Wavecor SW270WA01 and Dayton RSS265HF-4, comments please

I would like some comments from people who have experience with either of these two woofers. The application is a sealed box with Linkwitz Transform bass EQ, using the woofer up to about 300 Hz.

Both woofers seem nearly equivalent in performance (on paper), and are nearly the same price (in North America). I am looking for some real world commentary, experience, opinons on these drivers... Thanks ! .... j.


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I don't think that you need to have build something with one of these to judge them. Subwoofer performance depends on the way you install it, vented or closed. Next, the volume and build quality of the cabinet play an important role. Next the Amp driving it and last the active crossover settings, maybe DSP. Not to speak about the room it is used in.

Since Wavecor constandly rised prices in the last years, they are much too expensive on the DIYS market now. If you break it down what you get, the Wavecor is about half the value of the Dayton. Steel basket, smaller magnet, less x-max, 7.5lbs weight. It is a well constructed, very cheap produced driver. It should work well, that is out of the question.
A typical OEM chassis for a good middle class sub woofer construction.
In Germany it would be comparable to the 90$ Reckhorn or an 100$ Alpine car audio driver.

The dayton, at lower price point, also a modern construction with shorting rings, offers a cast basket, larger voice coil, more x-max and twice the weight. On the market for years, a well known brand with good service.
Voice coild diameter, mass and excursion give it an advantage over the Wavecor. I would choose it if I had to decide, no question.
 
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I use the Dayton's in two 25L sealed cabinets in my living room. I cross them at 80hz, so I can't say how they will sound crossed at 300hz. When I listen to music they create nice smooth bass, definitely not one note wonders. My guess from your previous designs you be using this for the bass in a 3 way design. If that is the case I don't understand why you would pay for a sub-woofer when you could do the job with a woofer like the Dayton SIG270-4 at half the price. Do you plan on getting sub 20hz out of the rss265hf-4? I use them and they really don't go that low. Here is link to my build and as you can see they drop off really quick.

https://bellarossafabrica.net/brf-10s
 
Thank you for the opinions. My impression was that the Dayton offers a bit more performance potential than the Wavecor. But the wavecor "balance drive" woofers seem to be well thought of by our friends in Europe. So I was wondering if I was missing something important.

Again, thanks.
 

stv

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Without knowing the drivers the main difference seems to be Rms (mechanical loss resistance) which is much lower for the wavecor (1.9 kg/s) compared to the dayton (6.3 kg/s).
German diy loudspeaker magazine "hobby hifi" state that lower Rms is better for low level detail reproduction. I'm not sure how relevant and how correct that statement is, though.
 
Jim,

I have run the larger RSS315HF-4's as woofers in a 3-way application crossed at 250 Hz, and never had a cause to complain about them. These days they are confined to sealed-box sub use. In my small den, the two of them give solid measured response to below 20 Hz without a Linkwitz transform or EQ besides a big notch at the room's 39Hz fundamental resonance. I don't see why the 265's would be a problem at 300 Hz.

Are you planning on using the LT to extend the bottom end response (at the expense of power use and ultimate loudness), or to use a smaller cabinet than the driver would 'normally' use, or both?

Bill
 
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I don't know that I need three Faraday rings, but this driver happens to come with three. I don't know what was in the mind of the design engineer... Three may not be better than two, but it is certainly not worse than two.

It seems to have the best performance (for my project) of any 10" woofer in the $180 - $200 range.