Dayton PA165 vs Eminience Alpha 6

[BrentEvans]

Wasn't sure where to post this, so I'm putting it here. We've had some discussions about the usability of the Dayton PA-165 in the SLA Pro and the W6. I had the opportunity to measure a group of cabinets that have both drivers. These cabs are similar to SLA Pro (not identical, as driver count, tweeter type, dimensions and porting are different). There were 12 dayton loaded cabs, and 4 eminence loaded cabs, these are the averages of those measurements. There was remarkably little variance from cab to cab. The cabs are biamped, and the test was calibrated to 1w/1m, measured at 10m.

There is remarkably little difference between the Dayton and the Eminence drivers... 4-5db in the 1-4k range, and a bit smoother through the middle, but that difference gets EQd out, realistically... and in an A/B comparison, the difference was inaudible even with no EQ applied.

The chart is band limited to the woofer response.

[J_Dunavin]

I assume that the SLA's are not as particular about driver selection as the DR's?
Wonder if would also work for the Wedgehorn 6?
PPFFFTT for the price might as well try it out!

[gdougherty]

Unless something changed with the design in a big way, my original Dayton loaded w6's were very poor compared even to my Alpha loaded W8's. The Delta Pro does it even better.

[BrentEvans]

Unless something changed with the design in a big way, my original Dayton loaded w6's were very poor compared even to my Alpha loaded W8's. The Delta Pro does it even better.

But that's a 6 up against an 8... the Alpha 8s have far more capacity.

[SirNickity]

I've been looking at this comparison a lot lately. Being in AK, I have two equally dismal choices:

- Order Alpha 6's from Leland and pay twice as much for 8 drivers.
- Order Daytons and spend half the money, but then get thoroughly raped on shipping.

Either way it comes out close on price, so it came down to driver performance. So I looked at the spec sheets of the Alphas -- 3.5mm Xmax. And the Daytons.... don't say? I checked the PE woofer selection guide and it listed 0.5mm. I'm not even sure whether to accept that as fit for woofer duty.

I put the two speakers' specs into WinISD and modeled a vented box with equivalent internal volume and vent size. I added a 2nd-order LR highpass @ 100Hz.

On the Dayton, I hit peak excursion at about 5 watts....... I think it was somewhere around 150Hz, but it's been a week or two. I have it saved, so I could check.

The Alpha could go upwards of 100W, IIRC.

This is assuming I did the modeling correctly, and the Xmax really is 0.5mm... Enclosures aren't my strong suit, so salt is a serving suggestion.

Interestingly, the SPL curve looked smoother on the Daytons. The Alphas rolled off around 110Hz and had a bit more of a hump from the port response. I'm planning on having mine self-powered and biamped (if I can ever find out what voltage to aim for on the piezos), so I added a touch of EQ at 100Hz (I think 5dB with a Q of 2) to flatten it a bit. I'd like to be able to run these as aux fills and not depend on my DriveRack and the Auto-EQ.

[BrentEvans]

I can tell you that we measured at 100w/10m... which is far more than .5mm on the Dayton. The 0.5mm xmax is simply a bad measurement on their part. I would be suprised if the real value is very close to the eminence.

[SirNickity]

I sure hope so, but the product description said "ideal for midrange duty" so I figured the limited excursion was entirely possible. I don't know how it would have made it into consideration around here though.

Seeing as how you obviously have the physical driver, do you have any documentation that shows the real Xmax? I think I'm resigned to biting the bullet and paying for the known quantity (Alpha), but it would be nice to see the capabilities anyway.

I'd really love to use the Alphalites.. but at $140 each..? Ehhh, no. Not in an SLA.

[BrentEvans]

Seeing as how you obviously have the physical driver, do you have any documentation that shows the real Xmax? I think I'm resigned to biting the bullet and paying for the known quantity (Alpha), but it would be nice to see the capabilities anyway..

All of them that I have are in cabinets. I can tell you that I handled a dayton and eminence in my hands at the same time last week and they are nearly identical. The Eminence has a slightly different cone structure, but without the stickers, the motor assembly couldn't be told apart. The Dayton actually feels better built. Xmax really isn't a quantity in midrange usage anyway, becasue you typically run out of power handling first.

If they're the SAME PRICE... get the Eminence, as it has a slight advantage in the critical 1-4k voice range... but this isn't anything that can't be fixed with a smidge of EQ.

HOWEVER... considering the Daytons are below $20 in quantity... they sound and perform virtually the same. The colleague whose cabinets I measured runs 12 out of his 14 cabinets with the Daytons. An event story for you: he sometimes calls me in when he needs to do long distance delay stacks so I can just handle it for him while he does other things. With his two systems set up, (they're basically identical, the big system has 4 top cabs per side, the small system has 3), we threw sound up and down a mile of downtown at an event where there were over 1000 motorcycles on the road.

In other words... the Daytons are a far better value. I put them in the SLA Pros I put in my church... they don't disappoint. There is no audible distortion at any volume. In my colleague's rig... they do high volume rock shows without breaking a sweat. This is a great little driver for SLA type designs, no questions about it.