Dayton Audio RS125 | Test and Review 

Yep, arguing science vs. $10K speaker cables is really off putting to me as well.

Very perceptive to see the clock in the screen view.

I agree! Also subscribed.

Rennie Ash I don’t have a pair but I’d love to review it.

Quetzalcoalt yes actually I do. I meant to say something in the video about the frame being bigger than necessary. Good point.

It's like a 4 in a 5 basket.

@@westelaudio943 www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/295-353--rs125-8-spec-sheet.pdf If you look at where the magnet is, it says 80, i guess that's mm, if you see the magnet and where the surround starts, the cone+surround looks like it's around 80mm too 80mm = 3.15 inches.

@@Quetzalcoatl0 The baffle cutout is 94mm or 3 3/4", just like a standard nominal 4" driver. Yep the sorround diameter might even be a bit smaller.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers This has ben a "semi-common" practice since Henry Kloss, designed the original Advent Speaker. Kloss deduced a very Long-Throw 10'' cone in a 12'' basket, properly enclosed could produce as much or more Bass, as many 12" drivers and still inherently match a Tweeter more closely (in this case a " semi- ring radiator"). Therefore producing a smooth frequency response without a " "brute force" application of components for a crossover; that was also "cost effective". As to the size of Cone vs. Frame size (the mounting holes). I believe Both should be shown in their respective specs etc.

Nik Leiser I plan on ported around 70-80hz for the final version. Keep in mind this is just the testing. I like waveguide tweeters but that’s not what was selected for this one. Top end dispersion isn’t bad. I’ll show that in the next video. Definitely like waveguides though.

PA5cAl1 definitely, and usually the way I do it. But for the purposes of demonstration I used the traditional series notch.

Fear Wolf Brewery yes I agree using an elliptical notch is cheaper. The XO layout I was playing with was not a permanent thing. Just a play around to see what the woofer can do. I’ve never used one of the paper RS drivers. They seem fine but I really like the aluminum ones.

MrFrobbo yes the gate on the outdoor measurements is set at 16ms. You can see on the far left of the graph the graph area is greyed out to indicate where the gate is set. Sorta difficult to see. I prefer sine sweep when measuring low frequencies like ground plane measurements. I use HolmImpulse for that. The MLS method is a little better for filtering out ambient noise.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers would be great to see more speaker measuring detail, there's no one really honing in on this so you could be the first and take lead here 👍 Your buddies 123Toid and Kirby also avoid the harder tech line of speaker design, that's what drew me to your channel. Hope you go for it. Again, thanks for all your effort and the channel mate, without you three I wouldn't be back into this amazing and rewarding hobby, cheers.

Joseph Crowe's DIY Speaker Building great observation. I’m actually targeting about 92db. It’s a common number but not some kind of standard. Part of why I rarely talk about distortion, and even cringe showing it, is because it’s never apples to apples. Especially if measured at a different level. Be very careful comparing distortion measurements and always take them as a casual look into where the driver is comfortable playing. Nothing more in my opinion.

Ok that’s good to know. I’ll stick to comparisons between multiple variations of the same.

Benoit Lavigne these are broken in but may break in more. Mine are 20hz higher than Dayton. I couldn’t tell you why. Often manufacturers get a lower fs because they will drive the driver with a higher voltage when doing TS parameters. It’s actually not something that concerns me much. It’s surprising how much TS parameters can vary and yet the box prediction will stay the same.

A largish stuffed enclosure with a sloped rear baffle is good. Your idea with the cone sounds excellent, though I've never seen it done and can't imagine it's easy to do. If you try it, let me know how it turns out and how you did it. Maybe using a lathe or something?

Impulse Audio That was my next thought , how to make one . I don’t have room for a lathe . I guess a 4th axis on a cnc ?

Marius Loubeeka as described in the video I increased the 1m SPL to 92db per infinite baffle (so it was less than 92db below the baffle step point) and took measurements at that level. So the 40hz measurement was actually a very low 80ish dB. It’s in the video but I didn’t really describe it well.

pliedtka RST video should be a couple days. Ya I’m actually pretty disappointed. I’ve been thinking about it since the video was published and it kinda sucks. Usually bass frequencies are easy to get good agreement. This is pretty poor. I’m not even sure what can physically be different about the drivers to cause this. It’s like one of the voice coils has more windings that the other or the magnet gap is tighter on the other. But even that would cause differences at higher frequencies. I don’t know... :(

The sort of solution that will try on my SBs is adding a backing magnet to lower Qts (decrease Qes). Never tried it, but some people did it. The smaller the driver the harder is to keep within close tolerances. Maybe with time they settle down closer to each other, but I doubt it.

lex Tr3 I do groundplane measurements as well but I don’t find them as accurate above 200hz as this way. I do the ground plane measurements when I need to know how the port is working below 200hz.

nice this is very useful to know thx =)

That’s ok. You may want to use eq or use smaller resistors to raise the tweeter level, but generally the brain becomes accustomed to hearing loss (within reason) and a “reference” sound will sound normal to you and I and everyone else all the same. You may miss certain details someone else won’t, but nothing can be done about that. The objective is to get a natural normal sound from the speaker.

Pablo osvaldo Penizzotto that is Dayton WT3 which is now DATS.

Pablo osvaldo Penizzotto you’d be surprised how little wind and noise and such affect the outdoor measurements for frequency response. I do choose a quite calm day though. My camera makes ambient noises sound way louder than they are. The free air impedance and TS parameters are done in the shop with the doors shut. No wind. Impedance measurements can be affected because the signal is so small.

Glen Kashin it really depends what you need. I switch to sine sweep when measuring in the bass range. I much prefer it for

Thanks for the explanation. I have been using a sine sweep in a quiet location. Another thing I wondered is if you think using padding on the floor and walls to damp reflections when taking measurements indoors is a good idea.

Glen Kashin no problem. Adding padding doesn’t help all that much. Distance is the best. Get as far away from reflections as possible. Then set the gate time to just before the reflection. In a typica home that’s about 4ms.

Dave Jones a lot changes that’s for sure. The XO has to change, probably to what’s called a 2.5 way. At minimum it has to change to allow for the higher volume. The box also has to change to work with more drivers. The box will have to be a lot bigger.

Yes could work fine for that. In a 3 way I would maybe look for something with more sensitivity, but can work.

Derek Jarman I prefer the box method because I already have to build a test box, don’t have to tape or magnet weights to the cone, don’t have to have a scale that can weight grams, and I do find it more accurate. In theory it shouldn’t be more accurate but it seems to be for me. Both methods back calculate what Vas is. With the weights you are telling it how much mms has increased. With the box you’re telling it how much volume is available and it sees how much Fs changes and just like a box calculator it knows what Vas must be.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers does it matter what size the box is? Does it have to be close to what you are going to use in the final design?

Derek Jarman no actually smaller is better. The bigger the change between free air and closed, the easier time the software has predicting Vas. I will often do the test with the enclosure blocked off smaller than necessary, then once I have the TS parameters I use a hole saw to change the block into a brace. I show this being done in my Motus woofer review.

Ya that’s no problem. Especially if you add a resistor to attenuate the tweeter, it’ll be a 6-12ohm load. No problem.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers thanks your best . I been learning a lot from you. You explain thngs easy to understand and you break it all down

MajorTendonitis aluminum cones works great at low frequencies. This driver does pretty well up to 3 or 4khz too, because it’s so small.

Jon Doe I use SoundEasy for testing and Xsim for XO design. I’m not a fan of SoundEasy though. I recommend HolmImpulse or REW.

Impulse Audio Thanks for the quick reply! Keep up the good work. I've been tooling around diysoundgroup.com as you suggested and appreciate the time and effort that went into your designs. 👍

Mark Holder years of studying and screwing up. Taking engineering courses helped.

I use WT3 from Dayton which is now called DATS.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers thanks a lot !

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers Excuse me I'm back with the same question, what software did you use for frequency response ? Seems like DATS 3 doesn't have a mic

since I'm at it I'd like to know the mic refertence too please :p

@@samuelbalavoine5031 I used SoundEasy V20, but I don’t recommend it. I would check REW, HolmImpulse, or Omnimic. Those are better and cheaper. Omnimic comes with a microphone or the others you can buy a calibrated mic for about $100.

Yes but they will only be good for low volume. They can’t get loud at all.

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers so any suggestions on which to use as farfield are there any bigger ones on ebay and you should do a video about D.I.Y FARFIELD studio monitors Noone has done it at all

@@TheMessenger212 aren’t farfield monitors just speakers?

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers yes it's the monitors that most studios have sofit into the walls like the biggest monitors in most majors studios either ATC brand or Genelec brand they are called farfield because they can be used as monitor from more than 3 or 4 feet away

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers speakers are different than monitors to me monitors have help you hear 👂 more of your music with better clarity you know way more about this stuff then I do I would just love to see a video about make some studio monitor thats affordable ATC and Genelec monitors cost almost $20,000

Liberal friends 😂 Pretty sure I scared all mine away! Thanks for watching!

@@ImpulseAudioSpeakers i was hoping you get a kick out of that its amazing i tell ye i got a few only 3 out of all folks i know .yep biden won and i can see it now yea and my granny is half Sasquatch and not just a hairy french lady

MrBrymstond I don’t think so. I measured again indoors and they matched exactly. Plus it wasn’t windy. Why do you think wind was throwing them off.

I'm not knocking you. Wind is a well known factor when you're involving microphones and depending on the sensitivity the least amount could skew the results, plus if it was windy speakers tend to vary with the ear. If I went to this extent, I would test them in a sound proof area the test them again in a similar area of use. If I was going to use the speakers outside all the time, I would still test them inside. Even when speakers are out in the open the sound is absorbed to a point. If you listen to speakers outside subwoofers will become less intense with distance than the midrange and treble cuts thru, but inside all you will hear is the subs with little to no midrange or treble penetrating thru the walls. Just like setting your sound up in a empty night club the sound will drastically change as the people pile in. These are the factors I take into account. I'm not saying you're wrong. I say this from decades of having band members setting up and doing a sound check then having to do it all over again because the sound deadens out and absorbed in a packed area, this is why I always waited. I think the bass was slightly off for these reasons above, but it was extremely close.

MrBrymstond the reason for measuring outdoors is for anechoic reasons. I’m aware it changes in a room or as people come in. The test was repeated indoors, as mentioned in the video, and the bass was still off. It’s for test purposes rather than determining how to setup in a room. Now that I have the data I can determine how to setup the XO.

I did say the test was extremely close. I never insinuated you didn't know something. Anechoic chamber. An anechoic chamber ("an-echoic" meaning non-reflective, non-echoing or echo-free) is a room designed to completely absorb reflections of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also insulated from exterior sources of noise. Hence soundproof room. There's many sounds going on outside especially during the day. At night I can clearly hear the trains that are miles away, but even on the most quite day it's diminished to near nothing. I just don't like using a microphone outside when it comes to the needs of a technical result, that's all. To me it's unreliable and it doesn't mean I'm 100% correct, but I'm not wrong.

MrBrymstond I didn’t think you insinuated I don’t know something. I don’t think we have a problem, just talking. I’m just trying to explain why I do it outside. I’ve repeated the test indoors and they were the same. Only issue with a sound proof room is the reflections. I’m not going to build an anechoic chamber. So I hate the measurements to be anechoic down to about 60hz. MLS measurements can filter the noise really well in my experience. So I’m not too concerned about it.

Tim Schutte I’m from Canada. I might say a few words differently, but hopefully people don’t have an issue understanding it. My wife is American and she understands me most days :D

Impulse Audio , I'm sorry but it wasn't about where your from but all the high tech talk about frequencies and speaker technology talk. I just don't understand some of it and some I do. I was just poking fun. not at the way you talk but all the speaker talk stuff ok. I'm sorry you took it the wrong way. I love Canada and in fact would love love love to live in a cabin in the Can and an Rockies.

Impulse Audio , I actually admire your intelligence about audio tech. very much, you should be proud. sometimes people just need a straight forward answer about how a speaker driver sounds and not just the testing graphs and frequency responses. more gray area instead of black & white if you get my meaning of " plain English", it's a figure of speech, please don't be so uptight about where ur from, be proud. nice country. bro

Tim Schutte oh man. Some Einstein I am haha. Went right over my head. Probably because someone commented a couple a days ago that I was saying diffraction wrong. Sorry my bad. Thanks by the way. Not really sure how to add some “grey” to my reviews. Maybe just a final words about sound or something.

Impulse Audio , exactly, just a quick sound bite about your personal opinion on how a specific driver sounds, that's all. warm, clear, boomy, good bottom end, ect. your intellectual knowlage about audio drivers and the technical specifics about them is astounding actually, you should be an Engineer and work with Andrew Jones as a designer for Christ sakes. your very knowledgeable. anyway, have a nice day and keep up the good work. I just got my new Dayton Audio MK-402s today for my job. putting them on my work bench at work, running an SMSL 98. 160WPC. amp. should sound good for a work stereo system. I love Dayton Audio products and Parts Express very much. quality products and outstanding customer service!!!!!!!!!!! I'm getting a couple Tang Band 5 1/4 inch subwoofers to make a subwoofer also with 4- 4 inch truncated Peerlees bass radiators. should sound really good. those Tangband subs are mini beasts man. Exmax out the ying yang