Are Dayton drivers strictly DIY?

[digital desire]

I was telling a friend about my new project I have started, and was asked.
I have no idea.
Are they used elsewhere in commercial products, even better the RS series?
Someone else on the internet was talking about expensive ($5000) speakers using a $29 dollar tweeter. Not to point fingers too harshly, but does anyone know of an example?

[JonMarsh]

Many drivers with comparable pricing to the Dayton's are used in expensive commercial speakers- but the Dayton's are mostly developed for them by OEMs, and sourced only to Dayton. That's not to prevent someone buying them and using them, but I don't know of an example.

[ThomasW]

It's irrevelent what drivers are used by what mfgr.

My guess is that your friend erronously thinks expensive drivers are used in costly speakers.

JonW's Totem Forest $3000/pr, use the $68ea HiVi 6.8 woofers. This is a typical example of the industry.

[jdybnis]

The Krell LAT 1 speakers ($60,000?) use the Vifa XT25 tweeter ($48)

[Scott Simonian]

And the Krell 'Master Reference' $28k subwoofer uses two 15" subs that go for ~ $300 now.

;D

[Rick Craig]

I was telling a friend about my new project I have started, and was asked.
I have no idea.
Are they used elsewhere in commercial products, even better the RS series?
Someone else on the internet was talking about expensive ($5000) speakers using a $29 dollar tweeter. Not to point fingers too harshly, but does anyone know of an example?

Most larger manufacturers buy their drivers directly from the supplier so you probably won't find any of them using the RS drivers. Not all of the Dayton products are made by the same manufacturer. The RS drivers are made by a company that also supplies parts to commercial brands that you would easily recognize.

[DougyD19]

^^^Let's not tell any secrets....lol.

[cotdt]

i know this commercial 2-way speaker that costs over $2000 but its tweeters are the Vifa XT19 which is only $13 each! and the woofers are the XG18's which are only $40 each!

[wkhanna]

All I know is Jon and Thomas use them, that’s recommendation enough for me.

[digital desire]

Funny, just found a similar thread over at avs:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=796294

[Eric S]

I'll spare the names, but a very well known speaker manufacturer sold their flagship speakers (several years ago) for a price of $4300-4400 per pair. Inside each speaker was a $20 tweeter, a $32 mid-bass, a $125 side-firing subwoofer, and a 125w plate amp for the sub.

No, I don't own a pair, but auditioned them once and like them very much!

[Nathan P]

I think what you're paying for when you're buying speakers is the man hours put in by the sound/electrical engineers that design the crossover, the engineers that design the box, and the man hours to make the box. Some of these high end speakers have really expensive veneers etc, plus some have unorthodox shapes etc that make construction harder.

[Eric S]

Sure, in addition to the various R&D costs that Nathan points out don't forget Marketing and other support fuctions that occur. I wasn't saying the speakers aren't worth it, just that there are a great many hidden costs that the price of those speakers must account for...

[jdybnis]

The ability of the designer matters much more than the cost of the parts. I'd rather have a speaker designed by Ken Kantor with $100 of parts than listen to $1500 worth of scanspeak drivers some bozo packed into a 1000lbs cabinet with textbook crossovers.

[Brandon B]

I think what you're paying for when you're buying speakers is the man hours put in by the sound/electrical engineers that design the crossover, the engineers that design the box, and the man hours to make the box. Some of these high end speakers have really expensive veneers etc, plus some have unorthodox shapes etc that make construction harder.

That's part. At retail, the other part of what you are paying is for the retailer to carry very large heavy merchandise in his store that is typically low turnover and takes up a lot of space, and therefore must have a pretty high margin for him to even stock a single set. Even higher margin if he is going to use up his retail space with a demo area which is mostly empty space.

It's why the internet boys can undercut so well, and why DIY is even more cost effective.

BB

[---k---]

Stereophile recently mentioned in one of their articles that the typical mark-up on the high-end gear is 5x. It is something I've heard before, and there it was in black and white. I believe it to be very accurate. And like Brandon says, they don't sell a ton of it, and it is big and bulky. The retailers aren't getting super rich off it - which is why a lot of stores are going out of business. Or is it the other way around? Hummm... no, just joking.

[jdybnis]

Q: How do you make a small fortune in Hi-Fi?

...


A: Start out with a large fortune.

[digital desire]

I thought that was what was said about aviation!

[cobbpa]

One person's take...I don't guarantee any type of accuracy, just something related:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/OPRAliesTruth.php

I think elsewhere I had read markup was more like 900%..can't remember where I read that though.

[JonMarsh]

Q: How do you make a small fortune in Hi-Fi?

...


A: Start out with a large fortune.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

This is SO true!

[JonMarsh]

I'll spare the names, but a very well known speaker manufacturer sold their flagship speakers (several years ago) for a price of $4300-4400 per pair. Inside each speaker was a $20 tweeter, a $32 mid-bass, a $125 side-firing subwoofer, and a 125w plate amp for the sub.

No, I don't own a pair, but auditioned them once and like them very much!

That's how you make a living in High end audio, figuring out how to build something that competes very well sonically, is marketable, and doesn't cost you too much to build so you can recoup the engineering and promotion costs involved.

It's more about how to build the best sound for the buck, in a competitive manner, than just to build the best sound by brute force use of high end parts. Figuring out what is critical to performance, versus a minor tweak in performance that's expensive to implement.

For example, if someone came to me asking me to design a "profitable" commercial direct radiator speaker with conventional drivers, I would have trouble justifying anything more expensive than the Seas 27TDFC, because of price-performance ratios. If the crossover point could be 3.5 K, then the D26CN55 or the Vifa XT19 would get the nod. Period.

But building for myself, I have a little more liberty.

Of course, that's the attractiveness of DIY, you can run rampant as far as your budget allows.

There are constraints of other types for commerical products; no one really want to see a multi-ampifier speaker with electronic crossover, unless it's all built in and VERY good, as half of the audiophile purchasing experience is mixing this amp with that speaker and those cables, and taking away freedom of choise is looked on dimly- even if it's more of a marketing thing. that's one of the challenges to taking the Orion into retail, for example.

[fjhuerta]

Stereophile recently mentioned in one of their articles that the typical mark-up on the high-end gear is 5x. It is something I've heard before, and there it was in black and white. I believe it to be very accurate. And like Brandon says, they don't sell a ton of it, and it is big and bulky. The retailers aren't getting super rich off it - which is why a lot of stores are going out of business. Or is it the other way around? Hummm... no, just joking.

I'd suspect that margin is severely understated when it comes to cables. I wouldn't be suprised to see mark-ups of 100x of more there, and I'm not joking at all.

[cobbpa]

I'd suspect that margin is severely understated when it comes to cables. I wouldn't be suprised to see mark-ups of 100x of more there, and I'm not joking at all.

I'm not trying to directly disagree; I'd bet that for many brands your estimate is correct. Specifically, big brands that buy in bulk and sell their name more than quality. But somewhere, I can't remember if it was on here or AVS, someone posted a DIY guide to building quality interconnects. The price of materials was higher than I would have guessed, but still cheaper than a lot of basic cables and they appeard to be of extremely high quality. Of course, that is buying short runs of wire from mediaries, so cost is increased. I live only a few minutes from Belden and have often wondered what it would cost to walk in & buy an entire spool of wire to chop up and sell. I may have to check that out sometime; Bluejeans Cable lists the specific type they use..could be interesting.

This wasn't the exact thread I was talking about, but here's a thread about a guy's DIY speaker wires. Again, a little more expensive than I would have guessed, but they're pretty beefy. Definitely something I wouldn't mind doing.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9300649&highlight=diy+cables#post9300649

[joecarrow]

I swear that I saw someone out there selling a kit or a finished speaker using the RS180 in an MTM transmission line. I can't find the link for the life of me, but does anyone else remember seeing that? I forget what tweeter was used, but it basically made me say, "Oh, if I wanted to pay double for one of the Mission Accomplished designs and have them shipped to me, here we go." The only problem, other than not wanting to pay so much, was that I just didn't trust the crossover as much as the work of the designers here.

[JonW]

It's more about how to build the best sound for the buck, in a competitive manner, than just to build the best sound by brute force use of high end parts.

Oh c'mon. And I bet you'll next tell me there's no Santa Claus!

So are there any speaker companies out there that just make the best sounding design they can and then price them accordingly? When a speaker costs $50,000+, if there are compromises there...

[fjhuerta]

Oh c'mon. And I bet you'll next tell me there's no Santa Claus!

So are there any speaker companies out there that just make the best sounding design they can and then price them accordingly? When a speaker costs $50,000+, if there are compromises there...

I've always wondered... for example, Wilson Audio. I know they use automotive finishes, and their cabinets are huge (ugly, but huge... but I digress)... but they use drivers which I may be able to actually buy and use in one of my designs (the Focal Tioxid tweeter being the one that intrigues me the most).

How do they jump from that point to $15K for a pair of speakers is a bit beyond me. Are they really that much better from a, say, $1.5K DIY design with equal / better drivers?

[Eric S]

We are beginning to digress a bit here, but I have noticed a pretty consistent 10x markup on the raw price of the drivers, xovers, etc for the finished commercial product.

The example I provided earlier is an excellent example of this 10:1 price ratio as the driver prices I quoted are actual retail prices, not discount-bulk-purchased wholesale costs. I have noticed this ratio in about 5 separate instances.

So, in general, I might suspect a $500 collection of properly selected drivers and properly designed crossovers with nicely made cabinets to perform at a level commensurate with a $4,000 to $6,000 commercially available speakers.

Eric

[cjd]

There seems to be a general disregard for the time/labor it takes to actually put this stuff together... forget the cost of engineering. The big machines to make cutting materials simpler are not cheap, and at the volume most of these larger shops move you can't really assemble by machine...

C

[ColoradoTom]

Having just about completed a set of M8ta speakers I can say that if a friend came up to me and asked me to build a pair for them, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do it for less than $3,000.00 unless it was a VERY good friend and I had a LOT of free time. So, the costs to me would be ~$1200.00 and I wouldn't even consider doing it for less than $3K.

Now, pretend I try to market these through a "dealership" that needs to make a profit and you're probably looking at a retail cost of at least $7K to make it worth while for all involved (keeping in mind that I didn't do any R&D to bring this to the market place). In this example I'm at a little more than 5X cost and NOBODY is making much of a living - I probably made more in my first year out of college as a software developer - 25 YEARS AGO!!! And in this senerio it's just me in my garage with next to no overhead and no costs because I already have a workshop! I'm a business owner myself and I'm stunned that ANY of these speaker manufacturers make it!! I think you'd be better off investing in LOTTO tickets! :rofl:

Tom

[---k---]

Yeah, I agree with Chris and Tom. I ment to convey that in my post above. 5x the raw material costs goes for things like labor, rent, electricity, salesmen, etc. There is just a lot of overhead in making a product that you sell so few of.

[Eric S]

That's how you make a living in High end audio, figuring out how to build something that competes very well sonically, is marketable, and doesn't cost you too much to build so you can recoup the engineering and promotion costs involved.

No doubt about it - Jon nailed it. If anything, I think that this thread begins to reveal what is "behind the works" when designing, selling, and profiting from speakers so that you are around tomorrow to design another set. To me, this thread points out the value of the work that people like me are unable to perform due to lack of appropriate skills and tools.

We are clearly spoiled by having great people like Jon and Thomas share their work with us. ;x( ;x(

[mmoeller]

Jeez, if someone had to pay you guys for all the time you spend on this fourm, engineering time, they'd never make any money.

Gotta go.... boss is looking for me....

[cjd]

Jeez, if someone had to pay you guys for all the time you spend on this fourm, engineering time, they'd never make any money.

This IS why designs posted here can NOT be used commercially, though, without specific permission (and probable compensation).

Oh... I do get paid for the time posting here. For most of it. Well, sorta. It works itself out in the end I think.

[mmoeller]

This IS why designs posted here can NOT be used commercially, though, without specific permission (and probable compensation).

Oh... I do get paid for the time posting here. For most of it. Well, sorta. It works itself out in the end I think.

That sounds like slacker talk to me...

[chasw98]

That sounds like slacker talk to me...

No, we just have the ability to 'multi task' ! :B

Chuck

[Doug Lockwood]

To elaborate on the point that Manufactures use custom drivers not available to DIY:
Its true for high volume, low cost speakers.
If you can order a 100,000 drivers, you can pick your Qts, cone materal, Re, etc.
For the expensive, low volume speakers, my understanding is that the manufactures buy the same drivers that are available to DIY.
The additional volume generated by DIY is significant for the more expensive and exotic drivers.

An example I can site is the Jamo R 909, that uses one of the Seas Millenium mid-range in their design.
Jamo Site
Seas W15CH001

Doug

[cjd]

That sounds like slacker talk to me...

Yeah, started work at 7:30 and I think I'll still be at it at 7:30...

Brain freeze sets in and you HAVE to do totally unrelated stuff, like post about speakers'n stuff. :P

Ugh. It would probably not be so bad if I actually enjoyed my work, but most of it... meh.

C

[mmoeller]

Yeah, started work at 7:30 and I think I'll still be at it at 7:30...

Brain freeze sets in and you HAVE to do totally unrelated stuff, like post about speakers'n stuff. :P

Ugh. It would probably not be so bad if I actually enjoyed my work, but most of it... meh.

C

I know exactly how you feel. :T

[AndrewM]

I've always wondered... for example, Wilson Audio. I know they use automotive finishes, and their cabinets are huge (ugly, but huge... but I digress)... but they use drivers which I may be able to actually buy and use in one of my designs (the Focal Tioxid tweeter being the one that intrigues me the most).

How do they jump from that point to $15K for a pair of speakers is a bit beyond me. Are they really that much better from a, say, $1.5K DIY design with equal / better drivers?

Better is always a relative term. What sounds good to me may not sound good to you, hence what is better for me isn't for you.

That $15k speaker is sold out the manufactures door for $5-7k, the dealer is going to want a big chunk of change for stocking (even a single pair) a slow moving product. Out of that $5-7k figure he's got at least $1k invested in actual materials (drivers, x-over components, cabinets, wiring, etc). So you're left with $4-6k, with that you have to pay off the machines that are building your cabinets (Wilson uses a composite material for most of their cabinets), the machines used to finish the cabinets, pay the salaries of likely 5-10 people who touch the actual speaker during building, pay the people/person who designed the system, pay for the building where all this takes place, the electric bill to keep the lights on, the phone system to answer the sales/support calls, the admin staff to take care of all the above, etc.

And as others have said, don't let price be the only indicator of quality. Many times it is, but there are times it isn't. When I got started doing DIY stuff I asked the same questions, I had the money to spend, so why not buy something expensive thinking it will lead to superior results. It just doesn't work that way all the time. I have an all Focal kit sitting at home, which I am quite happy with, but it won't measure as good as the cheaper Modula system posted on this site, and even in an overall sense likely won't sound as good when you start pushing them (the ultra-simple x-overs have nothing built in to control the bad sides of the drivers), and the retail cost of the Focal system was 3x more expensive.

[digital desire]

Makes you wonder what a wwmt kit would retail for if there were such a thing.
I do like the fact that it is not a kit, gives me that much more satisfaction in the finished product. I am farming out the MDF work though..

[JonP]

Andrew pretty much covers it, there's lots of costs in running a buisness that most folk don't appriciate. Especially those bozos in those linked AV forum discussions!! :roll:

From what little I know about most businesses, is that a 3-5x materials cost to sales price ratio is the norm, or you probably shouldn't expect to make it work...

So for a niche market, slow selling thing like high end speakers... it should be much higher...

Things are compounded by the fact that you typically can't pay less than a certain amount for people's salaries in various positions. So you can't feasably run a 8-10 person business without making >400-500K a year, to pay salaries and expenses, if there's professionals involved...

[dwk]

Andrew even left out a couple BIG items like marketing, shipping, insurance, etc.


For an interesting counterpoint, though, the pro audio world works according to slightly different 'rules'. My Yorkville U15's were under $2k to the freight terminal where I picked them up. I worked out what I'd spend on drivers trying to replicate them, and retail cost to me pushed $1k, and that didn't include xover or cabinet. Now, Yorkville doesn't pay retail, but it sure looks like my delivered cost was certainly less than 3x material cost. Of course, they look like it, too :-)

[---k---]

And you know, people want to make money and live a good life. If you design, manufactur, and sell great $5,000+ pairs of speakers, I think you at least deserve to drive a Bimmer. It is a lot of hard work.

As for kit prices, just look at someone like Selah Audio.

[AndrewM]

The other thing to keep in mind is that while a lot of talk surrounds some otherwise "cheap" drivers, most of that talk is centered around a very small number of actual models. People talk about the 7" RS from PE, that's out of 40+ 6.5-7" drivers that PE sells (and still only represents a small portion of the overall marketplace). People really like a couple of the cheaper Seas tweeters that are relatively cheap, but those 2-3 specific drivers are out of hundreds of tweeters on the market in a sub $40-50 price range. So it's certainly not a case of all inexpensive drivers making great sounding speakers.

[ro9397]

...So are there any speaker companies out there that just make the best sounding design they can and then price them accordingly? When a speaker costs $50,000+, if there are compromises there...

I dislike some of this company's products. But this $8900/pr model at CES '07 sounded great. It seems like a fair value (or better) in the ultra-high-end:

http://www.vmpsaudio.com/RMV60.htm

Looked better in person, real rosewood, impecable workmanship. A member said vmps are generally disliked here. If so, please ignore this post.