Midrange dome drivers banned ?

[JeanMiK]

Hi!
How come that you can't find 3 way speakers with dome drivers anymore these days?
I own a good pair of vintage (coffin type) speakers - with 8" bass drivers, in a 35m2 living room. I find them excellent. I don't own very sophisticated measurements tools, but for what I've measured they're quite good.
Is this a mere trend, or are there logical/technical reasons to use only cone drivers?
JM

 

[LTig]

Hi!
How come that you can't find 3 way speakers with dome drivers anymore these days?

Neumann KH310 and KH420 use one.

 

[Eurasian]

I think that the Neumann 3-way monitors use dome mids.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

Adam 3S and 5S use dome/cone hybrids.

 

[LTig]

And the Yamaha NS5000, ATC SCM40.

 

[JeanMiK]

And a picture of my beloved ones ....

 

[thewas]

Is this a mere trend, or are there logical/technical reasons to use only cone drivers?

Almost all German mainstream brands loudspeakers in the 70s had small (usually 38 or 50 mm and rarely 76 mm) mid domes till the mid 80s where most manufacturers switched to larger mid cones as they won in some magazines comparison tests. The reason they won was the higher directivity in the mids which although not as smooth and continuous as with mid dome designs, compensated more the too high "Hifi" listening distances and the room design which was getting more and more sparse compared to the "flokati rug 70s".
Mid domes have also some other advantages as lower distortions but also disadvantages as more limited frequency range (needing often one more way) and more abrupt directivity change above their wavelength radiation. If you want to make them compatible to modern poor room acoustics you usually must use also waveguides for them as for example Neumann does, which further increases the design and production cost.

 

[bunkbail]

Wharfedale EVO 3-ways use 2-inch midrange soft domes.

 

[JeanMiK]

Almost all German mainstream brands loudspeakers in the 70s had small (usually 38 or 50 mm and rarely 76 mm) mid domes till the mid 80s where most manufacturers switched to larger mid cones as they won in some magazines comparison tests. The reason they won was the higher directivity in the mids which although not as smooth and continuous as with mid dome designs, compensated more the too high "Hifi" listening distances and the room design which was getting more and more sparse compared to the "flokati rug 70s".
Mid domes have also some other advantages as lower distortions but also disadvantages as more limited frequency range (needing often one more way) and more abrupt directivity change above their wavelength radiation. If you want to make them compatible to modern poor room acoustics you usually must use also waveguides for them as for example Neumann does, which further increases the design and production cost.

OK, this is also the conclusion I came to.
I'm myself a vintage guy, with still good ears (16kHz heard) and was never satisfied with cone midrange, too much directivity.
Of course my living room is big enough, with lots of furniture, carpets, curtains etc ....
Thus the big problems to have a good sounding hifi in some modern rooms ....
JM

 

[Matias]

ATC speakers, for example SCM50.
http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/hi-fi/loudspeakers/classic-series/scm50/

Or SCM40.
http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/hi-fi/loudspeakers/entry-series/scm40/

 

[JeanMiK]

ATC speakers, for example SCM50.
http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/hi-fi/loudspeakers/classic-series/scm50/

View attachment 76275

Or SCM40.
http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/hi-fi/loudspeakers/entry-series/scm40/
View attachment 76278

Price is sky high ......
JM

 

[ripvw]

NHT has some reasonably priced models that use midrange domes...

https://www.nhthifi.com/products/16...?category_id=1964842-bookshelf-speakers#specs

 

[Ericglo]

Selah Audio Filarmonicas
http://www.selahaudio.com/filarmonica-kit

 

[hardisj]

The weird thing about dome mids is most of them are rather large in overall size compared to the radiating surface. For example, the ATC is somewhere around the physical size of a 6-7" midwoofer but it's closer to a 3.5" radiating surface.

Their large physical diameter means further spacing between it and the tweeter. And most of these dome mids (IME) are crossed somewhere in the 3kHz region. That doesn't leave much room for a proper blending at the crossover point between it and the tweeter relative to the physical center-to-center spacing. I don't recall seeing measurements but I imagine there's a discontinuity there; especially vertically.

 

[Chromatischism]

HTD Level Three Towers: https://www.htd.com/Level-THREE-Tower-Speakers

Swans M3A: https://swanspeakers.com/product/m3a/

I notice Swans is replacing the dome midrange with a 2" metal midrange.

 

[briskly]

Disadvantage of price and size. Magnetic assembly would need to be made much wider to accommodate the coil of an edge-driven mid. At least it won't need to be very deep.
I can think of more techniques to moderate resonances and directivity with a cone, and most cones bear that out.

 

[scanspeak]

Dynaudio and Morel are 2 manufacturers of dome mids that come to mind.
Generally dome mids lost favour due to their quite narrow frequency range and poor power handling.

 

[thewas]

Dynaudio and Morel are 2 manufacturers of dome mids that come to mind.

Dynaudio doesn't make their mid dome anymore AFAIK, they took it many years ago from their Hifi range and had it in their aftermarket car audio kits which they don't seem to have anymore on their website.

and poor power handling.

Wouldn't generalise that, on the upper mids a good 3" mid dome has usually higher SPL and distortion limits than most Hifi mid cones.

 

[mhardy6647]

MR domes were (relatively) a big deal in Europe when I was first gettin' really interested in this hifi stuff (1970s).
Apropos of (almost) nothing, I still quite like these -- which were US made, but (of course) were essentially the same as the Braun loudspeakers of the early/mid 1970s.

P1020547 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[thewas]

MR domes were (relatively) a big deal in Europe when I was first gettin' really interested in this hifi stuff (1970s).
Apropos of (almost) nothing, I still quite like these -- which were US made, but (of course) were essentially the same as the Braun loudspeakers of the early/mid 1970s.

P1020547 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

I have the German version as Braun L710 in my vintage collection as well as the smaller Braun SM 1002 which both with some EQ still sound good today and have the timeless Bauhaus design from Dieter Rams which was later copied also from Apple: