best 4.5" midrange drivers under $1K

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

Hi again, found this company on the web, its based on eastern europe i guess. its a handmade one.

http://www.zr-speakerlab.si/midrange.html

Looks like its piece of art but dunno how its sound

EJ Jordan JX92S 45Hz - 20K awesome driver and they've been at it forever.