Any thoughts on Vifa MA26 v. Dayton 10" HF?

[Drew]

I haven't heard much about the Vifa - has anybody around here used it?

This is for a seled box application. Unibox is giving me right at 40Hz f3 for the RS and about 34 for the Vifa in similiarly sized boxes. It looks like the vifa gives up a smidgen of efficiency for the extra reach. I can live with that.

The RS is almost certianly the more advanced driver, but the extra extension of the Vifa is tempting since I won't be using a "real sub" below either of these drivers. Is a 2nd order rolloff at 40Hz in a 1500ft^3 room going to be reasonable for most music? I know that this is a matter of opinion, but I'd really like to hear some opinions.

Also note that the Vifa has an Le of only 1.2 mh and still about 12mm excursion, so it seems like they are doing something in their motor to keep the Le down. Farady rings in a "classic line" Vifa motor?

I'm in a bit of a quandry here and would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks!

[JonMarsh]

The Vifa will go lower, but does so because of heavier cone, and is about 4 dB less efficient. The Dayton is on sale right now, so the Vifa is also about $43 more expensive.

I'd be curious to see if anyone has run some distortion data on it- so far, the RS subs beat even the Peerles XLS series, both lower frequency and upper frequency range. The Vifa should be good with the low LE, if the motor has low 2nd order nonlinearity, but I have no idea myself. Why they publish FR curves that go from 300Hz to 10 kHz for a nominal sub driver is curious... BTW, what's the Q in that small enclosure? And the actual driver resonance, not the F3? I prefer sealed systems with a Q in the range of 0.573 to 0.6; this mates well with room gain with good placement. A higher Q sometimes sounds a bit fat- though some like that.

~Jon

[PaulHilgeman]

I have worked with the MA26 before.

It is indeed a very low distortion driver. it tested better than a 10" XLS in my testing, had very low noise and produced even deeper response than spec'd. It has much less efficency than the RS265HF, and requires a larger box, but it produces exceptionaly clean bass. In order to really use it in a 3-way, you will need to use a very inefficent midrange driver.

-Paul

[Drew]

The Vifa will go lower, but does so because of heavier cone, and is about 4 dB less efficient. The Dayton is on sale right now, so the Vifa is also about $43 more expensive.

You're right about the efficiency. I thought that the Vifa was spec'd at 1w/m while the RS was 2.83v/m. It turns out that they are both the latter, so 4 db it is. The price difference is not a big deal to me.

I'd be curious to see if anyone has run some distortion data on it- so far, the RS subs beat even the Peerles XLS series, both lower frequency and upper frequency range. The Vifa should be good with the low LE, if the motor has low 2nd order nonlinearity, but I have no idea myself. Why they publish FR curves that go from 300Hz to 10 kHz for a nominal sub driver is curious...

Yep. This is why I'm leaning to the RS. I haven't seen any distortion numbers for the vifa and i know how good the RS is. In fact, I know of only one person who has used the vifa - they liked it, but that doesn't mean much.

If you believe the Vifa datasheet the M26 is essentially flat out to 2.5khz! :roll: I'm pretty mysified about why they did that plot the way that they did.

BTW, what's the Q in that small enclosure? And the actual driver resonance, not the F3? I prefer sealed systems with a Q in the range of 0.573 to 0.6; this mates well with room gain with good placement. A higher Q sometimes sounds a bit fat- though some like that.

~Jon

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I was looking in the range of 40 liters with no fill. This gave a system resonance of about 35 Hz and a Q of right about 0.6.