Re-Coned Vs Brand new. Advice needed

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Hi there everyone.

Much to my girlfriends dismay, I plan on building a subwoofer to accompany my bookshelf speakers. I am aiming for a 12" driver in a sealed cabinet as to not take up much room. I am on a budget and would like to spend not much more than $200 on the driver, however, living in Australia hikes speaker component prices considerably. Thus I contacted my local speaker repair guy to see what he has. As it stands he has a 12" Subwoofer driver for $150 that he has re-coned himself. He seems to think is a pretty great driver and I trust him, he knows his stuff. Apparently the Fs is roughly 32Hz and the Xmax is 10mm. The closest brand new driver I can find is the Dayton Audio DCS305-4 12" Classic Subwoofer 4 Ohm which has a Fs of 24.2 Hz and an Xmax of 9.3. It would cost me $200 here in Australia.

- Which is the better option?
- Are there more specs I should ask for?
- Do re-coned speaker ever sound as good as new ones?
- who am I?
- Do I need to know the exact optimal cabinet volume if I am going for a sealed cabinet, or can I build a 1.5 cubic foot box and add/subtract stuffing to find right 'size'?
- How will i ever understand this stuff without studying audio engineering?

An answer to any of the above would be much appreciated :) Thank you
 
Hi there everyone.

Much to my girlfriends dismay, I plan on building a subwoofer to accompany my bookshelf speakers. I am aiming for a 12" driver in a sealed cabinet as to not take up much room. I am on a budget and would like to spend not much more than $200 on the driver, however, living in Australia hikes speaker component prices considerably. Thus I contacted my local speaker repair guy to see what he has. As it stands he has a 12" Subwoofer driver for $150 that he has re-coned himself. He seems to think is a pretty great driver and I trust him, he knows his stuff. Apparently the Fs is roughly 32Hz and the Xmax is 10mm. The closest brand new driver I can find is the Dayton Audio DCS305-4 12" Classic Subwoofer 4 Ohm which has a Fs of 24.2 Hz and an Xmax of 9.3. It would cost me $200 here in Australia.

- Which is the better option?
- Are there more specs I should ask for?
- Do re-coned speaker ever sound as good as new ones?
- who am I?
- Do I need to know the exact optimal cabinet volume if I am going for a sealed cabinet, or can I build a 1.5 cubic foot box and add/subtract stuffing to find right 'size'?
- How will i ever understand this stuff without studying audio engineering?

An answer to any of the above would be much appreciated :) Thank you


1st Step - ask for the t/s parameters for that rebuilt driver.

If he doesn't know what t/s parameters are, buy the Dayton driver :).
 
Sweet, thanks for the help. i didn't know what to ask for when I asked if he knew the optimal enclosure volume but he said he could do some measurements and find out for an extra $50. I thought this was pretty steep as those parameters are pretty important for using the driver properly. He also said I could save myself $50 and just build a 1.5 cubic foot enclosure as sealed subs have a big margin of error when it comes to enclosure size.

I am thinking I will go with the re-coned one as it will end up being the same price as a new possibly lower quality driver (once parameters are known) but I wont have to wait for shipping. I have zero patience enough trust in my speaker guy to give it a shot :)
 
Sweet, thanks for the help. i didn't know what to ask for when I asked if he knew the optimal enclosure volume but he said he could do some measurements and find out for an extra $50.

LOL.

"Well, I don't know the rim size and width of this tire that you're looking to fit on your car, but I could measure it for you for an extra $50 on the cost of the tire..."

It literally takes only a few minutes to measure t/s params with the right equipment. Asking $50 for it is ridiculous IMO.
 
Hi Myleso, there are quite a few places in Australia that supply drivers. this guy you have found sounds dodgy. $50 for specs come on, I would pass on it. have a look at "lsk". he has lots of drivers.The Loudspeaker Kit
Greg

LSK is probably where I will end up buying the driver from. I have noticed that it is sometimes much cheaper to ship the part from Parts Express in the US though. Thanks for the tip though!

if he reconed it himself, he must now the type/brand of the driver.
with that you can find the thiele small specs on the net,if its a decent driver.
give him a call and report back here.

I went to see the driver in question and was a little disappointed by its looks. It seemed a little faded and quite old so I gave it a pass. I'm now looking at expanding my budget a little and going for the Dayton Audio RSS265HF-4 10" Reference HF Subwoofer. The reviews on Parts Express are awesome but so are the reviews from pretty much every driver on their site so I don't wont to just base it off that. Does anyone know much about this driver? I would want it in a sealed cabinet. The manufacture specs say 0.53 cf is optimal but I can see people are using it in much larger cabinets e.g. 1.5 cf. Whats a better size and how can i tell? maybe ill post another thread to sort this out.

Cheers!
 
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