Size of Midrange Drivers

08-21-14: Dweller
Ptss: So you're saying that most of everything emanating from a symphony orchestra can be reproduced by a five inch driver?
I think we're just brain-locked into the current paradigm and are waiting for our "Einstein" to show us the way to the next level.

We've been shown various paradigms concurrent with the development of the loudspeaker. Klipsch horn loaded everything starting in 1949. The electrostatic has been around since 1919 and has had a presence in high fidelity since the mid-'50s. The Magnepan has been around for 45 years, and the Heil air motion transformer has been in production for 44 years. Even within pistonic loudspeakers, there are variations such as high excursion drivers, line arrays and other arrays of multiple drivers, downfiring woofers to couple with the floor, transmission lines, etc.

Personally, I choose the planar magnetic. My humble Magneplanar 1.7s have 509 sq. in. of diaphragm area per speaker, and in my experience provides a decided advantage in preserving clarity and voice placement in larger works, such as full scale orchestra plus 100+ voice chorus.

Each of these driver designs presents strengths and weaknesses unique to each design. We're left to pick our poison.

08-21-14: Dweller
Ptss: So you're saying that most of everything emanating from a symphony orchestra can be reproduced by a five inch driver?

A symphony orchestra has a very large range of frequencies which extend well beyond a 5" midrange driver.
So, no the 5" midrange driver cannot reproduce all those frequencies.
the speaker would need to be multi-driver where the midrange will reproduce everything in the, say, 300Hz - 2500Hz region (assuming that the midrange driver's freq response is flat over this region & that there is no cone break-up).

I think we're just brain-locked into the current paradigm and are waiting for our "Einstein" to show us the way to the next level.

The Einsteins have come & gone. I believe it's up to you to understand why certain driver choices have been made for the various speaker designs. See if you can talk to your speaker designer or tech support of your particular speaker & see if he is willing to share his thoughts on the driver choices of your speaker. It might be enlightening to you....

6.5" midrange drivers in my Hyperion HPS-938 speakers
cover range of 230-3000Hz. They have ferrofluid suspension
instead of traditional "spiderweb". Here is what
hyperion says about it:

"The Magnetic Fluid Damping System (M.F.D.S.) is
another innovative design for our revolutionary speaker
drivers. The S.V.F. driver does not have a spider, which is
an essential part of conventional speaker drivers for
holding and stabilizing the sound coil. Although the spider
is important for conventional speakers, it is also
considered as a source of vibration and sound coloration.
Our M.F.D.S replaces the spider completely, increases the
driver speed dramatically, and enables the purity of sound
reproduction."

[url]http://www.hyperionsound.com/HPS-938.htm[/url]

These relatively inexpensive speakers have one of the best
midrange I've ever heard. Unfortunately company went
bankrupt in spite of very good product (poor marketing, poor
dealer base).

If you consult the wavelength calculator, you'll find that a 6.5" driver starts beaming at 2086 Hz, whose wavelength is 6.5". By the time you get to 3Khz the wavelength is 4.5", which would be a total beam from a 6.5" driver.

This beaming isn't noticeable on-axis, especially if you're listening nearfield, but it disrupts the in-room power response and you'll get cupped-hands sounding suckouts right in the midrange where it counts when you have too large a midrange crossed over too high to the tweeter. A 6.5" mid crossed over at 3Khz will beam from 2K to 3K Hz--1/2 an octave in the midrange.

Johnyb53, I cannot hear that. Perhaps others couldn't hear it either since it received whole bunch of awards including Absolute Sound "Speaker of the Year" 5 years in a row, Enjoy the Music "Best of 2004" and "Decade Award", Stereo Times 2005, 2006 award, Blue Moon award and many glowing reviews like this one: http://hyperionsound.com/Images/Hear%20the%20Hype_low_res.pdf

Perhaps one shouldn't judge speaker sound by one calculation?