Why don't manufacturers publish T/S parameters for cheap drivers? My theory is that you guys will cross-reference the data and discover that your $200 woofer is available for $10 on Alibaba under a different brand name.
This **** has been going on for years. I used to work in a parts department. Ask for Fiat front brakes we'd charge you £10. Ask for Ferrari rear brakes (same part #) we'd charge you 10x as much. Same with all Bosch parts. Ford headlight: £25 BMW headlight (same part #) £80. Morris Marina door handle: £40. Lotus door handle (same part #) - your first born!
This **** has been going on for years. I used to work in a parts department. Ask for Fiat front brakes we'd charge you £10. Ask for Ferrari rear brakes (same part #) we'd charge you 10x as much. Same with all Bosch parts. Ford headlight: £25 BMW headlight (same part #) £80. Morris Marina door handle: £40. Lotus door handle (same part #) - your first born!
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What manufacturers are you talking about?
Because all of the main brands do provide parameters for all their speakers.
That being said, the way they established those parameters is kinda a whole can of worms on its own.
That even counts for the more high-end and expensive drivers. (aka cherry picking)
Also, there is sometimes very curious of mix parts sometimes.
A cheap cone material without demodulation rings and next part number is a driver with demodulation ring but ALSO a fancy cone material. Therefor an awful lot more expensive.
The closest thing that is in line with your story, are manufactures that produce for different markets.
I have seen extremely similar speakers for hifi and car solutions.
The loudspeaker that was sold as a car-speaker was 2-3 times the price, with zero additions to it, basically the same product.
The same goes for the music and guitar markets as well.
I am afraid this is just marketing 101, whatever people are willing to pay for.
Going further on the rant route, I find it very frustrating (understatement) that manufacturers don't provide Klippel data.
Even as a professional it's very hard to sometimes get proper information.
Which is totally silly, because ALL of the main brands use a Klippel system in the first place, so that data is already available.
We still have to rely on third party measurements.
Often something as simple as a frequency response isn't even done properly.
Not even by the more high-end units.
Because all of the main brands do provide parameters for all their speakers.
That being said, the way they established those parameters is kinda a whole can of worms on its own.
That even counts for the more high-end and expensive drivers. (aka cherry picking)
Also, there is sometimes very curious of mix parts sometimes.
A cheap cone material without demodulation rings and next part number is a driver with demodulation ring but ALSO a fancy cone material. Therefor an awful lot more expensive.
The closest thing that is in line with your story, are manufactures that produce for different markets.
I have seen extremely similar speakers for hifi and car solutions.
The loudspeaker that was sold as a car-speaker was 2-3 times the price, with zero additions to it, basically the same product.
The same goes for the music and guitar markets as well.
I am afraid this is just marketing 101, whatever people are willing to pay for.
Going further on the rant route, I find it very frustrating (understatement) that manufacturers don't provide Klippel data.
Even as a professional it's very hard to sometimes get proper information.
Which is totally silly, because ALL of the main brands use a Klippel system in the first place, so that data is already available.
We still have to rely on third party measurements.
Often something as simple as a frequency response isn't even done properly.
Not even by the more high-end units.
The main problem is they can't. Variations in the quality of the motor steel, magnet, pole face machining (if any at all), assembly precision, and even suspension component response make it so even they don't know what you're going to get. Just trying to get one pair of no-spec drivers from one order to work as expected can be a serious pita and certainly not worth the effort for any aspiration of production.
It's even worse when they do provide specifications and then when you buy them you find out they ran their dies into the ground and used half the wire that's supposed to be in there. Having a driver that looks the same at a distance doesn't cut it.
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Well, I am sorry, but I have dealt with hundreds of speakers on a professional level.
Done a lot of production quality checks on performance as well as parameters.
Within a certain margin of error, but I have never come across drivers that are so far out of spec from any main high quality brand.
Tolerances at any good quality brand are pretty tight or at least (very) predictable and within reason.
So they most definitely can.
VERY different story from some cheap and poor quality stuff.
In that case I agree, specs as well as performance can be all over the place.
The question I answered was about drivers with no specs, and for the unreliable ones that do I would give GRS as an example.
@Andrew Eckhardt
Oh right apologies than 🙂
Well the thing is, we just don't know.
I have seen "no name" brands that are in fact the same or similar part as an high quality alternative.
Point is, you just don't know how consistent it is, unless you're as deeply involved like @Surtsey was and know all part numbers.
But I can imagine that Ferrari would like to keep their tolerances and yield a bit more tight than Fiat.
For loudspeakers, unless you really wanna save every penny, in my opinion there isn't really a good argument to be made to not go for a known brand. Well, unless it's just for fun.
That being said, the tolerances and "interpretation of parameters" of certain known brands are all over the place.
Oh right apologies than 🙂
Well the thing is, we just don't know.
I have seen "no name" brands that are in fact the same or similar part as an high quality alternative.
Point is, you just don't know how consistent it is, unless you're as deeply involved like @Surtsey was and know all part numbers.
But I can imagine that Ferrari would like to keep their tolerances and yield a bit more tight than Fiat.
For loudspeakers, unless you really wanna save every penny, in my opinion there isn't really a good argument to be made to not go for a known brand. Well, unless it's just for fun.
That being said, the tolerances and "interpretation of parameters" of certain known brands are all over the place.
I was so sad when the pioneer bofu died. The GRS "equivalent" is impossible to work with from the published specs, to say the least. I took one apart once and was even more saddened. Basically, there's no free lunch in speakers. But yes, you certainly can buy real ones.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the discount dealers go through the trash (or some functionally similar operation) behind the real speaker manufacturers, looking to sell the stuff that doesn't make it.
This is absolutely correct - I was in industry for decades and have seen it many times.
Jeez, it's marketing. And people fall for it. Look at vehicles. Take a Chevy Tahoe and pimp it up with a few trim bits, change the grill, slap a Cadillac badge on it and sell it for much more. Better yet - well, worse really - take a decent Ford F150 and slap a silly name on it - Harley Davidson works - give it a couple of adhesive stripes, a special paint job and voila, a big price increase.
@celef How would you know? You've no idea what to search for. You cannot believe published specs
The driver inside the 60w RMS Yamaha SW60 is stamped 25w. The driver inside the 3 ohm, 300 watt Sony subwoofer is the same as in the LG 4 ohm 80w subwoofer.
The forum's beloved Dayton have their speakers manufactured in Asia.
Food for thought: the IBM PC paved the way for personal computing, the Internet, and everything in your life. In truth - the clones offered far superior performance.
The driver inside the 60w RMS Yamaha SW60 is stamped 25w. The driver inside the 3 ohm, 300 watt Sony subwoofer is the same as in the LG 4 ohm 80w subwoofer.
The forum's beloved Dayton have their speakers manufactured in Asia.
Food for thought: the IBM PC paved the way for personal computing, the Internet, and everything in your life. In truth - the clones offered far superior performance.
On the other hand. Here's a driver that looks bad from the manufacturer's data (see the Freq resp graph).
Would you even consider it?
MCM 55-5655
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/3686233.pdf
https://canada.newark.com/mcm-audio...hm-rubber/dp/95Y2933?pf_custSiteRedirect=true
vs
post # 9 & 10
https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1441425-driver-testing
Which do you trust?
--
Lyeco - Dynavox LY401F
manu vs measured, looks pretty close
https://canada.newark.com/dynavox/ly401f-m01/4-full-range-speaker-20-watt-6/dp/78Y7667?ost=ly401f
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/...739.651241109.1685370160-914471929.1681769107
vs post #19
https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1441425-driver-testing/page2
Would you even consider it?
MCM 55-5655
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/3686233.pdf
https://canada.newark.com/mcm-audio...hm-rubber/dp/95Y2933?pf_custSiteRedirect=true
vs
post # 9 & 10
https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1441425-driver-testing
Which do you trust?
--
Lyeco - Dynavox LY401F
manu vs measured, looks pretty close
https://canada.newark.com/dynavox/ly401f-m01/4-full-range-speaker-20-watt-6/dp/78Y7667?ost=ly401f
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/...739.651241109.1685370160-914471929.1681769107
vs post #19
https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1441425-driver-testing/page2
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Analogy is flawed in a way that there is no such thing as finding the exact or close enough of an original part to repair a faulty product (high quality) brand for a small fraction of the price, but there is truth one may get a better price for a spare part by not asking loudspeaker manufacturer directly to supply one.
An example, Krell (Ferrari ?) used to offer LAT 2 loudspeaker, employing Seas Excel and Vifa drivers. They would be more expensive at Krell than directly from a DIY merchant.
Another example: Back in the day, if you ordered a hard drive for a PC it'd cost about £90. Order one for an Apple Mac it'd set you back £300+. Regardless you'd receive the same Western Digital IDE drive.
I do this stuff for a living, and the new way that they screw customers over is that they put circuitry in the components to detect if the parts are "approved."
For instance, I have a Dell laptop power supply that's perfectly capable of charging my HP laptop, but it won't, because HP includes circuitry to "authenticate" the power supply.
Ostensibly, this is to prevent consumers from blowing up their gear with aftermarket equipment. But it's MY equipment and I should be able to do what I want with it. I'd be fine with these policies if they just crammed some record in the bios that says "an invalid power supply was plugged in on 01/01/2023." But it goes much further than that, it literally won't charge your laptop.
I believe they're doing this with memory now also.
For instance, I have a Dell laptop power supply that's perfectly capable of charging my HP laptop, but it won't, because HP includes circuitry to "authenticate" the power supply.
Ostensibly, this is to prevent consumers from blowing up their gear with aftermarket equipment. But it's MY equipment and I should be able to do what I want with it. I'd be fine with these policies if they just crammed some record in the bios that says "an invalid power supply was plugged in on 01/01/2023." But it goes much further than that, it literally won't charge your laptop.
I believe they're doing this with memory now also.
No, it's not. It's about PROFIT and Ferengi RULES of Acquisition.
Closer to home. The new bargain is the Bluetooth sub-woofer. Often bundled with systems costing $500+ they are specifically designed not to pair with anything with but the original system. Should (like it always does) any fault develop the unit is totally useless. JVC, Sony, Samsung - they all do it. I have purchased at least 10 in the last 12 months at an average cost of $5. Incidentally, regardless of the, brand 80% of the units contain the same driver. I either convert them to passive or install a cheap plate amp.