Canceling a recommendation I've made
08-15-2011, 11:23 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
Canceling a recommendation I've made Well, over the years, I have recommended Dayton Audio to many people. I've used some of their products and have seen Klippel results all showing them to have low distortion.
Today, I must cancel that recommendation, and here's why:
Over the past several months, I've been working on an audio revamp in my G8 and in my cousin's Audi A8. I decided to go for custom fitted RS180s in my G8. I specced RS125s for the A8 as we decided not to custom fit larger woofers in due to the doors being quite complex in an A8. For tweeters, I'm using Seas Neo silks and I got him Seas Neo Aluminums. Both good tweeters, especially for the price.
I had some RS180s around that I ran for a bit in my 99 Z28 but had removed because it would have been too much work to get the door panel to fit over them. They'd been sitting around and I hadn't taken care to store them properly, but I gave them a try. In my doors, they made a mechanical noise at moderate volume or higher. I figured it was because of how I stored them, so I ordered some replacements. The replacements did the exact same thing. I was fairly sure that nothing was hitting the door panel but I made sure by changing the speaker ring that I cut from a 3/4" thick one to a 1/2" thick one. If the speaker had been hitting the door panel at excursion, this would DEFINITELY solve it because the 1/4" reduction is equal to the linear excursion of the driver.
Well, it didn't solve it. Somehow, I got it in my head that maybe the drivers HAD been hitting the door panel, that they got damaged, and that would be the reason that they still sounded bad after "fixing" the bracket. So I ordered two MORE. Well, you can guess that they do the SAME THING.
I got fed up and swapped the Rainbow woofers that I used in my Camaro into the G8. They do not have quite the output capability of the RS180 (being a bit smaller in diameter and having less excursion - the RS180s have 6mm peak linear excursion which is quite good when they aren't rattling) but they DO NOT RATTLE.
RS180: 0/6 good
Rainbow: 2/2 good
The RS125s in my cousin's car do not have this problem and they do sound pretty good. I found some Kicker crossovers specced close enough to how I wanted to cross between them and the Seas tweeters. We're happy with the result. Here's the problem with his car: I specced 2 Dayton RSS315HO-44 subwoofers. The same subwoofer that I've recommended to a few people on this very forum. I have used Dayton subwoofers before and never had an issue. We've got the two in a very solid sealed MDF box of about 2.75cuft (before subtracting driver volume).
One of them makes very bad mechanical noise just like the RS180s I had. The other one seems to make a bit of mechanical noise, but it's hard to tell with both. The sound quality is not even good - in fact, it sounds sloppy. And it does NOT go loud either with his ONX1.1500d or my Planet Audio P1250D. Side note: The ONX1.1500d is perhaps not as good as I'd heard, because my amp drove them to a significantly less crappy volume.
I've contacted customer service and will need to work something out with them, but in the end, he will NOT be running Dayton subwoofers and I will NOT be running Dayton ANYTHING in my car.
If anyone has bought Dayton on my recommendation and had bad luck with them, I apologize. They were always good to me in the past and I had read nothing but good things. They have NOT been good to me this year. I hope none of you have to deal with this same crap. I don't know if they switched factories in China or if the factory they used has gone downhill or what, but as of this point, I cannot recommend their products to anyone.
If I decide to try another 7" speaker, it will be a Seas U18 or Scan-speak Discovery.
Today, I must cancel that recommendation, and here's why:
Over the past several months, I've been working on an audio revamp in my G8 and in my cousin's Audi A8. I decided to go for custom fitted RS180s in my G8. I specced RS125s for the A8 as we decided not to custom fit larger woofers in due to the doors being quite complex in an A8. For tweeters, I'm using Seas Neo silks and I got him Seas Neo Aluminums. Both good tweeters, especially for the price.
I had some RS180s around that I ran for a bit in my 99 Z28 but had removed because it would have been too much work to get the door panel to fit over them. They'd been sitting around and I hadn't taken care to store them properly, but I gave them a try. In my doors, they made a mechanical noise at moderate volume or higher. I figured it was because of how I stored them, so I ordered some replacements. The replacements did the exact same thing. I was fairly sure that nothing was hitting the door panel but I made sure by changing the speaker ring that I cut from a 3/4" thick one to a 1/2" thick one. If the speaker had been hitting the door panel at excursion, this would DEFINITELY solve it because the 1/4" reduction is equal to the linear excursion of the driver.
Well, it didn't solve it. Somehow, I got it in my head that maybe the drivers HAD been hitting the door panel, that they got damaged, and that would be the reason that they still sounded bad after "fixing" the bracket. So I ordered two MORE. Well, you can guess that they do the SAME THING.
I got fed up and swapped the Rainbow woofers that I used in my Camaro into the G8. They do not have quite the output capability of the RS180 (being a bit smaller in diameter and having less excursion - the RS180s have 6mm peak linear excursion which is quite good when they aren't rattling) but they DO NOT RATTLE.
RS180: 0/6 good
Rainbow: 2/2 good
The RS125s in my cousin's car do not have this problem and they do sound pretty good. I found some Kicker crossovers specced close enough to how I wanted to cross between them and the Seas tweeters. We're happy with the result. Here's the problem with his car: I specced 2 Dayton RSS315HO-44 subwoofers. The same subwoofer that I've recommended to a few people on this very forum. I have used Dayton subwoofers before and never had an issue. We've got the two in a very solid sealed MDF box of about 2.75cuft (before subtracting driver volume).
One of them makes very bad mechanical noise just like the RS180s I had. The other one seems to make a bit of mechanical noise, but it's hard to tell with both. The sound quality is not even good - in fact, it sounds sloppy. And it does NOT go loud either with his ONX1.1500d or my Planet Audio P1250D. Side note: The ONX1.1500d is perhaps not as good as I'd heard, because my amp drove them to a significantly less crappy volume.
I've contacted customer service and will need to work something out with them, but in the end, he will NOT be running Dayton subwoofers and I will NOT be running Dayton ANYTHING in my car.
If anyone has bought Dayton on my recommendation and had bad luck with them, I apologize. They were always good to me in the past and I had read nothing but good things. They have NOT been good to me this year. I hope none of you have to deal with this same crap. I don't know if they switched factories in China or if the factory they used has gone downhill or what, but as of this point, I cannot recommend their products to anyone.
If I decide to try another 7" speaker, it will be a Seas U18 or Scan-speak Discovery.
Last edited by dragonrage; 08-15-2011 at 11:29 AM.
