The Best Driver For Your First DIY Speaker Build? || Dayton Audio PS95 Point Source Driver Review 

Thank you, everyone, for watching! Hit that THUMBS UP if you want more videos like this one! If you're looking for a project using the PS95 check this one here: bit.ly/MiniTowerKit

I bought this exact speaker for restoring a iPod dock from a company called Vers and they are amazing! I gave a new life to the dock.

That's funny just bougth this speaker two weeks ago for my own portable bluetooth speaker. Great sound quality for the price!

Love the new intros :) I guess the image quality is a bit better, despite the editing, you are killing it and you latest videos were super interesting. I'm thinking of getting one of your speaker kits and make some cool speakers from scratch. I might send you an email in a couple months and ask a few questions :) Also, nice new look! New glasses and haircut? Edit: Ahah, I just when down on your videos list to see what was "different" and I realized you are not with the cap on this one. We get to see your hair. Sorry, just silly comments :D

Oh my gosh i love the new intro! Keep up the good work love your channel!🙂

Absolutely LOVE the point source drivers.

Great intro! I love your lighting effects!

Awesome! All your videos are great.

Great video man. Answered every question before I even asked.

Thanks for the info bro I’m a fan 👍🏻

You're killing it lately, Kirby! Keep it up!

You da man, man! Thank you!

Whoa. Bro did you just become like a filmmaker? That quality boost

Very nice vid as always. Your content is amazing :D I would love to see a Bluetooth build that has a rechargeable battery (specifically the components/how to wire it up). Keep it up Kirby.

Your videos are so good and helpfull🤘🔥

Really cool video!! Super useful! Very inspirational for someone considering their own first build :)

I have to agree, the PS95 is pretty good for the beginner. I've built a pair of Classix II, man they are beastly. I plan to build some smaller speakers with this driver, as a gift

Nice job bud . great vid. I am venturing into home audio and these seem to fit the bill for my surround sound speakers .

Great work!

Another great beginner speaker is the Tang Band W3-881 SJF. super easy to work with, and to build around it.

Awesome video, I wish they made these more available in Canada.

Great new Logo!!!

I made computer speakers using these and the drivers are phenomenal. 10/10 bang for the buck! Exiting and non-fatiquing sound. Thoughts on the reference series drivers? Mainly the rs100. Thinking of trying them next.

Can confirm that these drivers are impressive despite their size! I do not exactly have a ballroom, but my diy line array speakers with 12 of these in each speaker cabinet fill at least my living room which is about 40 square meters with a loud and well-balanced sound. Even if they roll off at 100hz, the bass is still impressive even without me using my sub.

I feel like this is not a diy more like a tutorial because you’ve done almost all the thinking about the electronics great video either way!

Great Videos! Thank you! I just wanted to share with you what I use to attach speakers to cabinets. I use brass threaded bolts into threaded brass wood inserts to secure the drivers to the cabinet. I then torque each brass bolt to exactly 10 inch pounds of pressure with my Wheeler Accurizing torque wrench screwdriver available on Amazon for 39.69. When there is equal fastener holding pressure on the driver, the speaker performs as a true wheel rim on a car.....smooth/better performance/imaging! Music likes brass. Ebony also likes music....oboe-clarinet. I place 3 or 4 Ebony or Macassar Ebony triangles under my speakers to decouple the cabinet from the desk/stand or floor. The base of each Ebony or Macassar Ebony triangle is one and a half inch. Best wishes to you, and again thanks for your ideas!

This little PS95 is hands down my favourite all time driver!!! It is SO good, and for the price... literally unbeatable! I found that a simple Baffle Step Compensation circuit make it come alive and it sounds larger than it is. I have used the PS95 once as a Full Range and once supported by a sub and those two designs are probably my favourites of all the ones I did because they sound KILLER and they are way way WAY cheaper than most of the speakers I designed... I'm working on a 3 way with those as the mids in an MTMWW setup along with some Airborn AMT tweeters to get that resolution and air, and I'm not fixed on the Woofers yet. Should be interesting! Again, it's a treat to watch your videos, Kirby, you are killing it lately!

Excellent

Built a pair of concrete PS95 speakers, weighing 7kg/each and teamed them with a Dayton DC-250. However, the 2-1-amp from China was really bad (not working) so I hade to fiddle when doing some initial tests and it sounded really good and could take a lot of punishment as the bass notes were also applied to the PS95. As a speaker for side channels, I think it is perfect. Have used some full range speakers (Hungarian Sonido) lately and are a fan of this kind of speakers.

Excellent looking speaker....

Kirby, thanks for the video. Thinking about this to replace my TV soundbar. Any plans, kits, or suggestions for a subwoofer? P.S. really like the new intro.

Great intro! I like the idea of not using a crossover, but it doesn't make building a presentable enclosure any easier.

Great video

Looking forward to seeing that enclosure with the ps95 and subwoof when is that coming out?

Awesome 👌

I've looked at this driver a few times now along with a few others. Too many options made me neglect pulling the trigger on the purchase. I'm off to buy it after I finish this reply. Now I just need to find a mono Bluetooth amp that will operate off 18 volts and I'll be on my way lol. Thanks! Love your videos! Always look forward to them.

Your hair though. I like it. Science! Keep up the good work!

Never heard a FR driver I liked, always needed a tweeter. That being said I think I need to check these out. The main issue for me with multi way speakers and crossovers is the cost. It is so much higher which is why I always hope to find a good FR driver that actually sounds good throughout the range.

Thats a good looking driver

Nice build. What just occurred to me is what fun (ok, geek fun) it would be to design a miniature flown line array out of multiple cabinets on a bracket...for say a warehouse/loft kind of living space. I didn't check out the angle dispersion, but I'd suspect that as it gets higher it would get pretty beamy--not ordinarily desirable, but for a stacked multi-angle vertical array, flown, that would be an ideal characteristic. Couple it with a sub on a delay, and it would be hilarious, if nothing else, to see a mini concert array like that. It would probably kick up a pretty ferocious amount of volume (and total waste of money), but geek fun, nevertheless

I really like your videos. I have never built anything like this. But my parents gave me an old console radio from the 1940’s. I’d love to stuff it with nice speakers and a big sub so it could put out some really deep rich sound. Connect maybe a tablet to it and play my Tidal HiFi account through it. And maybe even get the turntable working as well. The wood needs some restoration too. I just don’t know what direction to go with it all.

Thank you !

Missing ur speaker building video ..it's so satisfying..👌

What kind of bluetooth amp would you recommend for these drivers? Love your videos btw!

Great video for a starter, like myself. Question for you or the group...I recently found a 1938 Philco chairside radio at an antique shop. It's basically a coffee table with a built in AM and shortwave radio. Speaker was trashed, and it needs to have a lot of components changed, and I wasn't in the mood to rebuild an AM radio at the moment, so I thought I'd pull everything out and try to make a bluetooth speaker. I recently picked up a Dayton KAB-250v3 2x50 amp with bluetooth built in. Installed it with a couple of drivers I pulled from a salvaged soundbar, just to get it running. Now I'm at a point to picking decent drivers, so here is my question. The driver you talk about is 10 W and the woofer you refer to is 100W. Since I have two 50W channels, do I need to find similar drivers, but with power ratings closer to 50W? I haven't played with speakers since high school, so I've forgotten a lot. Any help would be great. Thanks again for the vids!

Thank you.bro can u suggest a woofer and tweeter with watt and ohms for my marantaz 60+60 amp Dayton or any low budget music performance .

Hoping to start my first speaker build soon, do you think a custom enclosure and these PS95 would be a better set up than a C Note speaker set up in a custom enclosure? Not planning to run a sub at the moment so they would just be a 2 channel set up. Love all your videos and appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge!

Nice design speakers

I am going to have a go at this build - you inspired me :) If the enclosure is ported will it give a bit more low end performance, or does this driver work best in this enclosure size when sealed? Does it need lagging/wadding for sound absorption?

Makes me want to start a project with these, At $24 you can’t go wrong. The 3 inch drivers I had in my car cost $500 😱

A full range driver is a good place to start for a lot of builders. So is a powered subwoofer. It gives you a chance to start learning to use a computer program to simulate a speaker enclosure design. But once you've built one or a few projects with just one speaker, be sure to push yourself to tackle more complex projects such as a two-way speaker, then a three-way, with passive crossovers. It takes more work but then you can build your knowledge, experience, and suite of test gear (you'll need an OmniMic and a DATS to gather the needed data to design a crossover, but the pair of tools are just under $400).

Im looking in to upgrading the splekers on my black web gunner pc spekers

Great video! Can you suggest a good alternative to Dayton audio that may be available in the UK please, I cannot seem to find them over here?

I have some of these in a .1 box ported have you ever used a Notch filter to smooth out a peaks in the speaker

Great Video! I own a pair of Hartley Tower speakers that are about 30 years old. There are two 6.5 inch drivers and a 2inch dome tweeter in each tower. Would these speakers be a good replacement and could you recommend a tweeter to pair them with?

Using this in my Challenger since the cheapest fronts are 8 ohms looks good speaker ok I’ll intall it in 4 days waiting on wires

Hey kirby your videos are always so nice! Can you also link a speaker that has the same specs but is sold in EU, because parts express doesnt ship to eu or for very high price :(

damm the b role of the speaker reminds me of apple ads and you should upload more videos probly 3 to 4 videos per week once again you are the most amazing speaker builder on youtube keep up the good work

I making a Bluetooth speaker of mf my own and I am having a hard time finding 2 50 watt full range speakers with good bass but not too expensive

70hz is actually very respectable. In a desktop setting particularly, most people would be surprised how low that is. Most commercial desktop speakers will hang in the 120-150hz range.

Kirby,I've been thinking of a center channel for my computer's 5.1 setup. Could you give me some pointers on two of these drivers in the same cabinet with a Tang Band W3 3" subwoofer (maybe in the same enclosure)? Thanks for another great video!

Hey Kirby I’m thinking of building a centre speaker with 4 of these drivers. I have a Yamaha aventage 1070. Would these handle the power?

Considering these types of drivers for a small wifi speaker build for the bedroom and eventually other rooms. Mainly to not have a crossover but also to keep them small. Could you install a high pass filter in line to cut out everything below 100hz in order to keep them a little more clean sounding when turned up a little higher? I know very little about cross overs, but figured with this speaker you can't really use a traditional crossover since there is only one driver.

I really like this driver but if you want something a little more serieus, get a pair of Markaudio CHR70's. They again don't really need a crossover but have a much better bass response. In the right enclosure they can go as deep as 40Hz

There is a kasun driver that is similar in price, but this definitely does appeal to the eyes.

Im just goning to usr them to upgade the my black web gunner speakers allong with the tcp115-4 4"

Do you think this would be good as a surround speaker build? I currently use orb audio mod 2's with a sub in my home theater, but I'd like to bring a rear channel to the party... And then upgrade the front channels!

Ive been buying from parts express since the early 90's but I am interested in your opinion on this driver. Do you think the crisp highs come from the copper dust cap?

could its "lack" of low end bass be better if using a T-line?

What tweeters would you recommend as a mach ?

Kirby...I start with the Erse online crossover calc. I pad the tweeter circuit if needed. I really think the software for design is a difficult approach simply because the files for every driver are not always available. I select Peerless woofer, the impedance versus response file is not available, dead in the water with expensive software that is useless when generating my own file, which is arbitrary at best. So I use my ac electronics background. Impedance varies with frequency in inductor and capacitors, and phase leads in inductors and lags in capacitors, so 2-way crossovers the solution is usually to reverse the polarity at the speaker connection for one driver....either the woofer or tweeter. In my design of the crossover, I look over the sensitivity of each driver. Most times I choose drivers that are no more than 2 or 3 decibels off from each other at 1 watt 1 meter (spec) Using matched drivers is a great way to begin. There are a lot of 1" dome tweeters and most of them outpace a woofer so they have to be attenuated with an l-pad. So simply, I look at the driver's usable response and choose a point in the midrange that both woofer and tweeter can manage. 3-way systems are a big challenge, 2-way systems easier. I just go for a simple 12 dB / Octave Linkwitz-Riley slope that Erse calculates. If the tweeter needs attenuation, add L-pad.

So no X overs, means directly wiring power source the drivers. That does reduce my stress over speaker DIY. I will order them and give it a try and use them as computer desk speakers. Not sure I understood how the tone control on the amp controlls the X over points between them I were to add that sub. What are the dimensions of those little towers? Ported? Where?

Try the bamboo Tang Band 4" driver for better sonics. It's quite a bit more expensive but it's worth it. The 3" version is good too and not much more than the Dayton unit.

hey, at here there's no one that sell dayton audio driver, can you recommended the best speaker for $20

can you use this in a cloased cabin? with a passive radiator

Do these work well in small enclosures? and how is the off-axis response? Im thinking about using these in my car and making a pod in a-pillar for them.

Don't forget that you still need a baffle step compensation network when using a full range driver. This usually comes in in the form of a notch filter. Simple coil, resistor and capacitor in parallel to each other.

Hi! I am preparing for my first project. I found these as an ideal option for putting in a "needle" style towers. I think it will be perfect for my small apartment without disturbing my neighbours. But i am struggling to choose an amplifier. Can anyone recommend anything with a good sound quality at low volume levels and rich of features (BT, headphone etc) at around (or less) 100 euros in Europe?

Kirby, the Dayton Audio DTA-2.1BT 100W Class D 2.1 Amplifier with Bluetooth and Power Supply is no longer available on the part express website. Can you recommend another?

I bit more expensive are Tang Band W3-1364SA 3# Have more sensivity, to me more air behind the speaker.

Kirby is exactly right. Two of these in a proper suspension (box) can fill a room with well-balanced sound. Just do it. And if you learn to duct them properly you’ll be glad you did.

How to make speakers from FR drivers that sound like panel speakers: Get some good 5" FRdrivers and 6.5" woofers and floor standing boxes and a 6.8mh inductor for the woofer and a 82 mf cap to minimise excursions on the FR driver. Also a bass vent ring, extra length speaker screws for the FR driver and spacers made from (thin soft prinkler hose) and some wadding for inside the box. Make or obtain tower boxes with a 5" speaker hole near the top as usual and a 6.5" woofer hole on the bottom panel firing straight down onto the floor surface (box 1" above the floor with stubbs). The idea of the speaker is to have an acoustic gap between the 5" FR driver and the box. Using the extended speaker screws and spacers, the driver is 1-2 cm above the speaker hole for acoustic reasons. BUT...It will sound "bonky" so you need a bass vent ring running into the box only by 2". Make the 5" diameter x 2" deep ring from poly pipe and hot glue inside under the speaker hole. This is also acting as a bass vent for the woofer (with the 5" driver over it). The 5" driver is 1 cm over the hole for the top speaker screws and 2 cm above on the bottom speaker screws. So cut the soft sprinkler hose 5mm larger and thread screw into the spacers and screw down to 1 cm and 2 cm. Install woofer (if w too loud, resist it till you are happy). If FR driver is too loud resist it by a little bit and bypass resistor with a 2 mf or 1.5 mf cap (for more extension). And you have to tweak acoustic gap with the speaker screws. If too much "squark" increase 1 cm gap. If too mellow and huski decrease 1 cm gap (all just by a little bit). Don't "overshoot" and miss out on the most incredible sound you heard! If sound is too much "shout" increase 2 cm gap till it leans out a bit. And if med is soft and lean decrease 2 cm gap. This is only a guide, experiment and do only a few degrees turn of the speaker screws at a time. It is amazing how tweaking this over a week or so makes the BEST image I heard. And the difference between a good sou d and a FANTASTIC sound is only a screwdriver away. The crowd in nearly all live recordings are so convincingly real! Thes speakers are an experience I never had before with speakers. I have been building my own speakers since the 70's.

Kirby when will you return. Such great video production and content.

when can we see your Atmos designs?

If you are driving these using that 100w amp you linked to, how careful do you have to be about not blowing the drivers?

How does this compare to the Dayton RS100-4

cual escogerías , este o tang band w3-1878 ? y por que?

Hi, I was wondering if you could suggest a better more expensive full range driver (say $100 to $250)? Thanks in advance.

Seriously Make line array with these.... That would be an awesome build video

Hey just curious, would you be designing speaker builds with other brands? I like dayton and understand the price/performance ratio, but I keep hearing about peerless speakers and vifa tweeters and would be interested in seeing them or other affordable more premium options with possibly less trade offs or deeper bass. Ps I really like the music choices of your videos and also really like the idea of a full range speaker + woofer design, I would be all over that.

Any recommendations for builders overseas? The speaker doesn't seem to be available in Europe.

Have you ever compared this driver to the RS100 from Dayton? I started wanting the PS95 but it's just not a good fit for the enclosure I need to use and the RS100 is a better fit for my application. Also are the highs really detailed enough to get away without a tweeter? Reviews on parts express seem to be 50/50. I'm looking to build a small bookshelf speaker for my daughter's room and listening positions won't be on axis most of the time. Thanks for any insight you can offer.

So here's a question, as we age our ability to hear high frequencies diminishes. Just doing a random test online, mine fades out above 13khz. Naturally, others in my circle will have better/different hearing. Is that relevant when selecting drivers? e.g. does it matter if I pick a full range that only goes to 16khz? Isn't most music and or vocals in a much lower range anyway?

Does this driver come also in none paper form if so what are they like too.

Hi Kirby I'm looking at building a Voight Pipe box using the specs from a video I recently watched (World's 2nd Best Speakers from Tech Ingredients). I am still tossing which full range driver to use. Could you please give me your opinion on this build and what full range driver you would consider (~$400 pair) Look forward to receiving your recommendations I was initially considering the Mark Audio 12P

remind me the Hybrid Audio Speakers.

Hi can i use for H/K AVR 141 each channel 35 output

What if you have a 2.0 channel amp. I just want to build diy Bluetooth speaker

Can this be used in a Home Theater array? what do you think?

Those are phase plug drivers right? If so the great highs make sense, but is the low end not extremely lacking? Phase plug drivers need a rather high crossover point. And using a subwoofer would make the total project cost considerably higher then getting a tweeter plus woofer right?