MANUFACTURERS OF FULLRANGE AND HIGH EFFICIENCY DRIVERS

ACR Section with detailed information

Audax

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Section with detailed information!

Section with detailed information !

Section with detailed information

Manger drivers are bending wave transducers.  They have a flat diaphragm which is "bent" to produce sound waves, rather than pushed and pulled in piston like motion of a regular speaker cone. 

See a Manger driver in a rear loaded horn (in German).  T/Sl parameters and frequency measurement graphs are here at the Speaker Building website.

MCM is a large american resaler. It offers a huge range of brandname drivers as well as no name chinese and taiwan manufactured speakers. There are many models with can also be found in Monacor catalog.

Monacor SP50X driver.   Rear loaded horn speakers based on these drivers.

4 inch through 8 inch units.  The magnets are kind of small on the larger drivers.  One of the more interesting is a 4 inch (100mm) driver with what looks like an 80mm diameter cone, a large magnet, frequency range 80 Hz - 18 kHz, part number 40-1197 and markings on the back saying FE 103.  Yup, it sure looks like a Fostex FE 103 (and newer FE 107).  The Fostex specs are the same as those printed on the Radio Shack box.  The Radio Shack units might be worth playing with  — a cheap way to experiment.  A lot of people are using Radio Shack units in TQWTs.  Check the Full range driver forum for discussion, also the Bottlehead forum (you can do a search of the archives using their excellent search engine).

Check out the article using Radio Shack drivers in Valve Magazine, Vol 6, No 4, 1999 at Bottlehead.com.

Triangle is a respected French manufacturer of wide-range drive units. Their most popular driver to the DIY community is the T17FLV608. Using a paper cone and rubber surround, this 7" driver is about all you could ask in a conventional unit. Its large phase plug and curvilinear profile cone give it useful response to 15 kHz on-axis and to 10 kHz off-axis. Efficiency and impedance (94 dB/W/m and 12 ohms nominal) are well suited to low power tube/valve amplifiers.

It's around six inches (150mm), single cone with phase plug, 8 ohm impedance, and 94 dB efficient.  Power handling is 40 watts.  Fs is in the 40s or 50s.  Frequency response seemed to go up into the 20s; but was more raggedy than the say, a Diatone 610.  On the other hand, if you use it, you don't have to pay airmail shipping charges from the Japan (which add considerably to the cost), and the power handling is much higher.  This driver has evidently received a great  review from Gordon Rankin (of Wavelength Audio) in Sound Practices. See specs and price at Zalytron.

distribution:

North America - Zalytron.