as regular Feastrex products. Feastrex drivers are normally beyond your price range but if they would agree to put together a pair of drivers using those components for you, you might be able to get them to give you a special price . . . I'm not sure if they would be able to accommodate you right away as their sales nearly quadrupled in the past year and if present trends continue they are going to be B-U-S-Y. But it can't hurt to ask, and if you are going to inquire, sooner is better than later as they are only going to get busier in the future, I suppose.