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World's best midranges

muad

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A very interesting thread over at diyaudio, that I think some of you guys would appreciate.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/295941-world-midranges-shocking-results-conclusions.html

The results were from blind studies, and the conclusions sound familiar, very familiar:



1. Auditory capacities of humans are massively overestimated by audiophiles (and probably by most humans as well)

2. Frequency Response is King.

3. Once EQ'd, a 10$ midrange can mimic a 1500$ midrange, if within mechanical/electrical limits.

4. DSP/EQ/in-room measure tools might be the best investment an audiophile can make in our era.

5. Others will have to continue spending hundreds and thousands for a natural uncorrected FR.
 

MZKM

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The Tectonic BMR makes a great midrange, and that thing is like $8
Based on measurements available on HiFiCompass, with low-ish distortion and no/little beaming at 2kHz as criteria, the only midranges I can find besides the BMR are:

Accuton C90-6-724:
https://hificompass.com/en/speakers/measurements/accuton/accuton-c90-6-724

Dayton Audio RS52AN-8:
https://hificompass.com/en/speakers/measurements/dayton-audio/dayton-audio-rs52an-8

Satori MD60N-6:
https://hificompass.com/en/speakers/measurements/satori/satori-md60n-6

Peerless TC9FD18-08 (beams a bit at 2kHz):
https://hificompass.com/en/speakers/measurements/peerless/peerless-tc9fd18-08
 

Kvalsvoll

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A very interesting thread over at diyaudio, that I think some of you guys would appreciate.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/295941-world-midranges-shocking-results-conclusions.html

The results were from blind studies, and the conclusions sound familiar, very familiar:



1. Auditory capacities of humans are massively overestimated by audiophiles (and probably by most humans as well)

2. Frequency Response is King.

3. Once EQ'd, a 10$ midrange can mimic a 1500$ midrange, if within mechanical/electrical limits.

4. DSP/EQ/in-room measure tools might be the best investment an audiophile can make in our era.

5. Others will have to continue spending hundreds and thousands for a natural uncorrected FR.

This test is flawed. Due to how it was performed, the results are not surprising - once you eliminate both linear and non-linear differences, they should sound the same - and they did! However, in real speakers, differences in radiation pattern and dynamic capacities and distortion will be present.
 

Valhalla

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A very interesting thread over at diyaudio, that I think some of you guys would appreciate.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/295941-world-midranges-shocking-results-conclusions.html

The results were from blind studies, and the conclusions sound familiar, very familiar:



1. Auditory capacities of humans are massively overestimated by audiophiles (and probably by most humans as well)

2. Frequency Response is King.

3. Once EQ'd, a 10$ midrange can mimic a 1500$ midrange, if within mechanical/electrical limits.

4. DSP/EQ/in-room measure tools might be the best investment an audiophile can make in our era.

5. Others will have to continue spending hundreds and thousands for a natural uncorrected FR.


To me, it seems like a total waste of time. It is not all about frequency response. But distortion, dispersion, natural roll-off, mechanical properties like excursion and rise time and settle time which strongly affects the distortion and sound tonality.
 

YSDR

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To me, it seems like a total waste of time. It is not all about frequency response. But distortion, dispersion, natural roll-off, mechanical properties like excursion and rise time and settle time which strongly affects the distortion and sound tonality.
I agree with you, but the thread opener states that all this (distortion, timing difference etc.) doesn't matter if the frequency responses EQ-ed to the same, which is ridiculous IMHO. Although I don't have data to back up my opinion.
 

q3cpma

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Don't know about best, but the ones used by Neumann in the KH420A/KH310A and Genelec in the 8351B/8361A show quite good characteristics considering their frequency range (cf S&R measurements). The midrange made by Genelec for their big stuff described in their Design of a High Power Active Control Room Monitor AES paper looks quite impressive too:
index.php

index.php
 

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Jim Matthews

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Two observations: the Public buys speakers for Bass response, but keeps the ones that get vocals close. My taste skews toward 1980's "lush" rather than highly detailed 21st century "clinical" presentation.

For me, that's inevitably a higher Fs and Q - plain paper cones. That's not a recipe for bass extension.

Second - this is a reprint of a five year old discussion.

My favorite is the Janzen ja-8008 HMQ.

https://audio-hi.fi/download/pdf/Jantzen_Audio_JA-8008-Product-Sheet.pdf
 
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thewas

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ATC's dome midrange is exceptionally good. The one Neumann uses in the KH310/KH420 is excellent as well!
The Neumann is actually even better than the very good ATC one, Neumann themselves used the ATC one in the past. Both those 3" domes gave me the best sounding midrange experiences ever.
 

MZKM

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Zvu

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^It's a bit more linear than Peerless and it has lower distortion. It also has titanium former instead aluminium used in Peerless. I didn't really care about the price since the thread title wasn't best value midrange. When selecting better midrange every bit of improvement matters. If you need better power handling and lower distortion, use 2 of them. I bet that 2 of these in mtm with Bliesma 25A and a good woofer (or two) would bring us to reference level loudness and quality.

Until Kartesian 75mm midrange is measured independently, 10F4424 remains objectively the best midrange in its class and format.
 
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muad

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To me, it seems like a total waste of time. It is not all about frequency response. But distortion, dispersion, natural roll-off, mechanical properties like excursion and rise time and settle time which strongly affects the distortion and sound tonality.
So let's say you have two midranges, and you listen to both below at 80db, at less than 1% distortion and both are 5" diameter. With both eq'd flat, would you be able to tell them apart reliably?

If you look at amir's measurements the vast majority of speakers are below 1% distortion through the midrange at 86db except at the extremes, and directivity issues occur at the crossover region, and is therefore dependent on slope, frequency and layout. The dispersion characteristics of just the midrange would only boil down to preference. This is all assuming we're comparing a decent cheap midrange and not some cheap garbage in a bluetooth speaker.

but then again, if you crossed over said bluetooth speaker to a tweeter and woofer to keep it's distortion low, ... Anything can happen.
 

Draki

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+1 for Scan 10F4424
I am using it in a Classic 3-way (8+10F+1). In my 25 m2 room it never shows any strain or anomaly.
Electrically it behaves very "civilized" and responds almost textbook with minimum xo elements.
Below is what I could retrieve from the measurements, no smoothing, when this system was in works (I lost some data due to a disk failure!):
- raw response at 1 m from the finished baffle (check Troels 3WClassic for looks)
- filtered band-pass vs. targeted response
10F raw.png
10F.png
 

aarons915

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I know the discussion is focused on specific drivers but one thing I always thought was odd was why does a company like Revel seem to prefer a 5" midrange driver when a 3 or 4" driver would be easier to integrate with a tweeter. The only thing that makes sense to me is they want to be able to cross it over lower. It makes sense to me after having the R3 for the past year, after comparing them with my Q150 I noticed it's not quite as natural having the vocals split at around 400Hz compared to the pure point source of the Q150. I wonder if Revel uses a 5" midrange so the majority of the vocals and fundamentals are coming from a single driver with the woofers and tweeter extending it's range.
 

dfuller

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The Neumann is actually even better than the very good ATC one, Neumann themselves used the ATC one in the past. Both those 3" domes gave me the best sounding midrange experiences ever.
I know it's not in fashion to say it here but the 3-way ATCs I've had the pleasure of using are absolutely killer. A pair of SCM25As is on my list at some point.
 
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muad

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I know it's not in fashion to say it here but the 3-way ATCs I've had the pleasure of using are absolutely killer. A pair of SCM25As is on my list at some point.
In fashion doesn't amount to much. We only have one spin from a small previous gen ATC to go off of. Maybe the scm25, 50, 100 measure better :)

I for one have never heard it, but the atc mids are the most well known out there. Would love to see how it measures.
 
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