Differences between small vs. large mid driver

I think your opinions are very good, Gregm. I also am particularly enchanted with the sound of the Lowthers, and should have mine mounted in a cabinets I am building within a month or so. The speakers that Audio Note Kondo Japan was running at HE2004 were very much as you described, and they sounded fabulous to my ears.

You may or may not know that Bud Fried was the original importer of Lowther (also true of Quad), and when I spoke to him recently about speaker projects I was working on for fun, I mentioned them. I expected him to tear them up, but he recalled an anecdote from long ago where a dear friend of his bought some very expensive AR speakers, and they both found out that they could just not do justice to the piano, which the Lowthers had always handled with aplomb.

Piano is PARTICULARLY important to Bud, as his wife Jane is a pianist. He still holds the Lowthers in extremely high regard. Believe me, if Bud doesn't rip something, it's a compliment. If he praises it, it's more than a tribute to how good a component actually is.

Trelja...The system you describe can cross over to the "Midrange" driver at 200 Hz because it is a 6.5 inch ubit, which I would not describe as a midrange driver. I would describe the system as a 8 inch subwoofer that can be crossed over at 200 Hz because it is so small, plus a two-way system. Not a bad idea. I have advocated running the subwoofer up to a higher than usual crossover frequency if it can hack it. Takes the heavy lifting out of the main system.

One reason to keep the woofer/midrange crossover higher than what you suggest is the electrical values of crossover network components necessary for subwoofer-like frequencies. Expensive, and bulky.

Eldartford, may I direct you to the comment which Andy2 makes in the heading of this thread? The statement is that "expensive" speakers tend to use smaller midrange drivers.

By the way, why don't you feel a 6.5" driver is not a midrange? Anyway, you could cross a 5.25" or 4" at 200 Hz without issue.

While I am one of the biggest audio cheapskates here, I have difficulty in grasping how 150 mF of capacitance and 3.0 mH of inductance (200 Hz crossover) is too expensive for audio. Particularly, expensive speakers. This when for the same money (less than $200 for topflight components - 10 gauge North Creek coils and their better caps), an interconnect would never even be considered a serious cable.

For me, it's a no brainer sticking this kind of money into a crossover. It makes more sense to me than cable, shelves, isolation devices, tweaks, etc. But, then I am a speaker guy...

Now, bulky IS where I will agree with you. I personally have had serious concerns in putting components this large in a Transmission Line, but for the sealed or ported speaker with the kind of size that is required to run this type of crossover, I believe could site them fine.

Trelja...I read Andy2 comment to be saying that expensive systems have midrange drivers (suitably small) whereas less expensive speakers are 2-way.

I think that a 6.5 inch driver will have some problems in the 1500 to 3000 Hz range. (Check Nighthawk). Good tweeters cannot be crossed over low enough to avoid this.

Agree that a 4-5 inch driver can go well below 200 Hz...the 5 inch woofers (and I use that term loosely) in my MTM Dynaudios put out surprisingly low tones, but not very loud. These drivers, with 3 inch voice coils, (almost as large as the moving cone) do make darned good midranges, and I used the Dynaudios that way in a biamped system for a few years. I now have MG1.6 Maggies doing what the Dynaudios used to do.

$200 is dead on for cost of the 200Hz crossover parts (I know because I bought three sets). That's a fair chunk of change for parts that the typical consumer will never see and doesn't appreciate.

Just about every good 6.5" midrange out there should lend itself to being crossed over at 2500 - 2700 without issue. Classically, a second order crossover would be used, but there are enough great speakers out there doing this with a first order network that I am more or less convinced. Unless the network is quite steep, there is still going to be output aplenty way beyond 3000 Hz.

Add to this the resonance point of a lot of the better tweeters comes in around 500 - 700 Hz. Although I never do this, why couldn't you cross one of these (ScanSpeak Revelator, 550 Hz Fs, for example) at 1500 Hz? It would be more than twice the resonance frequency. Even with a first order crossover, you are not pushing it all that hard.

Oh, I know! Someone is going to give a fire and brimstone speech and pull out a bunch of charts refuting what I say. Let me save you the trouble with two interesting anecdotes. First, I read a Audio Asylum mishap where an inmate blasted a Dynaudio Esotar with 90 watts - full range, for break in. He programmed it, and messed something up in the delivery which he did not monitor. Even after a long time of this, there was absolutely no tweeter damage. Second, a friend of mine, in an absent minded moment wired his tweeters flat out, and ran them that way for a couple of years. Believe me, his speakers are orders of magnitude more complex than most anything built today, it could've happened to any of us. When he went in to do an upgrade, he noticed this in horror. Again, no damage - except to our ears. Putting things right took so much of the edge off of those speakers, they then sounded as glorious as anything.

You are a most dedicated person in the pursuit of excellent sounding speakers if you are spending $200 on the lower crossover! While they are not seen, anyone who does not appreciate the difference they make is missing out on a lot of slam and openess down below. Again, for the price of an interconnect that no one will take seriously or a set of brass cones to be placed under the speakers, why wouldn't one want to make a commitment to seriously better sound. I realize that the hair on fire types wrap the knuckles of anyone who even dares to view the forbidden crossover with their own eyes...