So, I'm up in Wisconsin for the annual family get together with mo Mother's family, 30+ of us come up here for a couple of weeks every summer... So, what's an audio DIYer to do to keep busy for two weeks away from home? Well, I brought my small TQWT cabinets, and 6 pairs of 4-5.25" drivers to try out and compare. Source chain is a WIndows 10 PC running Audirvana (I'm continuing on the Montana this weekend ot visit my Dad, this machine will become Dad's music server, just testing it out for him
) with a 4TB NVME SSD for local storage, and Qobuz for streaming. DAC is my Hugo TT2, amp is a modified QSC 1080. As seen from the listening chair:
Cabinets are pretty much this design:
So, here are the contenders, in order auditioned:
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
This is not an exhaustive comparison, only a quick comparison in the one pair of cabinets. Some of these drivers may just be a terrible match for a TQWT, but may sound better in another cabinet design. Also, each pair of drivers was auditioned with the speakers pointed straight at the listener, no effort was made to optimize the toe-in for each driver, which could easily change the relative positions of some drivers which were very close to each other, so just take this as general impressions, not definitive rankings...
So, ranked from last to first, here's my impressions...
6th place: Speaker #2. These are an unknown 5.25" alnico magnet driver, I don't have any idea where/when I picked them up. These didn't even make it through the first track, they almost sound broken. It's hard to imagine that these would sound good no matter what cabinet they were in...
5th place: Speaker #5. These are Akai 4" alnico magnet speakers that were originally used in "portable" reel-to-reel tape decks. These were actually quite good in the mid-range and treble, but had the least bass of any of the drivers I tested. Perhaps in a different cabinet, of with a woofer to help out below 200Hz...
4th place: Speaker #3. These are a 5.25" ceramic magnet speaker no longer available from Radio Shack. If you look closely at the pictures, one of the drivers has a crushed dome, which may have moved them down a notch, it was a close race between this speaker in the 3rd place speaker. I may have another pair of these at home, if I do, I'll give them another listen..These had, not surprisingly, the best bass of the lot, but in spite of being the only speaker with a wizzer cone, they were also the weakest in the treble, and probably the least transparent except the pair in last place.
3rd place: Speaker #1. These are a 4" ceramic magnet Pioneer speaker, also no longer made. These have extensive run time in these cabinets, and I have a backup pair. These were a little lighter on the low end than the 4th place pair, but much more transparent and extended on the top end, which is why they snagged 3rd place. Dayton Audio sells a speaker that's supposed to be a drop-in replacement for these, but I have no experience with those.
2nd place: Speaker #6. These are a 4" neo magnet speaker by Tang Band. There's a newer version of these still available from Parts Express, but at $62/each with a 50 unit minimum order, I'm not likely to test the new ones any time soon. These were quite good through the mid-range and treble, but while they had a decent amount of bass, it somehow sounded a bit weird. These might be quite good in a different cabinet.
1st place: Speaker #4. These are a 4" ceramic magnet speaker no longer available from Radio Shack. These are supposed to be clones of the Fostex FE-103, but I have no experience with those. As good as these are, they might be worth a try in these cabinets. These were pretty much a match for the Tang Band speakers, but didn't have the same weirdness in the bass. Overall though, the 1st/2nd race was close enough that I had to swap drivers a couple times to decide on a winner... I have several pairs of these that I bought when Radio shack was closing them out, so I'm glad they did well.
Roscoe
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