best 4.5" midrange drivers under $1K

Audioism,

In simple terms the ATC unit was tested at 6 db higher SPL and yet the THD is about 10 db SPL lower - and it can probably play even much louder cleanly. Furthermore, if you look more carefully you will see that 3rd order harmonic distortion is about 20 db SPL lower on the ATC unit. At the end of the day there is no free lunch - the Tangband is excellent but you can only expect so much at $55 (my guess is your Seas Excel is probably a much better driver).

Thanks shadorne...but ATC is out of budget...a pair of them will go about 13k at solen.com

yeah i think tangband is good but still money talks :)

Hows Visaton Ti100? know anything about this driver? http://www.visaton.com/en/chassis_zubehoer/tiefmittelton/ti100_8.html

Look up Feastrex they are becoming more and more available, thay have a lower line that is still expensive but I would say still within reach

D5 (12cm massive AlNiCo/Permendur) - 290,000 yen each

This might be old data

http://www.lotusgroupusa.com/Feastrex1.htm

That is 5 inches

Now if these drivers dont cut it these are your only hope:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=264-702

Not conected to any of these people...

Shadorne, I may not be reading it right but the ATC was tested at 100dB and distortion was 30dB below the signal. the Tang-band distortion 40dB below the signal, of course not at 100dB. I have no doubt the ATC is the better driver.

Auudioism, I have used that titanium Tang-band driver. For the price, and at low dB, it's a nifty little driver. The good news is that is it clean sounding with low distortion and is pretty fast. However the bumped up H-F IS audible (at least to me) so you either need to cross over below 5-7kHz or attenuate the H-F if you go full range. Don't expect a lot of bass but then again, it doesn't require the power of the Flex Units either. I like it better than any Fostex driver I have heard but still not as much as my modded Tang-Band W4-616 that I am playing with now.
A Jordan JX-92 is much better than the T-B in every way but the sound was pretty thin to my ears. Zaph has spec's for [url=http://www.zaphaudio.com/5.5test]Jordan[/url]

Cdc,

SPL level is 20 * Log (Absolute THD) - therefore ATC would appear at 60 db SPL down if it were on the same kind of SPL plot. For 0.1% THD you get = 20 * Log (0.001) = 60 db SPL. This may cause all the confusion in the comparison. There is very little out there that is so low - especially the 3rd harmonic which is much more detrimental then the 2nd and appears to be down around 70 db SPL ( this low level may be capable to show up problems of electronic distortion).

You may be right about the level - in any case that driver has no problem at 100 db SPL as it can go to 121 db SPL with 10 db of headroom at 0.3% THD, as in the implementation in the 300's