dragonrage

UPDATE: I have removed the results from ED from this thread because I feel that ED is a company that does not deserve our money. They change their products around and do not update specifications and refuse to give out the real specifications. All they will claim is that their products are suited to any application (sealed, ported, IB, etc.) when asked. Their eDead product especially sucks, see here. Then there's those piece of crap flat subwoofers they ordered as a custom build from TC Sounds, many of which they did not pay for, leaving TC Sounds with a bunch of drivers that would simply shatter without even pushing them. Here is one thread with info about them, but there are many more on various forums.

Note: My original opinion was that Mpyre was better anyway.

I compared some 6.5"-7" subs (technically, most are midbass drivers) in WinISD Pro to see if I can get away without adding a 10"/12".

The drivers:
Adire Audio Extremis 6.4
Ascendant Audio 6.5" (left out from the final results 'cause it was by far the worst)
Dayton RS180-4 7"
Mach 5 MLI-65
Mpyre Audio 65x

Drivers were modeled with a .5cuft volume in a closed box. I didn't touch the alignment parameter.


Results:


Lower -3dB point (lower is better):
Adire: 67.44Hz
Dayton: 69.55Hz
Mach 5: 60.39Hz
Mpyre: 53.97Hz

Lower -6dB point (lower is better):
Adire: 48.22Hz
Dayton: 51.30Hz
Mach 5: 51.07Hz
Mpyre: 37.75Hz

Lower -10dB point (lower is better):
Adire: 35.33Hz
Dayton: 38.09Hz
Mach 5: 41.42Hz
Mpyre: 27.24Hz

Summary of above: Our two real subwoofers win, of course. Mpyre wins the F3 point with Mach 5 not behind, the F6 and F10 points are wins for Mpyre, with the Adire fairing decently.




Excursion: I then simulated an input power of 25W, 50W (pic) and 100W to see where Xmax is reached. A good frequency response is worthless if you don't have the Xmax to keep it up with some power.

25W:
Adire (13mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 3.55Hz. Good.
Dayton (6mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 52.16Hz. Not very good.
Mach 5 (5.5mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 4.33Hz. Good.
Mpyre (19mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at <1Hz. Quite impressive.

50W:
Adire (13mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 7.69 Hz. No problem here.
Dayton (6mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 74.88Hz. Not good enough.
Mach 5 (5.5mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 86.83Hz. Rule this one out.
Mpyre (19mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 1.93Hz. Wow.

100W:
Adire (13mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 37.03Hz. Not great, but usable.
Dayton (6mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 95.30Hz. Terrible.
Mach 5 (5.5mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 105.45Hz. Useless.
Mpyre (19mm Xmax): Xmax is hit at 6.07Hz. Amazing.

Summary of above: Two of our three midbass drivers, the Dayton and Mach 5, fail above 25W. This was to be expected, but I wanted to include some drivers in the ~$30 or less category... Adire and Mpyre do well at 50W. Mpyre does the best by a significant margin at 100W, but the Adire is very usable as well.



Sensitivity (SPL at 1W at 1m): It's probably better to just look at the graph for this one, but I'll give a little summary. The Adire wins in overall SPL, managing about 85dB. The Dayton does well too, rolling off a bit earlier than the Extremis, but we don't really care because it sucked horribly in the last test. The Mach 5 has good sensitivity around 100Hz, but rolls off far too early. The Mpyre shows that there is a price to pay for deeper bass and larger Xmax.



Overall conclusion: If you use the stock amp, the Adire Extremis is probably your best choice. It's not as good in the lower frequency response, but it has ample Xmax and is notably more efficient than the Mpyre. If you use a decent amp, or you don't blast your stereo much (why are you looking at a subwoofer comparison), the Mpyre is a decent choice. It costs a little much, though, so it's probably worth doing a real subwoofer instead.

While the Dayton and Mach 5 are ruled out for use as a subwoofer, the Dayton is very highly regarded as a midbass driver, and Mach 5 has been getting some good reviews as well. If you're considering putting a midbass for your front or sails (IE with a bigger sub in the back), both are good choices, particularly the Dayon. As I said, Mach 5 is getting some good reviews at places like AVSForum, but I have not heard them.



Pics: http://kawaii-shoujo.net/AntiAliased...son_sealed.png
http://kawaii-shoujo.net/AntiAliased...n_sealed_x.png
http://kawaii-shoujo.net/AntiAliased...sealed_spl.png


As a final note, I know I didn't include every possible driver here. I'm not interested in IE JL Audio or Alpine or Pioneer, etc., so I didn't include them.

WhiteStripes

iTrader: (1)

Wow, this is hardcore. You really know your stuff. Great info.

melchoir

iTrader: (4)

I purchased the ED speakers mentioned above, going to power them with the stock amp, and hope for "decent" results. (My current sails have been blown for a year or so, anything would be better.)

fredmr39

EDITED: Post irrelevant....did not realize this WAS for the sails and not a separate box.


EDIT: just noticed you tested ALL of these in a .5 cu ft box?? I know for a fact, preferred sealed enclosure for the eu700 is .25 cu ft..... Not sure about the others.. I don't see how they can all be tested in the same box and call that a fair comparison....maybe I'm wrong. Either way...the results DO seem similar to what one might expect...

dragonrage

Infinite baffle and sealed results are directly comparable. And when the box you put a sub in does not change, you do not just use optimal box parameters for them. This is not a situation where we choose a driver and a suitable box, this is a situation where we choose a driver to fit the space we have.

And the differences between the Extremis 6.8 and 6.4 are negligible other than the impedance - and I gave the speakers the same wattage, not the same voltage, so everything is directly comparable. Is it a perfect comparison? No, and I never claimed it to be so. But your post is needlessly attempting to discredit me here.

fredmr39

IB and sealed results are comparable...but are all of them suitable for IB application, like the Mpyre Audio 65x?

Sorry I did not know the whole points was that we only have .5 cu ft of space....for some reason. What space is this that we have that you can only build a box that has .5 cu ft of space?

The intention of my post was not to discredit you in any way, and I apologize if it came off that way. I had someone contact me saying they were considering eu700s from some write up I did, and they said they were going to go with the Mpyre Audio 65x instead if they are better - I assumed they read this post, and were probably thinking this was for IB or that all of them performed well in IB or whatever - something like that, while I have no idea if the Mypre is... all I know is mounting depth is tighter and they are SVC 4 ohm.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

On a practical note, the Adire has a .25" greater mounting depth in a situation where mounting depth is already an issue (requiring spacers).

dragonrage

I don't know the exact amount of space we have in our sail panels (which we do not build boxes for), it just seemed to me that it'd be more than .25cuft, and the most important thing is keeping things as similar as possible. If I ran the measurements with .25cuft, ED and Mpyre both get slightly better, the Extremis and Dayton get a little worse, and the Mach 5 gets significantly worse.

And with IB, what you want is Xmax, Xmax, Xmax (actually, technically Vd, but we're talking with a pretty much constant cone area). And Mpyre has Xmax.

And my bad about the spacer issue, I thought I had mentioned it... I'm still not sure exactly how much mounting depth we have available, though.

TA guy

iTrader: (1)

Very nice post dragonrage.

A short lesson for those who don't already know:

A driver is said to be IB (infinite baffle) when the size of the enclosure is greater than the VAS of the driver. It is the point where enclosure size no longer influances the responce of the driver. This is going to be different for each driver. Additionally, just because you put a driver in a sail panel or door does not mean it is always IB, it depends on the driver, air leaks back into the cabin, and the actual airspace behind the driver. For example there are a lot of 8" drivers (maby 6-7" too, I only mention 8s so I don't have to fact check my post) with a VAS of over 3cuft, while these could be physically used in the sail panel, they would not be IB.

Also a manufacturers recommendation does not mean that is the best way to use the driver in every application. Heck, a lot of recommended enclosures are aimed at providing more tolerance to abuse to prevent clueless (no offence meant to the clueless, see note**) kids from blowing them as often. They know the educated folks will use them as they see fit anyway.


** Clueless - Adj. - if all your knowledge of a product category has mostly been obtained from that industry's marketing department or through social engineering.

dragonrage

Does anyone know around how much volume we have in there, anyway?

fredmr39

Sorry - the only thing that confused me is the above. I did not know where we would be in a situation that we could only put a .5 cu ft box in our car, and they why we would put smaller midbass drivers/subs in it.... It seemed as if this post was not for the sail panels, and instead as if we were to build a box and throw midbass drivers in it in place of a 10" or 12". Thinking that....I was wondering why we were fixed on .5 cu ft.

And yes I understand that IB doesn't have to have infinite volume....otherwise I'm sure there would be people hanging 10" subs from their rear view mirrors and using the car as an enclosure. I understand that the volume (.5) is IB essentially for some drivers - I did not know if it was for all of them, because in wasn't the intention of the original poster to put them in the sails.

As far as mounting depth...there is about 3.3" (3.25"-3.3" to be safe...since size of magnet/etc can affect it). The largest spacer you can fit is .5" (probably a little more if you happen to have .55", etc material laying around...) -- to be on the safe side I would say the deepest I would look for is 3.75" (using a .5" spacer).

dragonrage

Good to know, thanks

fredmr39

The Extremis 6.4 is of 4 ohm impedance, with an SPL of 86 dB @ 1W/1M, correct? Mounting depth would require a .5" spacer also (eu700 can get away with .25"....but would want a hole behind for the vented pole).

Since the eu700s are available in dual 4 ohm voice coils, while that Extremis is a SVC 4....and the sensitivity ratings are close enough -- is there anything you see that would cause one to want the Extremis over the ED with the factory amp??

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

Good question. I was wondering that myself.

dragonrage

The 6.4 is essentially the same as the 6.8 in the conclusion. Actually, if anything, the conclusion is more for the 6.4 than the 6.8, because while the 6.4 and 6.8 will be the same at the same power, the 6.4 will be more sensitive at the same voltage, since it'll have higher current. You can design for either in a crossover, but our crossovers will do better with the 6.4, as it's closer to the design. (Cliffnotes: ) So yes, the 6.4 will be considerably more sensitive than the ED, and the 6.8 will be about the same (but with the ED going lower, so the 6.8 is out).

To make things easier, I have just changed the original post to say it's a 6.4. The actual results for a 6.4 would probably be a few percent different, but it's close enough and it will cause less confusion.

B T

>>>>>



sails have been blown for a year or so, anything would be better
>>>>>>>>

Boy are you going to be in for a SHOCK!

F-117HWK

iTrader: (1)

So if I am running a completly stock system and just want to replace the sail panel speakers then the Adire Audio Extremis 6.4 would be my best choice? And this would provide good solid bass equal to or better than the stockers, but not earthshattering by any means. Im just looking for something that can take high volume consistently and still give me the lows that the stockers give (at least until they blow )

Jason

B T

>>>>>

So yes, the 6.4 will be considerably more sensitive than the ED, and the 6.8 will be about the same
>>>>>
Do you think the extra sensitivity will make up for the 2 ohm load loss difference the amp will see?

Just curious?

Thanks.

fredmr39

Wow sorry...I never even mentioned that eD eu700's SPL @ 1W/1M is 85 dB.

So we have twice the impedance, with an increase in sensitivity of 1 dB. A 3 dB increase in sensitivity will cause a speaker to produce the same volume with only HALD the power. A doubling in impedance (amp dependent of course) will cause the volume to be only 50-65% of what it was before. IMO, based on those numbers...I do not think the slightly better sensitivity has an advantage.

---

But besides the numbers alone, is there anything to suggest the Extremis having an advantage?

dragonrage

Don't go by published sensitivity ratings, use Thiele-small simulations or measurements (best, of course, but I'm not buying and measuring all of these in my car... sorry). And it actually takes 10dB to double the volume (3dB is double the power, but our hearing is logarithmic), but 3dB is still somewhat significant, and 5dB is still a big difference.

Put it this way: Extremis for SPL, ED or Mpyre for quality.