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Midrange dome drivers banned ?

Probably redundant but SB makes a 2.5” dome with interesting response curve per manufacturer. Morel has two 2” domes plus a dome + tweeter module. I have the Morel Elite 2” in active 3 way. Vocals and piano sound very fine. Crossover at 800 and 3,500.
 
News: Dayton has what seems to be a new 2" dome midrange with a carbon fiber diaphragm and an optionally closely-spaced tweeter in a faceplate. Measurements on Scott Hinson's FB page show the distortion is quite low even down to 500 Hz (>40 dB headroom), which is quite good for a dome like this:

 
Vifa/Peerless did have a coaxial ring radiator designed at one point. I've seen the patent images or the technical drawing a while back. Essentially it was another 2 rolls to make the annular midrange just larger and adjacent the current known tweeter like the XT25SC90.

It may not have been as viable in testing due to how the RR operates and the fairly poor off axis responses they tend to have. Annular midranges of the past have seemed to be very limited bandwidth, even worse than dome mids at lower frequencies. They also have a strictly limited Sd parameter, so depends largely on how loud they can play as well.

With the BMS et al, there is one voice coil, and a special shape diaphragm. This drives 2 different horn flares at the same time. I understand why they call it coaxial, but to me it is less so than your average coincident driver.
 
Remembered one : HiVi 1s
Just for fun it also includes a circular "ribbon" or planar tweeter I guess

Screenshot_2025-01-28-00-09-32-08_e4424258c8b8649f6e67d283a50a2cbc.jpg
 
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News: Dayton has what seems to be a new 2" dome midrange with a carbon fiber diaphragm and an optionally closely-spaced tweeter in a faceplate. Measurements on Scott Hinson's FB page show the distortion is quite low even down to 500 Hz (>40 dB headroom), which is quite good for a dome like this:


The mid dome looks like a good performer but the tweeter looks kinda crappy.
 
has there ever been a ring radiator midrange driver or a larger version of that sb dome tweeter with the dimple in the middle

 

In France, Cabasse is a major specialist in annular concentric HP. He has been using HPs of his own design and manufacture for at least 30 years if not more.


Atlantis in 1991
 
News: Dayton has what seems to be a new 2" dome midrange with a carbon fiber diaphragm and an optionally closely-spaced tweeter in a faceplate. Measurements on Scott Hinson's FB page show the distortion is quite low even down to 500 Hz (>40 dB headroom), which is quite good for a dome like this:

I'm looking at that design and I'm thinking that you can get to 500 Hz at the low end and probably 3000 Hz+ at the high end with a 2" or 3" driver. It also seems to me that the using two waveguides to match directivity for a 2/3" mid and a tweeter doesn't pose significant challenges considering the sizes of the drivers.

Furthermore a waveguided 2/3" with modern materials should be quite capable in terms of power handling and could be matched with and 8" or 9" quite easily.

A small medium driver with decent power handling looks to me a natural way to match directivites without having to much to compensate for in enclosure and waveguide design. It's somewhat surprising to me that there aren't that many designs using that configuration. I can think of the MUM, Adam Audio, Neumann on the monitor side and Philarmonic even if they are using it in an MTM configuration) on the domestic side. And tbh, I don't know how well MUM is using that driver choice to control directivity.

In any case, it seems like 4", 5" and even 6" are more common for mid range drivers.
 
opp
pretty cool ! that's a new one on me ,thanks
 
Domed midrange drivers aren't banned at my house, I need them collecting dust!
Altec Lansing 508's.
ahhh the good ole dayz

Edit, I'm just reminiscing as the original owner for approximately forty years. Yikes, lol.
Yeah, I had to replace the woofer surrounds some years ago.


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Domed midrange drivers aren't banned at my house, I need them collecting dust!
Altec Lansing 508's.
ahhh the good ole dayz


View attachment 424264
The history of Altec Lansing's downward trajectory:
In 1958 the Altec Lansing Corporation was purchased by James Ling who made it part of LTV Ling Altec. LTV spun off Altec which it loaded down with debt first. By 1974, the company was saddled with debt. It was reorganized under Chapter 11 as Altec Corporation and continued for 10 years. Altec filed a second bankruptcy. In 1984, Gulton Industries purchased the brand out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Gulton was acquired by Mark IV Audio. Since then, there has been a string of owners, purchased in 1986 by Sparkomatic,[7] with the Pro equipment still made by Mark IV Audio, Mark IV sold out to Telex, who closed down the Pro division and folded its products into Electro-Voice. In 2005 Altec Lansing Technologies was acquired by Plantronics, 2009 bought by Prophet Equity, and has been owned since 2012 by the Infinity Group, a company which acquires struggling companies.
 
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