Look- for the money they have used good parts and it looks promising. Dayton is known for good value, good performing drivers of which I have used many. As far as I know Dayton have never produced a finished speaker designed in house that has performed well (nor have they tried?). I hope it performs well, but we all have known speakers that were less then the sum of their parts and some that were quite the opposite. I think it's a little premature to assume anything except it looks interesting. I personally hope they nailed it.
Hopefully the price isn't just an introductory price, and people interested in picking up a pair won't lose out on the deal by the time more info starts rolling in. I'm kinda tempted! But I think I'll sit tight for now. Hopefully the drama Erin has been roped into blows over soon, so he can get back to making reviews. I'm sure Dayton would be happy to send him a pair
I agree the base cabinet and driver complement are decent foundation. I would not tune it to 30’ish Hz though. Tune it to 50Hz and let room gain handle the rest. It’s a tiny bookshelf and no one expects it to do 32Hz - and hence 78dB.
Would be interesting to get one to measure and redo the XO, if needed.
Even on my 5.25in TL (Galion Audio) design, I only took it to 44Hz and it’s got plenty of bass.
Would be interesting to get one to measure and redo the XO, if needed.
Even on my 5.25in TL (Galion Audio) design, I only took it to 44Hz and it’s got plenty of bass.
I feel like sound quality gets sacrificed squeezing lots of Xmax out of any drivers. Heavy suspensions, 4 layer coils, etc... all great for maximizing SPL at LF, but I am more interested in speakers without those particular design compromises. I feel like there's something to the transducer area/horn mouth size that has eluded most analyses. Maybe we're more sensitive to the size of radiation or IMD/doppler than we think, who knows, but I always find something lacking with small and inefficient speakers.
There was a demonstration of IMD/doppler at Burning Amp a few years ago, it was audible. Bob Blick is the first guy in this video and he was the one giving the IMD demonstration, unfortunately he does not give much of a description of the system setup. I believe it was 2 sets of identical sets of cabinets with 4" full-range drivers. He would run the top one full-range and then could on the fly crossover the low frequencies (200hz?) to the lower woofer. It really cleaned up the sound.
These drivers aren't bad, they just scream active system.
They make absolutely no sense in a passive design.
There are tons of other speakers that would fit that idea way better.
Even more so if you just double up the amount of woofers instead of using PR's
For 800 bucks I also expect something with a better directivity as well; waveguides.
Dayton produce a great range of drivers at different price points; I've used the DC130, DC160, DC28F and RS180P and been happy with all.
Parts Express' range of kits is pretty extensive, with in house designs as well as kits from noted designers like Curt Campbell, Paul Carmody and the late Jeff Bagby.
I haven't heard these new speakers, of course, but past in-house products like the C-Note and BR-1 seem to have been tweaked by enthusiasts for improved sound. I haven't seen anyone doing the same for the Amiga or Tritrix, but happy to be proved wrong. This suggests that the basic designs are good, but built to a price and can be enhanced, perhaps?
Geoff
Parts Express' range of kits is pretty extensive, with in house designs as well as kits from noted designers like Curt Campbell, Paul Carmody and the late Jeff Bagby.
I haven't heard these new speakers, of course, but past in-house products like the C-Note and BR-1 seem to have been tweaked by enthusiasts for improved sound. I haven't seen anyone doing the same for the Amiga or Tritrix, but happy to be proved wrong. This suggests that the basic designs are good, but built to a price and can be enhanced, perhaps?
Geoff
good point. no passives, $599 a pair? I do like the look of the passives but I'm always too cheap to use them when a $2 piece of pvc will suffice.
The PR’s allow deep tune frequency without a long narrow vent and keeps the cabinet small. Two larger drivers without PR won’t necessarily mean as low of bass F3. But will be more efficient for the rest of the range.
In a passive system that is and only when the tuning frequency is low compared to the volume of the cabinet.
In practice two PR's are often similar in price or even more expensive than just another woofer.
A hybrid filter system would have worked wonderful here.
Still because of IMD, I would never use a single woofer at such low frequencies.
They had these at the SDC last August, pending sale criteria. These sound great, dropped Jaws all day Saturday.
Last year, Dayton/PE switched their commercial speaker division direction. Now the raw driver design dept is in charge of the other segment and they will be using the drivers they sell separately in their commercial offerings. They never did this before, and I think this is a very good move.
Last year, Dayton/PE switched their commercial speaker division direction. Now the raw driver design dept is in charge of the other segment and they will be using the drivers they sell separately in their commercial offerings. They never did this before, and I think this is a very good move.