ESB Audio 5.050 — 5000 Series 2"/50 mm Soft Dome Midrange (pair)

ESB Audio 5.050 — 5000 Series 2"/50 mm Soft Dome Midrange (pair)

The 5.050 is the 50 mm dome midrange of the ESB 5000 Series, sold as a pair. It is a 4-ohm driver handling 120 W continuous and 240 W peak, with a recommended amplifier range of 50 to 160 W RMS, and a design bandwidth of 600 Hz to 5 kHz.

The dome is a carbon fibre reinforced polymer matrix composite — the same material family as the 5.028 tweeter, scaled up.

Why a Dome Midrange

A dome radiates differently from a cone, and in a car that difference is worth having.

A cone midrange beams — as frequency rises, its output narrows toward the axis, so the sound changes depending on where the listener sits relative to it. A 50 mm dome is small enough to stay closer to omnidirectional across its band. In a cabin where the driver's ear is far off-axis to the passenger-side speaker and close to the door on their own side, wider dispersion means the two sides sound more alike and the stage stays where the tune put it.

The trade is bandwidth. A dome this size does not reach down to where a 3-inch cone will — which is why ESB rates it from 600 Hz and expects a midbass driver beneath it.

Motor and Construction

An oversized neodymium magnet drives the dome, with the magnet's metal parts shaped through FEM analysis to concentrate flux around the voice coil and hold it linear throughout excursion. The pole cup is CNC machined from a solid piece of ultra-low-carbon steel, and the magnet plate is the same material.

The body is 7000-series aluminium alloy and brass, machined entirely by CNC — rigid, dimensionally consistent, and not contributing resonances of its own. The finishing ring is CNC-machined aluminium alloy.

Ventilation runs through a large opening at the bottom of the motor behind a calibrated-hole filter. As on the tweeter, this lowers the impedance peak at resonance, which makes the driver easier for a passive crossover to interface with cleanly.

dB Cloth damping under the dome absorbs residual resonances, extending response at the bottom of the band and reducing harmonic distortion. A removable grille protects the dome.

System Application

The middle driver of a three-way front stage. ESB's usable band depends on the filter slope, as it does across the series:

• 600 Hz – 5 kHz with 48 dB/oct filters
• 700 Hz – 5 kHz with 24 dB/oct filters
• 800 Hz – 5 kHz with 12 dB/oct filters

The passive 5.6K3 CX crosses at 900 Hz and 3.6 kHz using a 6 dB/oct band-pass on the midrange — comfortably inside the driver's rating, with the low crossover set above the 800 Hz limit the shallowest slope requires.

With a DSP running steep slopes, 600 Hz becomes available, and that lower crossover moves more of the vocal range onto a driver that is better suited to it than a door-mounted 6.5-inch woofer is.

It sits between the 5.165 mid-woofer and the 5.028 tweeter. The 5.UMA is the alternative: the same midrange and tweeter in one co-located housing.

Installation Considerations

The driver measures approximately 89 mm across the flange with a 78 mm body and 16 to 17 mm of depth. That is shallow enough for a door upper, a sail panel, a kick panel, or an A-pillar pod.

Location matters here more than for any other driver in the system. This is the band that carries voices, and where the midrange sits largely determines where the stage appears and how high it sits. Mounting it low in a kick panel and the tweeter high in a pillar splits the vocal range across a large vertical distance — workable with time alignment, harder without it.

The dome needs a sealed volume behind it or free air — do not mount it firing into a door cavity shared with the woofer, where the woofer's back pressure will act directly on it.

Set the high-pass to the slope table. A 600 Hz crossover on a 12 dB/oct filter is outside what ESB rates this driver for.

Specifications

• Type: component midrange
• Nominal diameter: 2" / 50 mm
• Dome: carbon fibre reinforced polymer matrix composite
• Nominal impedance: 4Ω (Re 3.5Ω)
• Continuous power handling: 120W · Peak: 240W
• Recommended amplifier power: 50–160W RMS
• Sensitivity: 91.0 dB @ 1W/1m · 94.0 dB @ 2.83V/1m
• Free air resonance (Fs): 630 Hz
• Qes 1.009 · Qms 2.60 · Qts 0.75
• Voice coil diameter: 25 mm
• Magnet: oversized neodymium
• Body: CNC-machined 7000 aluminium alloy and brass
• Flange diameter: approx. 89 mm · Depth: approx. 17 mm
• Sold as: pair

HF Audio Perspective

The dome midrange is the decision that defines what a 5000 Series three-way sounds like, and it is the part of the system most worth thinking about before buying.

Choosing a dome over a cone in this band buys dispersion, and dispersion is the thing a car fights hardest. The listener is never centred, the two speakers are never equidistant, and every hard surface in the cabin is close. A driver that radiates evenly off-axis makes all of that less punishing, and it makes a tune hold together across more than one seating position.

What it costs is reach at the bottom. Rated from 600 Hz at best, this driver needs a capable midbass beneath it, and the crossover between them lands in a region where door acoustics are already difficult. Systems that get this right sound coherent from the seat; systems that skip the door treatment and expect the 5.050 to cover for it will not.

If the installation cannot support three separate driver locations per side, the 5.UMA puts this same midrange and the 5.028 tweeter in one housing with their alignment set at the factory. It is the same drivers and a simpler job.