The Magico appearance is about the only special thing I can see about it at the moment. Yes, it's pretty as drive units go. And it seems to have a decent underhung motor, but from the published data, I'm not seeing anything especially startling about the performance. When you think you could have a couple of Seas U22REX units for about £130 less, which also have quite an attractive woven cone, at the moment, I know what I'd buy. Granted, a touch less sensitivity. Perhaps some 3rd party testing will reveal significant performance advantages in these Epiques.
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Nobody has commented on these in a while, but they are on sale today for $170 from parts express. Anybody have any experience with these? are they worth it for a high end midrange?
https://audioxpress.com/article/test-bench-dayton-audio-epique-e160cf-8-midbass-driver
The good news about Dayton Audio products is that you can download the FR and ZMA files directly from PE. Plug the driver details into your preferred baffle diffraction simulator of choice to see if the FR actually smooths-out in your intended application. The break-up, though, is still going to require some combination of steep filters and low(er/ish) crossover points.
Is it worth $170? That's up to you. At that price point, the MW16/MR16 are well regarded. The SB15NBAC and SB17NBAC arguably measure a lot better and are also a lot cheaper. Dayton's RS also deserves mention here, as well.
The good news about Dayton Audio products is that you can download the FR and ZMA files directly from PE. Plug the driver details into your preferred baffle diffraction simulator of choice to see if the FR actually smooths-out in your intended application. The break-up, though, is still going to require some combination of steep filters and low(er/ish) crossover points.
Is it worth $170? That's up to you. At that price point, the MW16/MR16 are well regarded. The SB15NBAC and SB17NBAC arguably measure a lot better and are also a lot cheaper. Dayton's RS also deserves mention here, as well.
I'm comparing the Dayton Audio E220CF-8 to the ScanSpeak Revelator 22W/8857T-00 8" Woofer, Aluminum Cone.
Basically everything about the Dayton is special.
And nothing is special about the ScanSpeak, except for it's a carefully built design that has been perfected over years if not decades.
The Dayton is more like: "let's build an expensive woofer and see if it goes right".
Sure a genius can get 500/1000 things right, some would say 999/1000 things right, but it only takes getting one thing wrong to make a woofer unusable.
You want reliability in a woofer or a car, you get a design that has been perfected over decades.
The Dayton is more like: "let's put a carbon cone on this woofer and see if the glue holds". Cool bro, I'd rather have a pro audio woofer that was made to perform at a high level day after day and withstand every environment.
Even ScanSpeak has had corrosion issues for decades now. Coat the leads or make them out of silver or both. And they get corrosion inside the pole piece. What happened to the days of at least coat the motor in zinc?
Also you're paying to employ people in Denmark. You know how expensive that is? Me neither, but probably very expensive.
Dayton Epic, unique or whatever they're called are like my Saab. Can you just make the car right and don't worry about the sunroof? I don't need a sunroof, if you made it out of carbon fiber you would save a bunch of money and it would be 100 lbs lighter. There's something uniquely defunct about societies that don't make anything for themselves and just financialize everything.
ScanSpeak just make the whole thing in China (Usher) and you get better price and a better woofer. You don't have to design them in Europe and glue them in Europe. You don't have better brains or better glue in Europe.
EU, America (and other commonwealth countries and probably most of the world) have so many (financial) parasites sucking off of people that just want to be productive (in the true sense of the word) it's just breathtaking.
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