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Best midrange ever? Worst?!

Any speaker that plays Eddie Van Halen's acoustic work on Spanish Fly on the self titled debut (on a perfect LP copy and a nice TT/cart combo) convincingly gets my vote! And I've heard many, including nice 2-ways, I still think 'stats and plannars get it more right though. Lot's of nice mid's out there! Always trade offs with speakers and systems, that's why you need several rigs to play what sounds best with what you want to listen to:D

Craig
 
Best: Bozak 6 inch aluminum cone, so smooth it disappears.

Worst: A six banger with glass packs.
 
These sound pretty fokking good..
 

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Mids................

Howdy,
Fully appreciate good mid-range sound, as I use vintage equipment
exclusively, and listen to much folk rock, vocal-rich music, and being
able to hear it clearly matters....Second, AM NOT an audiophile, so I
disqualify myself from that group.....I am an avid 'experimenter', so
decided to build a pair of speakers that would have mid-range sound
geared to my ears.....Decided 3-way cabs were the ticket for desired
end results, and using what I had available for parts....Cabs are 3/4"
mdf, 29x18x11", Sealed,....Tried several woofers, but settled on cast-
-frame 15" Pioneer CS-99, accordian cloth surrounds, think they are
from 1970, perfect condition, and mounted externally,.....Mids are
vintage 8" Sansui S-130, sealed back, tried a few others, but did not
have the expansive, openess that the Sansui's had.....Tried several
tweeters, and could not find one that balanced well with the existing
drivers, until I found a pair of older 25 mm VIFA's, and can not recall
what they came out of......On the Xovers, again tried a few, incuding
CV's, too thumpy, finally found a pristine pair of OHM C-2's, with nice
slider controls for mids/tweeters, which really brought the speakers
together....Cabinets are well sealed, with 3/8" foam underlayment
covering interior back/sides up to top of the woofers, and lightly filled
poly-fill in the remainder of the interior.....As for the sound, expansive,
clear mid-range, tight bass, but not overpowering, highs, very clear
without overshadowing the mids, all in all very balanced, and excellent
for vocals/accoustic instruments, AND easy to listen to, day after day.
Cheers, T
 
I completely agree that the Quad ESL 57 still sets a very high standard. Some of this excellence is a result of the lack of cone and enclosure resonances that electrostatics offer. But another, very important, reason that the Quad is so good is directly related to its weaknesses -- no low bass and not very high volume achievable, and beamy high end. If you want a really good midrange, its difficult to have an equally good (and equally loud) low end and high end. Crossovers are problematic, and the gentler the slope, the easier it is to get it right, but then that demands very wide range drivers, which are expensive, and often not all that great at their frequency extremes (which you can hear, even if they are 6 db/octave (or whatever) down). In the real world, practically priced speakers are going to have drivers that are less than stellar outside of their nominal ranges, and often for the midrange, that range starts surprisingly high (so that a low power handling driver can be used, both for acoustic and financial reasons) which presents all sorts of problems -- audible interactions between the drivers, especially off axis because of the transition between the beamy upper end of the woofer and the almost omnidirectional low end of the mid, ringing in higher order crossovers, and whatever phase issues there are -- right in the middle of the most crucial part of the frequency range.
So in many ways, the ideal system would be a full range driver with a subwoofer, and perhaps a supertweeter. Or barring that, simply a full range with an enclosure designed for whatever clean low end can be wrung out of the driver, rather than on designed to be small. And here I would suggest Lowthers. Mark Hardy's (and others') Radio Shack/Fostexes produce startlingly big sound fields and the impression of bass, but really, its not there. The Lowthers are bigger (and have double wound voice coils and other mumbo jumbo), and so can produce more bass extension (still not deep) and for me, they are more satisfying.
With a well integrated subwoofer, the RS/Fostexes are pretty tough to beat, but the problem is that 'well integrated'. More cost, more complexity, and more variable to screw up.
But the point is the general concept -- a single driver to cover most of the frequency range (which is manageable), and other drivers to fill in the extremes seems to me to work better than the more common woofer and tweeter with a midrange to fill in whatever's missing in the middle.
If you can, listen to a decent pair of full ranges. You may find what you are looking for.
 
My favorite midranges

To me the best sounding midrange was the computer designed 024 Kenwood mid used in the USA LS-Series Kenwoods models 407A & B and 408A & B. mids are just that, midranges. The Kennys mids have the uncanny ability to make crappy source recordings sound very precise and clean, of which on any other speaker you would hear alot of overtone and "hissing". I don't particularly like mid-basses since the lower frequencies can overtone the mids and drown them out with bass.
But that's just me. Everybody has thier own pair of ears, and opinions:) I just happen to USE my ears and I also would like everyone to know that my ears are more sensitive than the average persons. I can hear lows down to 16Hz and highs up to 40,000Hz. Those results are as of my last hearing doctor check-up in January '08.
 
I am of the Altec camp myself when it comes to midrange sound. very pleasing and realistic...

I was out in the garage earlier today listening to my other Altec.. it's a 803A woofer with a 903C horn driver, VERY clean and natural midrange sound..

However, my 416-8b and 902-8bs are a lot tighter brighter and even more realistic sounding I believe.
 
To (sort of) riff off of Nat's comments... the "augmented full-range driver" design can be a fairly straightforward path to startlingly satisfying sound. Take your favorite 'extended range' (fullrange) driver, add a super tweeter and a (true) subwoofer. Some of the fairly classic inexpensive FRs (e.g., EV LS-12) can do decent, extended MR on an open baffle. Add a nice horn or planar tweeter and a subwoofer, and be prepared for a surprise.

EV actually made a line of speakers that were essentially augmented FRs: an example (of which I am lucky enough to have a pair) was the "Esquire". The earliest Esquires used an LS-8 (a nice 8" AlNiCo FR driver) with a 12BW crossed at 200 Hz and a T-35 (or T-35B). EV's only 'flaw' was to cross the tweeter too low (well, and the fact that the T-35/T-35B family isn't exactly the most 'airy' tweeter on the planet).

Rule #1 should remain: keep the dang XO frequency out of the midrange!

EV3-waysystems1961.jpg
 
How do you know???

I just bought a three-way (JBL L36s) with the hopes of gaining additional detail and they are everything that I hoped for. I love them. However, there are dials that may be adjusted. I assume they are the cross-overs (hey I am still learning). How do you know that they are adjusted properly. Is there a "characteristic" sound that the speakers will make that lets me know this.

DK
 
kef sp1003 drivers (same as the ones in rogers) - best i've ever heard. even over DQ-10 in my ears.
 
Dark Knight said:
I just bought a three-way (JBL L36s) with the hopes of gaining additional detail and they are everything that I hoped for. I love them. However, there are dials that may be adjusted. I assume they are the cross-overs (hey I am still learning). How do you know that they are adjusted properly. Is there a "characteristic" sound that the speakers will make that lets me know this.

DK
Click to expand...

you mean the brightness/treble controls?
just start from the middle and adjust them to your taste.
 
My vote is for the Harbeth Monitor 30, or Monitor 40. Best midrange I've yet heard in a box design.

Mike
 
Best midrange I've heard; Quad ESL-57, Dayton-Wright XG-8 and the JBL 2441 compression driver on an Edgar 350Hz round wood tractrix horn.

As good as the electrostatics are in the mids though, they just don't do it for me in the bass, treble and dynamics. The Edgar Titan system on the other hand wraps that sweet midrange in fully horn loaded drivers from deep bass up to the treble and all of them seem to do a fantastic job in their range with great integration. If you have the room, resources and a good tube amp (low power will do), the Edgars would be my choice for best midrange because they aren't just midrange speakers.
 
gogofast said:
they're just potentiometers.
people usually keep them in the middel for flat response.
Click to expand...
Flat response is possible in the stereotypical room the designer's envisioned when voicing the speaker.

But since the speakers' owner may have wooden floors & lots of windows *or* a heavily damped room (drapes, thick carpet, etc) it's great to be able to adjust those drivers' outputs to match the speaker to the room AND the listener's ears.

I sure wish modern speakers were still equipped with such controls! :sigh:
 
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