# Pro drivers vs hi fi drivers



## Jason Schultz (Jul 31, 2007)

I've been noticing some builds using hi efficiency pro drivers instead of "normal" hi fi drivers. These are kind of tempting because my amp is only 85w per channel.

I have some questions for any who can answer:
1/ Do pro drivers have a rougher frequency response than hi fi drivers ?
2/ what differences are there in pro drivers compared to Hi Fi drivers. What are the pros and cons of employing them
Jason


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## noeffred (May 24, 2007)

Let's shed some light on this:
Pro drivers do not necessarily have a rougher frequency response than their Hi-Fi counterparts, although many do. They usually are more efficient because in the pro field, every single watt counts. Also, they are quite robustly built and can usually deal with quite a lot of punishment before taking serious damage.
They are work horses, tools so to speak. Many offer excellent sound, but, primarily, they are conceived to be efficient and robust. Also, they can be quite ugly whereas a Hi-Fi driver usually has a more living room friendly look.

In general, you can't say, that the hifi drivers offer better sound than their pro counterparts, as there are equally many rotten apples on each side of the fence.

There are some things you can only get from the pro sector. For instance huge bass drivers (18" upwards) are nothing uncommon, whereas I couldn't name such a big Hi-Fi driver.

You shouldn't see Hi-Fi and pro as separate classes, if you're looking into DIY. It really just depends on what features you're looking for in a driver. If it's high efficiency and robustness you're after, then a pro driver might be better suited for you.


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

In my experience when putting pro drivers beside hi fi drivers there is a defninate difference in sound quality. I don't know exactely how you would describe it but I guess you could say that some of the detail (finesse maybe?) is not reproduced by pro drivers where as the agility of the hifi driver is there for the accuracy.


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## Bill Fitzmaurice (Jun 14, 2008)

Jason Schultz said:


> 1/ Do pro drivers have a rougher frequency response than hi fi drivers ?


In general, yes. 


> 2/ what differences are there in pro drivers compared to Hi Fi drivers. What are the pros and cons of employing them
> Jason


Simply put, pro drivers trade off bandwidth and smooth response for sensitivity. 


> These are kind of tempting because my amp is only 85w per channel.


You don't need to use pro drivers to attain high sensitivity. I run line arrays for my LRC and a folded horn sub. The sound quality is second to none, and power draw never exceeds 50 watts.


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## looneybomber (Sep 20, 2006)

Pro audio drivers are also purpose built. For example, a driver like the RS150 (6" metal cone driver) could be used as both a mid and midbass in an MTM bookshelf, however a driver like the B&C 6PEV13 (6.5" paper cone driver) is made to play >300hz. It CAN'T be used as a midbass because it only has .6mm of xmax, however it'll play in the 500-3khz range louder than would 4, RS150's.


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## mgboy (Jan 17, 2007)

I've always found pro audio stuff to sound... harsh and gritty compared to home stuff - but I've never heard home audio go so loud. =O


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## Jason Schultz (Jul 31, 2007)

A Belated reply . My comp has been down for the count. I suppose my aim was to find the most sensitive driver that had a smooth response and a fairly wide band width so as to maximise my amps power. It sounds to me like its a risk to try to use a given pro driver without seeing freq response or listening before buying when a smooth and agile response is my utmost goal (for a given amount of $). I beleive my Yamaha Receiver can be used into 4 ohm loads, so i could probably parallell 2, 8ohm drivers and get louder spls. getting off topic i know


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## drumdude (Aug 26, 2007)

mgboy said:


> I've always found pro audio stuff to sound... harsh and gritty compared to home stuff - but I've never heard home audio go so loud. =O


A week ago I would have agreed with you although I know there are exceptions to every rule. But things have changed. I got the opportunity to audition Earl Geddes Summa's on Tuesday. The complete review can be read on another board here. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1553229#post1553229 I'm sure it took some serious work to overcome typical pro roughness. But it seems it can be done with careful design and driver selection.


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## joz (Jul 14, 2008)

IMO like all items from either side of the fence ,substandard items are everywhere.

I use a combination of both hi-fi and proaudio drivers both are fantastic.
Just choose your poison wisely.

Both tend to have different sounding characteristics but both can be wonderful.
Like choosing between Coke and Pepsi??

eg, I run JBL 2245's which are 18" high efficiency pro drivers with Scanspeak T-M-W Revelators atm.
But I think I'll be going over to more high efficiency drivers like those made by PHL.probably somewhere between 6-10"mids.Yes they sound different,but both are very enjoyable.

Then we'd have to think about what the music is most likely mastered with,hi-fi or pro audio gear??


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

joz said:


> Then we'd have to think about what the music is most likely mastered with,hi-fi or pro audio gear??


music is mastered using three different styles of speakers called monitors. There are nearfield, where the engineer sits about 1 metre from the speakers. Far field where the engineer sits further away and headphones. Most of the monitors are designed to have as flat of a FR as possible. They also use 1/3rd octave equalising to get the in room response adequate. This ensures that no matter where a recording is taken for playback or further mastering, it will sound (FR and levels) the same. I guess you could say they use hi-fi speakers for mastering. There once was a time when engineers wanted monitors that represented the average quality of home hi-fi, this would allow them to taylor the sound to be at its best on your average system. I personally think this was just a vain attempt to justify the existance of certain monitors inside otherwise respected studios. 

I personally don't like the term "pro" to define Sound re-enforcement gear but I use it because everyone knows what we are talking about. After all there is amature and entry level gear in the Sound re-enforcment game also.


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## joz (Jul 14, 2008)

Hi DRF,so in your opinion which gives the truest form of fidelty.
Pro or hi-fi speakers.

I suppose I ask the question because I come across the audiophile wich likes his music slightly flavoured if you know what I mean,as opposed true say true reproduction or the reproduction of the real sound.
I know the real sound is also sometimes difficult to reference without out actually being at the recording,but I hope you know what I mean.

Cheers joz


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

I know what you mean ( at least I think I do). Basically hi-fi speakers will give you the truest fidelity. There are three components to the music chain. The initial performance, the recording and the reproduction. As we are only concerned here with the reproduction, we need a set of drivers that will give us the best reproduction of the recorded signal without altering the sound. For this I believe hifi drivers work better. If you are after a certain sonic alteration to the signal or you like the aggresive sound that some P.A drivers have then that is fine, it can even be a good thing, but it is not fidelity by its definition. 

Having been blessed with the fortune to attend and engineer a few live concerts (e.g string quartets and the like) in some marvelous sounding buildings as well as a few local bands, I can attest to how a major difference in music can make or break a set of speakers. To give an example, resonance and an uneven FR can liven up violin and cello music but absolutely murder piano. Yet a properly implemented P.A in a theatre using Bose speakers rolleyesno can bring a piano to life. This is before we even consider vocals.


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## joz (Jul 14, 2008)

So DRF your obviously hifi driver fan by the sounds.
But some drivers do seems to crossover and blur the line between the two I suppose.
Oh yea just did a googlemap seach on your location,we're almost neigbours.:wave:


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

joz said:


> So DRF your obviously hifi driver fan by the sounds.
> But some drivers do seems to crossover and blur the line between the two I suppose.
> Oh yea just did a googlemap seach on your location,we're almost neigbours.:wave:


for my HT room yes, for everything else it depends on the situation. I do love a decent set of P.A bins.
There are some drivers out there that cross the line (cerwin vega have a few) but in my opinion they aren't worth the trouble unless they are really cheap. I personally think if you try to make a driver better at each end of the spectrum all you end up with is a difficult bit in the middle to deal with.

So where are you?


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## joz (Jul 14, 2008)

Just added my location in googlemap,but I actually work in Frankston


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## ISLAND1000 (May 2, 2007)

Peace love and Mungbeans 


I tried the above. Mungbeans gave me gas . . . . .


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## looneybomber (Sep 20, 2006)

ISLAND1000 said:


> Peace love and Mungbeans
> 
> 
> I tried the above. Mungbeans gave me gas . . . . .


Huh?:scratchhead:


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## ISLAND1000 (May 2, 2007)

Ahhhh nuts . . . . I was just trynna be funny with joz's signature which has the phrase 
"Peace love and Mungbeans". When you gotta explain your jokes they ain't jokes.


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## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

If by 'pro' driver you mean PA drivers, then these are usually designed to be robust with a high thermal capacity since they are driven at high power for long times. They are usually bigger and heavier as a result. The drivers and flares are often designed for long throw dispersion, which is completely unsuitable for living room sound.

OTOH, studio 'near field' monitors are designed for hearing detail when mixing for accurate positioning, eq and effects. Quite often they give too much detail and a lot of commercial recordings sound awful through them.

Mastering is done through a variety of speakers, from high end monitors through to living room hi-fi speakers and also boomboxes. It's important at this point in the production chain that the product is going to sound good through an ordinary, everyday playback system.


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## SteveCallas (Apr 29, 2006)

Smoothness and linearity of the frequency response has been mentioned, as well as efficiency, but I have not seen mention of distortion profiles. Two drivers can have a very similar frequency response, but if one has a lot higher 5th order harmonic distortion for instance, it will tend to sound worse. On top of that, not all distortions will come off as sounding bad - two drivers may have perfectly flat frequency response with one having very little distortion and the other having high 2rd order harmonic distortion - and it may sound better.

I'd say the biggest difference between pro and hifi drivers is the attention to distortion profiles.


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## oddness (Jan 15, 2008)

These days I use "pro" drivers for my HT system. I am from the "old school" world of design where small size isn't an overriding concern (my sub is 10 cu ft + and 350 lbs). I like pro drivers because they are built to take abuse and offer higher efficiency with the trade-off of requiring mammoth enclosures (for bass). I often listen at peak levels of 110-115dB and like minimal distortion without stressing my components. I grew up in the era of huge, high efficiency speakers and low power amps. I know smaller, high powered systems can easily achieve the same SPL's, I use such a system with my PC. What those smaller systems seem to lack, however, is the impact and effortlessness of larger systems. I kind of liken it to cars with high horespower engines (with no bottom end torque) that they make today vs the old large displacement torque monsters they built years ago. It's nice to have some reserve on tap. Everything involves trade-offs somewhere. No one speaker does justice to every type of music, period. There are too many variables from the studio to your listening room. People have been trying to analyze and categorize every aspect of audio for years with only limited success. Many of the old line speaker manufacturers develop their "home" products based on their "pro" products adapted to the needs of someone using them in smaller rooms and with size constraints. It just comes down to personal preference. Both types (pro and hi-fi) of drivers can provide excellent results. If you are a diy type, YOU get to pick your compromises! :bigsmile:


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## bluejay (Sep 10, 2007)

All of the speakers I have ever owned have blown up in one way or another. That is until I bought some JBL pro audio speakers of a decently large size. :T

So I no longer care how smooth or how sensitive a speaker sounds. That doesn't help me when they are in the dump. :hide:


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

bluejay said:


> All of the speakers I have ever owned have blown up in one way or another. That is until I bought some JBL pro audio speakers of a decently large size. :T
> 
> So I no longer care how smooth or how sensitive a speaker sounds. That doesn't help me when they are in the dump. :hide:


I dare say you have some major issues with your system them if the only speakers that haven't blown up are the higher sensitivity drivers. It sounds like you have clipping problems. I am currently running 4x 6" poly drivers at the front of my system, each driver is only rated to 30 watts yet I still get 90dB at the listening position. 

If large speakers are the preference then that is fine, however No matter how good a set of pro drivers are, I have yet to hear a pair side by side with a decent domestic hifi pair and have the pro drivers sound good. They always sound harsh.


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## dlneubec (Oct 9, 2006)

drf said:


> If large speakers are the preference then that is fine, however No matter how good a set of pro drivers are, I have yet to hear a pair side by side with a decent domestic hifi pair and have the pro drivers sound good. They always sound harsh.


I've mostly just read this forum and not posted much, but I have to jump in and strongly disagree with this. I might have agreed a year ago, though I had wondered about pro drivers. It all changed when I heard the prototype for a speaker designed by Jeff Bagby for Jim Salk at a DIY meet in Indiana last April. It was the best sounding DIY speaker I had ever heard, not to mention the best speaker of any type I could recall hearing. It used essentially a pro woofer, the AE Lambda TD12H woofer and a 6.5" PHL mid (open baffle, dipole) with a HiFi morel MDT33 tweeter. The senstivity was suggested to be about 93db. It heard nothing to ciritiize about it and IMO, it lost nothing to any designs I've heard with high end HiFi drivers from Seas, Scanspeak, etc.

I was so impressed I decided to do my own design inspired by this speaker. Here is a link to the thread on that design over at HTGuide. http://htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=29988&page=1&pp=35 It uses a Lambda TD12H woofer ported, f3 about 35hz, a B&C 6md38 6.5" mid and a Peerless HDS tweeter, mounted in a shallow waveguide.

It is not a large speaker, standing about 42" tall an tapers from 16" wide at the bottom to 7" wide at the top. Here is a concpetual of what it will look like when finished (w/Lexan as part of the open baffle):









Here is a prototype (all mdf at this point) that I've used for all the design work:









Here is an early crossover simulation. The spl level is indicate of actual sensitivity.










Here are the measured results from that early simulation. Again, the spl level is indicate of actual sensitivity:









I would venture to guess that the reason why some have had poor experiences with pro drivers is because they have not been implemented with the type of care and with the same goals of a typical HiFi design. If used properly, with a well implemented crossover design, there is no reason they can't be just as good and perhaps better than those based on more traditional HiFi drivers. I can tell you that this is my best design to date and I would say it is as good or better than anyting I've heard at the half dozen DIY events I've attended in the last 3 years. It seems to have dyamics and headroom that HiFi designs don't and since it uses just 3 drivers, not multiple woofers and mids, the imaging, polar response and clarity are not compromized by issues that multiple driver solutions can sometimes suffer from. IMHO, if you don't consider trying pro drivers like these, you are missing out on an opportunity for an excellent speaker. The Lambda TD12H is the best sounding woofer I have ever heard.


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## drf (Oct 22, 2006)

Interesting, I'd say the reason those speakers sound better than the average set of pro speakers is because they use hifi tweeters, what flavour of driver is the 6.5" PHL? 

And you say the graph is indicative of SPL, is that at 1 watt/metre?


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## dlneubec (Oct 9, 2006)

The mid driver in my design is the B&C 6md38. What I meant to say is that the spl level shown in the graph is not indicative of sensitivity. It is simply the level at which the spl response was imported into SoundEasy, not a calibrated spl. The sensitivity is probably in the 92-93db range. The original Salk speaker was said to be 93db by the designer. I'm using the same driver, and a mid and tweeter that is just as high a sensitivity as the ones used in the Salk design.

To suggest the reason this sounds better than the usual pro design is the tweeter may indeed be true, however, IMO it sounds better than most, if not all of the 100+ or so DIY designs I've heard at events over the last 3 years, some using nothing but the best Hifi drivers, done by expereinced and competent designers. I'm telling you, don't sell pro drivers short.


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## bluejay (Sep 10, 2007)

> I dare say you have some major issues with your system them if the only speakers that haven't blown up are the higher sensitivity drivers. It sounds like you have clipping problems.


Well ya! I've had major issues with 45 years worth of systems. I had clipping 25 years before it was called that. 

No matter how careful you are, you won't know what happened when you weren't home. Set up a system that will break some dishes or crack a mirror before it blows up. :yikes:


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## Synthsayer (Dec 19, 2007)

Pro vs. Consumer -Don't forget dynamic range
The one thing missing from this discussion is dynamic range. Any decent quality consumer system will get loud. But, there is a considerable difference between loudness and dynamics.
I have been a loudspeaker DIY enthusiast since 1976. My first project used JBL 2220 15” drivers in a front loaded horn, a Philips 2” dome midrange, and JBL 2404 slot tweeters driven by the pre-amp section of an NAD 3020 going into a Yamaha Pro power amp.
I have made systems using high fidelity drivers made by Dynaudio, Focal, Scanspeak, Vifa, SEAS, Morel, Hi-Vi Research and others.
Rod Elliot of Elliott Sound Products in Australia describes the importance of loudspeaker efficiency in detail on his Web page article, “Loudspeaker Power Handling vs. Efficiency” http://sound.westhost.com/articles/pwr-vs-eff.htm . His Web site covers an immense range of design theory and detailed articles.
I won’t go into sound quality and who makes the best pro or audiophile drivers. I’ll save that for another thread. What I want to emphasize is the importance of dynamic range in sound reproduction. 
I have played drums since I was very young. I have also done live sound work in small and large clubs over a wide region in the U.S. 
I know how a snare and kick drum should sound, and how a snare drum should stand out in a mix or when reproduced through a home sound system. Also having the privilege of being forced to attend my older sister’s youth orchestra rehearsals and concerts (which I hated as a kid) I fortunately gained a love for classical music and familiarity with its unique dynamic nuances.
No stereo or home theater system is ever going to have the ability to reproduce the sound of a string quartet as you would hear it as the musicians, or audience seated in the front of the concert hall. Nor will it reproduce the ear-numbing affects of hearing a garage-band in a real garage. Thousands of people have said this before so I’ll leave it at that.
My experience is that any high quality speaker with a high efficiency, around 96db 1W1M, driven with a good quality amplifier will give a better listening experience. Voices, drums, acoustic instruments, and sound effects will all have a much better ‘jumping out at you’ character.


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