Full Range OR Coaxial?

[nas]

Lil' hijack of thread: what are the coax drivers available up to ~200EUR-USD/unit range?
I know Kartesian, Sica and Seas. Dayton and SB have too flawed units, Satori - in 300USD range. Others are in pro audio or car audio category. Did I miss some lesser known driver?

 

[nisse.P]

Coaxial - B&C Speakers

www.bcspeakers.com

Products - Beyma - Professional Speaker Manufacturer since 1969

Find the speaker that suits better with your needs in an easy way, thanks to our powerful filters and the product comparator.

www.beyma.com

FERRITE COAXIALS

OBERTON Professional Loudspeakers - high quality European professional loudspeakers, coaxial loudspeakers, HF drivers and horns.

www.oberton.com

NEODYMIUM COAXIALS

OBERTON Professional Loudspeakers - high quality European professional loudspeakers, coaxial loudspeakers, HF drivers and horns.

www.oberton.com

Eighteen Sound - Professional loudspeakers

www.eighteensound.it

Or simply do a deep dive https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/search/type=Coaxial

My tiny coaxial is this one: https://www.thomann.de/se/the_box_pro_4_coax_speaker_mcx4.htm

 

[Ardacer]

You might find KEF's drivers on ebay or other sites too.

 

[nas]

Coaxial - B&C Speakers

www.bcspeakers.com

Products - Beyma - Professional Speaker Manufacturer since 1969

Find the speaker that suits better with your needs in an easy way, thanks to our powerful filters and the product comparator.

www.beyma.com

FERRITE COAXIALS

OBERTON Professional Loudspeakers - high quality European professional loudspeakers, coaxial loudspeakers, HF drivers and horns.

www.oberton.com

NEODYMIUM COAXIALS

OBERTON Professional Loudspeakers - high quality European professional loudspeakers, coaxial loudspeakers, HF drivers and horns.

www.oberton.com

Eighteen Sound - Professional loudspeakers

www.eighteensound.it

Or simply do a deep dive https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/search/type=Coaxial

My tiny coaxial is this one: https://www.thomann.de/se/the_box_pro_4_coax_speaker_mcx4.htm

Eighteen Sound is a leading designer and manufacturer of high quality professional audio loudspeakers
Beyma - also only pro audio
18 sound - also only pro pro audio
LaVoce - also only pro pro audio
Oberton - also...
Faital - also...
and others from the database are either pro, car or guitar
In my humble loudspeaker building experience, there are too many differences between pro audio and home/hi-fi speaker drivers. If some pro audio drivers sound ok-ish, ok or good - it is more of an exception or pure overengineering, as the main purpose of pro audio drivers is very different to home use hi-fi drivers. There are some situations where this is acceptable or the only reasonable/affordable option: like huge driver dimensions and huge SPL needed on a limited budget.

The assortment is very limited in hi-fi coax:
Dayton and SB - 2 drivers total in 30-60EUR range, both with flaws
SEAS, Kartesian and Sica - 5 drivers total, all in 100-220EUR range. There are more by SEAS, but they are very expensive
Satori - 1 driver ~300EUR

That is all. Maybe there are some cheaper Morel and some lesser known and tested TB and Peerless.

 

[nas]

You might find KEF's drivers on ebay or other sites too.

This option may add much more additional challenges

 

[jaakkopetteri]

Lil' hijack of thread: what are the coax drivers available up to ~200EUR-USD/unit range?
I know Kartesian, Sica and Seas. Dayton and SB have too flawed units, Satori - in 300USD range. Others are in pro audio or car audio category. Did I miss some lesser known driver?

Omnes CX3.1 / 3.3 should be decent if not great for the price

 

[nas]

Omnes CX3.1 / 3.3 should be decent if not great for the price

Nice find!
Tweeter section geometry does not seem very hi-fi-ish, but still an option. It would be great to have someone to do cheap coax shootout: SB, Dayton and this one. Especially multitone distortion from 80-100Hz

 

[jaakkopetteri]

Nice find!
Tweeter section geometry does not seem very hi-fi-ish, but still an option. It would be great to have someone to do cheap coax shootout: SB, Dayton and this one. Especially multitone distortion from 80-100Hz

The tweeter has a surprisingly smooth response. Several retailers have measurements from a German magazine and there's also a "minigehäuse" project with measurements that you can find online.

I have a CX120 that I've been planning on tinkering with. Changing the surround to an inverted one should be interesting!

 

[nisse.P]

Omnes Audio CX 3.1

HiFi-Selbstbau - Das DIY Online Magazin für hochwertiges HiFi

hifi-selbstbau.de

unfortunately behind a subscription, but it’s not that expensive and Google translate is quite good at the German to English translation.
For the money it seems to be an excellent mid high solution.

 

[nas]

Omnes Audio CX 3.1

HiFi-Selbstbau - Das DIY Online Magazin für hochwertiges HiFi

hifi-selbstbau.de

unfortunately behind a subscription, but it’s not that expensive and Google translate is quite good at the German to English translation.
For the money it seems to be an excellent mid high solution.

It depends how we define "mid-high". There are many good well engineered and reasonably priced full-range 2.5-3.5 inch drivers which play with very very little distortion from 200-300Hz up to ~15k. TC9, PS95, B80 etc. Choose any. This is why small 3-3.5 inch coax drivers make very little sense.

EDIT: make very little sense if used from those 200-300Hz.

 

[Wolf]

Tang Band has some too.

 

[jaakkopetteri]

It depends how we define "mid-high". There are many good well engineered and reasonably priced full-range 2.5-3.5 inch drivers which play with very very little distortion from 200-300Hz up to ~15k. TC9, PS95, B80 etc. Choose any. This is why small 3-3.5 inch coax drivers make very little sense.

EDIT: make very little sense if used from those 200-300Hz.

While I think small full-ranges and WAW builds in general are very underappreciated, those will still beam significantly compared to a small coax. Apart from the questionable "phase coherence", I don't see much benefit in fullranges over properly designed coaxes

 

[nas]

Most cheap are like this:

And no one will convince me that it will have good tweeter range.

properly designed coaxes

This one is the cheapest I would bet my money on. It is used on some 5-10k EUR speakers...
~130EUR

130EUR is SB NRX2 6 inch range + decent tweeter

 

[Timcognito]

Speaker drivers Archives - Lii Song (丽颂), unique speaker, amplfier, quality and cost-saving parts for HiFi DIY

www.lii-audio.com

Don't forget BMRs

 

[jaakkopetteri]

Most cheap are like this:

And no one will convince me that it will have good tweeter range.

You seemed to talk about small coaxes in general, not just dirt cheap ones. I do agree that full-ranges are better value for the cheapest builds.

I haven't even heard the Omnes but specs-wise, I would take it over most small full ranges.
BTW, you can find the Sica coax for 87€ here

 

[nas]

You seemed to talk about small coaxes in general, not just dirt cheap ones. I do agree that full-ranges are better value for the cheapest builds.

I haven't even heard the Omnes but specs-wise, I would take it over most small full ranges.
BTW, you can find the Sica coax for 87€ here

T.y. Haven't heard about this eshop. Yes, there are some other places with ~90EUR pricing indeed. That coax became much sweeter

 

[Ardacer]

This option may add much more additional challenges

Really? Like what
No, seriously, like what

 

[nas]

Really? Like what
No, seriously, like what

Are we on the same page?
I was talking about speaker drivers. You mentioned KEF because they build speakers (drivers + cabinets) or second hand speaker drivers from those cabinets?

 

[Ardacer]

I meant used/replacement drivers from kef. But be careful with coaxials, of any kind. They like to die if you are not carefull.

 

[nas]

I meant used/replacement drivers from kef. But be careful with coaxials, of any kind. They like to die if you are not carefull.

I do not like both ideas: to buy used or to buy new replacement OEM driver for some specific box. Both are way too problematic.