I think the issues that Nighthawk and Sean raise are very cogent. Speaker design and building is a craft of tradeoffs. Do you push a driver a bit out of its optimal zone, or introduce an additional driver with the added complexity of dispersion characteristics and crossover? Pick your poison.
I used to be a stauch 3 way guy. Now, my tastes lean towards the two way, due to its inherent simplicity. Do believe anyone who tells you that it is night and day easier to build a good two way than a good three way ala the crossover. Of course, Bud Fried will tell you that the series crossover makes As Nighthawk pointed out, my Coincidents go down to about 40 something Hz, filled in by a subwoofer on the bottom for that last octave or so.
Eldartford, 600 Hz for a woofer has been fine for many in the history of audio. However, many do try to keep a crossover out of the midrange, and 600 Hz is a frequency that most people can hear loud and clear. My preference is to stay far away from that as a crossover point. The three way Frieds we'll be selling cross the 8" to the 6.5" at 200 Hz, and the 6.5" to the tweeter at 2700 Hz. |
I think your opinions are very good, Gregm. I also am particularly enchanted with the sound of the Lowthers, and should have mine mounted in a cabinets I am building within a month or so. The speakers that Audio Note Kondo Japan was running at HE2004 were very much as you described, and they sounded fabulous to my ears.
You may or may not know that Bud Fried was the original importer of Lowther (also true of Quad), and when I spoke to him recently about speaker projects I was working on for fun, I mentioned them. I expected him to tear them up, but he recalled an anecdote from long ago where a dear friend of his bought some very expensive AR speakers, and they both found out that they could just not do justice to the piano, which the Lowthers had always handled with aplomb.
Piano is PARTICULARLY important to Bud, as his wife Jane is a pianist. He still holds the Lowthers in extremely high regard. Believe me, if Bud doesn't rip something, it's a compliment. If he praises it, it's more than a tribute to how good a component actually is. |
The generalization of expensive speakers using smaller midrange drivers is not at all true, Andy2. Look at Coincident, Dynaudio, JMlabs, Merlin, Wilson, and a whole raft of others using 6" - 8" midrange drivers. Speaker designs are as disparate as the people who purchase them. There are small midranged speakers, large midranged speakers, planars, electrostatics, horns, single driver, etc.
I also think that a 6.5" midrange is the "nominal" size, with a 5.25" coming in second place. 7" - 8" is large, and personally (probably not most audiophiles, though) think a 5.25 is on the small side. You are definitely correct about 3" - 4" being small, and I will add Avalon, Thiel, and Vandersteen to your list who build speakers with this sized midrange.
Like everything in life, there are tradeoffs to small, medium, or large midrange drivers. Larger ones can produce lower frequencies, and can go all the way down to the midbass. They can also play louder in many instances. Smaller ones can play at higher frequencies - into the treble. A 6.5" is a good compromise, as it can go pretty deep into both territories.
Notice that most of the speakers (Totem excepted) that use a smaller midrange driver are at least 3 way speakers. A two way will need a more sizable midrange driver to ensure it goes down far enough into the bass to recreate a satisfying musical experience. A lot of it comes down to the speaker builder's priorities, and his ideas on keeping the crucial crossover region out of a certain area, be it the low or high midrange.
Which is better? The real answer is neither. I hope I have made the point that great speakers can come in a variety of flavors. The ultimate answer, like most things audio, comes down to personal tastes. Close your eyes, if the speaker sounds good, it is good. Regardless of what design choices were made. |
Good discourse in this thread!
My Coincidents are a GREAT speaker, using an 8" Seas P21 Excel, with a 1.25" ScanSpeak Revelator. The midwoofer's phase plug helps extend the driver's upper frequency performance and address the point Ernie brings up regarding the difficulty in implementing this. The 10" Peerless driver in the integral sub makes sure the speakers go all the way down. There is no crossover between the 8" and the 10", although the 10" does have a cap and a coil to roll it off.
The Fried speakers we're building have the new, outstanding 6.5" Vifa. The Monitors are a two way, and the Studios are a three way, which include the 8" version of this driver. The previous version of the Studios used a Peerless 5.25" midrange (and it's 8" counterpart), but I can assure you this is a MUCH better sounding speaker, in a smaller, more attractive cabinet. |
Eldartford, you are correct in the classic definition of a midrange driver - your frequency range excepted. However, you must allow that a lot of great two way speakers, such as the Merlins, have fabulous midrange, despite "missing a driver" as you say. A midrange should not go down to 600 Hz, but much below that, I would say it should do 100 Hz, as the crossover between midrange and woofer is ideally around 200 - 400 Hz, and there will be a lot of output below the crossover frequency as a matter of course.
Your assertion that the best 7" drivers develop ripples starting at 1500 puts up a red flag in this thread that many a 4" driver also shows. In my experience, the 18 cm (7"+) ScanSpeak drivers are fine out to 3000 Hz. I personally would set the crossover point a bit under that, closer to the 2500 Hz area, but being a big believer in first order crossovers, there is going to still be a heck of a lot of output at 3000 Hz and more.
My favorite midrange drivers are 6.5", which we're using in the new Frieds. Again, my Coincident Digital Masters are some of the finest speakers I have come across (which is why I own them - they are a lifetime purchase), and they use an 8" midwoofer, crossed over in the 2250 Hz neighborhood. As they were also intended to be used on their own, without the matching Troubass subwoofer which they use as a stand, they go just about all the way down. After I rebuilt the Seas P21 Excels, they have some of the finest midrange I have come across. |
Eldartford, may I direct you to the comment which Andy2 makes in the heading of this thread? The statement is that "expensive" speakers tend to use smaller midrange drivers.
By the way, why don't you feel a 6.5" driver is not a midrange? Anyway, you could cross a 5.25" or 4" at 200 Hz without issue.
While I am one of the biggest audio cheapskates here, I have difficulty in grasping how 150 mF of capacitance and 3.0 mH of inductance (200 Hz crossover) is too expensive for audio. Particularly, expensive speakers. This when for the same money (less than $200 for topflight components - 10 gauge North Creek coils and their better caps), an interconnect would never even be considered a serious cable.
For me, it's a no brainer sticking this kind of money into a crossover. It makes more sense to me than cable, shelves, isolation devices, tweaks, etc. But, then I am a speaker guy...
Now, bulky IS where I will agree with you. I personally have had serious concerns in putting components this large in a Transmission Line, but for the sealed or ported speaker with the kind of size that is required to run this type of crossover, I believe could site them fine. |
Just about every good 6.5" midrange out there should lend itself to being crossed over at 2500 - 2700 without issue. Classically, a second order crossover would be used, but there are enough great speakers out there doing this with a first order network that I am more or less convinced. Unless the network is quite steep, there is still going to be output aplenty way beyond 3000 Hz.
Add to this the resonance point of a lot of the better tweeters comes in around 500 - 700 Hz. Although I never do this, why couldn't you cross one of these (ScanSpeak Revelator, 550 Hz Fs, for example) at 1500 Hz? It would be more than twice the resonance frequency. Even with a first order crossover, you are not pushing it all that hard.
Oh, I know! Someone is going to give a fire and brimstone speech and pull out a bunch of charts refuting what I say. Let me save you the trouble with two interesting anecdotes. First, I read a Audio Asylum mishap where an inmate blasted a Dynaudio Esotar with 90 watts - full range, for break in. He programmed it, and messed something up in the delivery which he did not monitor. Even after a long time of this, there was absolutely no tweeter damage. Second, a friend of mine, in an absent minded moment wired his tweeters flat out, and ran them that way for a couple of years. Believe me, his speakers are orders of magnitude more complex than most anything built today, it could've happened to any of us. When he went in to do an upgrade, he noticed this in horror. Again, no damage - except to our ears. Putting things right took so much of the edge off of those speakers, they then sounded as glorious as anything.
You are a most dedicated person in the pursuit of excellent sounding speakers if you are spending $200 on the lower crossover! While they are not seen, anyone who does not appreciate the difference they make is missing out on a lot of slam and openess down below. Again, for the price of an interconnect that no one will take seriously or a set of brass cones to be placed under the speakers, why wouldn't one want to make a commitment to seriously better sound. I realize that the hair on fire types wrap the knuckles of anyone who even dares to view the forbidden crossover with their own eyes... |
