But... there is alot of talk on the forums about the 'NSB' midrange
from partsexpress, part #269-570 (black cone), there is another one
with a gray cone. For $49 cents I decided to build an array for a
friend on a very low budget, in fact I will be giving him my PT2
planars for this array. The 49 cent midrange seemed like a great
choice for someone who has little money.

I ordered 'one batch' of these, 32 drivers for $16 but shipping cost
about $30 as it weighs about 60 pounds. Expect to pay about
$1.25 to $1.50 per driver when you factor in shipping. Still not
a bad deal.

I got the shipment today of the 49 cent drivers. These are cool little
speakers.

*They are shielded, placing the magnet on the CRT barely
registers visual gremlins.

*The rubber surround is a nice touch, the cool factor.

*Xmax is rated at 1mm, the spider seems loose enough
to allow me to move the cone up 3mm, down 3mm.

*The frame has a 'bead' which makes installing them more difficult if
you want to seal the driver in the chamber. Some creative routing may
be required to roundover the edge. :unsure:

*Mouting hole size is 3 11/16" but I can't find a hole saw that size,
instead a standard 3 3/4" holesaw may work well. McMaster.com sells
a carbide tiped holesaw for $21.67 (drill arbor $9).

I used my ancient test bench to audition these drivers. Adcom 555Mk2
(200w/ch @ 8 Ohm), active crossover 18db/octave, paragraphic
equalizer.

Since most people mate this midrange with the 50 cent tweeter and
crossover around 5-6khz, they complain about the 7khz gremlin and use
extra methods to tame it. Since I plan to mate this with the PT2
planar ($30 tweeter), the crossover point that I like is 2.5khz
plus or minus 500hz, therefore I don't see a need to do any
driver mods as the gremlins are filtered out, ie it sounded fine.

I didn't make my test enclosure yet but I found an old piece of 4" PVC
pipe 19" long in the garage. I taped the driver in there and left the
back of the pipe open. The sound I heard was pretty cool. I got some
good bass out of this, more bass than my 6.5" PHL 1120 in a sealed
box.

I only performed the audition with one midrange and one tweeter, not
stereo! /lol .. It sounds good. The teenage boy next door listened to
it and I asked him how much he thinks the speaker cost, he answered
... $200 ??

/// ROFL ///

49 cents! ....

.... no way! He thought I was BS'ing.

Later, his sister came over to audion the PHL vs. 49 cent driver and I
told her how much the PHL cost, $129. I said to her, based on the
sound you heard how much do you think the other speaker cost?
she answered .... $100 ?

/hehe

Which one do you like I asked? She said, I like the small one because
it has better bass but the PHL has a clearer sound.

Two woman who auditioned claimed that the PHL had a clearer sound but
the 49 cent driver is pretty dang good. It's really not a fair
comparison, 4" vs. 6.5"... /heh .... 49 cent vs. $129 ..

I ran the crossover 100hz high pass, 2.5khz low pass throught the
audition as it seemed to work well even though I drove it pretty hard
playing thrash music, jazz, progressive rock, and my lady likes Josh
Groban. For the mellow tunes I can push this driver hard and it takes
my abuse, but if I crank the thrash music and place my nose near the
cone I can start to smell something (getting hot -> burning), but that
is pretty hard abuse. Also, if I do abuse it I tend to favor a 150hz -
250hz high pass.

Overall, pretty dang good for a 5w rms rated driver that is
taking my 200w amp + my thrash music abuse.

A while back when auditioning my Seas Excel 8" midwoofer driven by
600w (bridged Adcom), I was able to see smoke when cranking the same
thrash tunes and the Seas is rated for ~120 watts. /hehe

If I remove the midrange from that pipe the bass is gone and I'm less
excited as I miss the small boom that adds body to the sound. I think
it's time to do a ported box test this weekend. I got some ideas to
try.

Aside from the line array, I think you can make a nice surround or
ambience speaker with this 49 cent driver. Take a 2 - 3 foot 4" PVC
pipe, install the driver and place a grill on it. Cut a hole in the
pipe for a port or leave the other end open, perhaps make some
variable height pipe holder to change the bass tuning. /hehe ...
Since the driver is aimed up, off axis listening masks the gremlin and it's sounds fine to me, assuming you run it full range to keep cost
down (no crossover).

I visualize two pipes near the couch, one on each end for a 'dollar'
surround speaker -- ROFL.

When I use the paragraphic EQ with about 18db of treble
boost, they thought I had a tweeter hooked up with it -- hehe It
really sound pretty good with heavy EQ'ing. Even if you used the
50 cent tweeter it should work well trying to keep the speaker
still in the 'dollar' price range.

I like this 'little monster' driver, I placed another order today for 192 pieces. --- muhwahaha

Buy some of these 'sleeper' speakers and mess with them, they are too
cool.

I said;
For $49 cents I decided to build an array ...

Should read;
For 49 cents I decided to build an array ...

[see link]

After building kits, I cobbled together a variation on the
PVC Periscope below. My pair use a few more couplings and
are longer in pipe length but here's the start of the idea.

I tried out a test sample using the 49 centers but
I think I'll stick with my $3 Radio Shack 1197's. It's still
one of the best builds I ever heard.

• PVC pipe speakers at Full Range Driver Forum