r/diyaudio • u/uncre8tv • 1m left
Seeking those who know the Dayton subwoofer lineup well.
I'm on my fourth serious Dayton speaker build, and each one is getting better.
FIRST BUILD: Ambitious 3-way, 2nd order crossing a sealed (1.8 ft3) RSS315HF-8 below 200hz, handing to two RS100-4's (in series), and an RST28F-4. Mid crossover is invisible to the ear or the mic, very smooth. Woofer cross benefited from downgrading to a single inductor and letting it support under the RS100 a little more.
This speaker took some tuning (variable l-pads then fixed) and a TON of mic time, and swapping some parts until everything measured about even. I think I cycled out a bad iron core coil in there somewhere. But, anyways, NOW they are a really crisp, detailed, "flat" monitor with bass extension down into the single digits comfortably, and a true nearfield f3 below 20hz. These are amazing to listen to critically, but get tiring for TV duty with all those spoken voices coming from all those aluminum cones. Low 80's efficiency.
SECOND BUILD: was a subwoofer to go with these low-extension monsters. Because while they were musically amazing (bring me that 1812 canon fire!) they do need some SPL to go with their tight and fast service. So the second build was a 4' (net) cabinet housing an SPA500 amp, an RSS390HF-4 woofer, and an RSS460-PR radiator. That monster presents bass in whatever manner one might prefer. Tight and thundering, loose and window shaking, or just barely civilized and rocking properly as it should when you have a 15" and 18" cone hanging out in the center of your living room.
THIRD BUILD: The first speakers still didn't do midrange spoken word great. And that subwoofer needed a companion, so I build two ~18l boxes ported for 45hz and filled with an RS180P-8 and a DC28F-8 with a 4th order crossover on each driver. These sound a little bright (my initially calculated lpads were too much, so I cut them out and haven't re-engineered them) but with YPAO calming them down, they blend with that big woofer real nice ("Large" mode and "extra bass" on, sub firing 180-out-of-phase). Now I've got a system that does almost everything I need. It sounds good for sports, And it can be straight up abusive with the SPL below 80hz. And it makes the plants shake amusingly if they have a branch too close to the RS180P's port. Problem with these is the brightness. I might calm them down, I might just replace them with a fifth build (planning hard on a design to replicate the Hitachi HSA4121 - a great sounding speaker!) (but today I might do two drive 12's instead of one 12 and one PR).
But anyways, FOURTH BUILD: is well underway. Two simple, plain, passive subwoofers. RSS314HO-4's in 1.4 ft3 boxes. These will allow me to solve a few problems in the living room including r/TVTooHigh, the giant 4' 15+18 sub is a big contributor to making the tv too high, so these little passive friends will have to take over. They'll be driven by an A400 amp fed by the LFE out on my AVR. (sidenote, the SLOW ASS turn-on speed of the SPA500 is annoying as hell. Worst thing about 2nd build) (that and the fact that it will xmax the radiator unless you trim down 18hz by like -8db)
Hopefully any minor difference in SPL is made up for by the low-end extension (I know they won't go as low as the HF-8, but hopefully close) and being a smooth match for the RS180P mains. And allowing my TV to come down several feet.