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The Dayton DS215-8 is another 8″ woofer that I have. This model is from Dayton’s “Designer Series” (DS). She’s supposed to be better than the DA215-8. When I measured her Thiele & Small Parameters with DATS, the results are very close to the manufacturer’s. That’s promising. Looks like I may not have to break-in the woofer much. With an EBP of 90, this woofer is optimized for a bass reflex. I used the same 24 liters bass reflex box as before with the same tuning. This time round, I’m getting an over-damped alignment of 0.518. I’m quite happy with this because I prefer my bass to be tight. The simulated bass response is below.
Since the DS215-8 is similar to the DA215-8, the same 10.0mH iron core inductor is used as a Low Pass. As expected, the DS215-8 integrated well with the HiVi C3N-III.
When I first heard the DS215-8, she sounded like the DA215-8 after breaking-in for 7 days. I half expected minimal break-in because my TS is quite close to Dayton’s. However, a strange thing happened after 3 days of continuous playing. After breaking in, the DS215-8 lost a bit of tightness. The end of the bass notes became slightly thicker, like having a “thud” where it shouldn’t be. It’s not terribly obvious but it’s there. There’s also a very slight loss in clarity in the bass texture.
Actually, this is the first time that a woofer sounds worse after break-in. I’m not sure whether it’s justifiable to pay an additional $10 for this DS215-8 when the DA215-8 sounds the same after a 7 day break-in. The two woofers look identical except one sports an aluminum cone while the other is paper. At $60, there are better woofers out there Unless otherwise stated, all measurements were made in Full Space (4pi). Mic at 36 ins, tweeter axis. Impulse Window=5ms. No smoothing applied. |
January 28, 2024HIFI DRIVERS, Projects
