Any driver review sites around?

[Boscoe]

Hi all,

I'm looking to undertake a new speaker project having been out of the game for quite a while. I have a lot of experience with HiFi drivers, I understand their parameters, design and good driver construction principles however I feel there's something a little missing for the hobbyist large companies can afford - testing. I'm looking for information regarding the testing of different drivers for different aspects such as frequency response, distortion etc.

Most hobbyists can't afford to evaluate many drivers to determine which one would be best for their project. I understand zaph audio was controversial but I wonder if there's anything similar that's up to date that can help inform on which drivers would be best for a given application?

Many thanks,
George

 

[Vinne81]

I sometimes find drivers I use or want to use on https://audioxpress.com/categories/vc-testbench

For example, they tested the Dayton Audio RS180P-8.

It's too technical for me but it seems really well done.

 

[tktran303]

@HiFiCompass

https://hificompass.com/en/speakers/measurements

@bikinpunk

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/driveunits/

 

[A4eaudio]

Also, search diyaudio and Parts Express Tech Talk for the driver. For relatively common drivers I almost always find useful comments/feedback.

 

[classicalfan]

A lot of excellent driver testing and evaluation has been done by independent designers such as Dennis Murphy, Paul Carmody, and the late Jeff
Bagby. By using one of their designs you get the benefit of the initial driver evaluation work that they did.

Meniscus Audio and Madisound have many kits to choose from by these designers and several others as well.

 

[academia50]

Lliving in England is it a problem to buy products made in the EC? , because Troels provides a lot of good information about the characteristics of the different speakers that he has used in his kits.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm

 

[asuslover]

https://ampslab-spk.com/

 

[Marveloudio]

http://www.feleppa.com.au/speakermeaswoofer.html

 

[ernperkins]

http://www.audioexcite.com/?page_id=178

 

[Boscoe]

Thank you all, these are great resources!

 

[VoxCelestial]

While not a review site, a multi-parameter searchable database containing all manufactured-supplied data, often including on- and off-axis frequency responses, is immensely useful.

http://www.loudspeakerdatabase.com/

 

[b_force]

http://www.zaphaudio.com/ has still his stuff up, although a little dated.
(EU people need a VPN btw, edit, sorry you already mentioned this)

There is also http://www.dibirama.altervista.org/

If you're in the EU, magazines like Hobby Hifi as well as Klang + Ton.

fyi, this is DEFINITELY not only a thing for hobbyist.
Also companies and professionals suffer from the severe lack and misrepresentation of speaker data.

 

[Marveloudio]

Sorry not strictly DIY but you can do a bit of reverse engineering from their database for your own speaker projects :

https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/

https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/scores.html


ASR - no one should miss it :

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...eaker-reviews-measurements-and-discussion.54/