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Dayton Audio B652-AIR Speaker Review

HammerSandwich

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Yep, to me the headline is how absolutely incompetent or awful or phony or bought-and-paid-for (or some combination thereof) the audio press and blogosphere is. What a bunch of poseurs.
"Audio - my true passion these many decades - is dying! We need new blood, but the majority of younger folks turn away after seeing the prices. <strokes chin reflectively> What if I used my position as an Anointed Audio Authority to point them to some truly affordable products? Why, it just might work!"
 

Blumlein 88

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Well, I definitely must have tin ears. I use 6 of these for Home Theater setup in our summer camp in the Adirondacks. Two pairs stacked for L and R , AMT' s in the center (top of the pair upside down). Driven bi-amped with an Onkyo TX-RZ720. A third pair, series , for the center wttw horiz. 'Room EQ'ed ' with the built-in Onkyo thing..

Now this is never used for 'serious listening' - do that only on HP, LG V20, Liquid Spark, HE400i.

But for TV, the family loves it!

I have to admit, I am sorely, sorely tempted to buy a dsp-408 for $149, take the L and R pairs, rip out the 'crossovers' , drive each of the 4 tweeters and woofers independently, create a proper crossover for each, and PEQ each..Then ship 'em (one pair anyway and the 408) to @amirm :)
This brings up a thought to me. You fellows who take the spin measurements and give us the wonderful graphs, could you take that data and show us what the result would be for side by side pairs laid down horizontally or up and down pairs vertical pairs? I've thought many times of putting two 305's sideways for a center channel with tweeters to the inside. If the data could be used to show the result that would be great. Either, oops this is a terrible combo or surprise, surprise a pair like this aren't bad.

@MZKM @hardisj @BYRTT @napilopez @NTK
 
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Bruce Morgen

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Even the smaller, boxier-sounding B-452 AIRs are OK for TV given a modest subwoofer -- but for long-term music listening, neither really cuts the mustard for me, which is why my modded B-652 AIRs have been relegated to a surround role at my music listening position, where they do a decent enough job. Of course, the Pioneers would be a good deal better, but being rear-ported they'd present bit of a positioning challenge in my particular 4.1 nearfield+surround setup.

Well, I definitely must have tin ears. I use 6 of these for Home Theater setup in our summer camp in the Adirondacks. Two pairs stacked for L and R , AMT' s in the center (top of the pair upside down). Driven bi-amped with an Onkyo TX-RZ720. A third pair, series , for the center wttw horiz. 'Room EQ'ed ' with the built-in Onkyo thing..

Now this is never used for 'serious listening' - do that only on HP, LG V20, Liquid Spark, HE400i.

But for TV, the family loves it!

I have to admit, I am sorely, sorely tempted to buy a dsp-408 for $149, take the L and R pairs, rip out the 'crossovers' , drive each of the 4 tweeters and woofers independently, create a proper crossover for each, and PEQ each..Then ship 'em (one pair anyway and the 408) to @amirm :)
 

sychan

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Even on Parts Express's own forums you see people buying them, showing graphs of flaws pretty much matching Amir's findings and then modding them into new speakers by replacing the woofer and adding an actual crossover.
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/63991-dayton-b652-air-improved

Those Pioneer BS22 look like much better donors if someone wanted to buy a <$100 speaker and replace one of the drivers and the crossover.
 
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Tks

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Mr. Guttenberg, please get your ears trained cleaned and perform some comparative AB tests using single speakers. This is embarrassing.

Fixed that for ya bossman.
 

JohnBooty

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Even on Parts Express's own forums you see people buying them, showing graphs of flaws pretty much matching Amir's findings and then modding them into new speakers by replacing the woofer and adding an actual crossover.
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/63991-dayton-b652-air-improved
Normally, I'm a fan of modding garbage into gold (it's kind of an odd thrill) but even I fail to understand the appeal of modding these Daytons when there are better alternatives for the $100 price of the Daytons + mods. I guess if you've already sunk $40 into the Daytons, they're fun to practice on. Like wrenching around on a beater instead of a pricier daily driver. Still, not for me in this case.

Tangential, but the DC160 6.5" woofer the guy used in his modded Dayton is a very lovely woofer. There's a pair in the Classix II kit I built and they are really fun, hitting an F3 in the mid 30s as per the designer. I definitely don't feel the need to use a subwoofer with them.

Those Pioneer BS22 look like much better donors if someone wanted to buys a <$100 speaker and replace one of the drivers and the crossover.

The talented Dennis Murphy sold his modified Pioneer BS22s for many years. Dennis is now out of the speaker building business to my knowledge, but you can find his modifications at the link below. I might give them a shot if I ever clear out my current project queue since I already have two pairs of the BS22s. I'm not sure if this improved crossover design would do anything to improve the performance of the woofer at higher volumes though. That is surely a physical limitation of the driver itself. On the other hand if the new xovers flatten out the midbass hump a bit, maybe they do address it.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...-pioneer-sp-bs22-lr-diy-modifications.610820/
 
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Haint

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At this price they compete less with traditional loudspeakers and more with budget soundbars. It's pretty common for audiophiles to direct would-be soundbar buyers to a budget 2.0 system like these, paired with a used AVR or some $50-$70 Chinese stereo amp on Amazon. It would be interesting to see how a popular $100-$150 soundbar measures on the Klippel and how it compares to these speakers.
 
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amirm

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It would be interesting to see how a popular $100-$150 soundbar measures on the Klippel and how it compares to these speakers.
I can't test very wide soundbars as they require an extension to the Klippel. And may create such a complex soundfield that needs another optional module to test them. But I am game testing a narrow one if someone wants to recommend one.
 

bobbooo

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Such and advanced system and analysis wasted on these cheap speakers... I wished users would loan higher end speakers for testing.

Couldn't disagree more. Without 'wasting' time and highly advanced analyzing equipment measuring low-priced audio hardware, we would never have found out about the fantastic performance of budget gems such as the JDS Labs Atom, Apple dongle or many of Topping's products.

The most exciting thing for me about these speaker tests would be if some budget gems could be found here too, which could shake up the industry and force companies to be more competitive with value for money and performance, in the same way we've seen in the audio electronics sector over the past couple of years, which would only be good for consumers.
 

napilopez

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I can't test very wide soundbars as they require an extension to the Klippel. And may create such a complex soundfield that needs another optional module to test them. But I am game testing a narrow one if someone wants to recommend one.

Probably a dumb question, but what if you stood the soundbar on its side? Does the klippel allow such hoodwinks? Then the dimensions would be like a small tower.
 
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amirm

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Probably a dumb question, but what if you stood the soundbar on its side? Does the klippel allow such hoodwinks? Then the dimensions would be like a small tower.
It may be tricky to get them to stand on their sides that way. But if possible and I can figure how to rotate the axis of presentation, then that would work.
 

sweetchaos

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I can't test very wide soundbars as they require an extension to the Klippel. And may create such a complex soundfield that needs another optional module to test them. But I am game testing a narrow one if someone wants to recommend one.

Best selling on Amazon.com:
1581489900624.png
My vote is for Vizio, since it has more reviews and the brand is more recognized than the other 2.
 

Haint

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I can't test very wide soundbars as they require an extension to the Klippel. And may create such a complex soundfield that needs another optional module to test them. But I am game testing a narrow one if someone wants to recommend one.

I've always heard Vizio is the #1 seller if any of their models would fit. In terms of narrow ones the Sonos Beam is probably very popular but fairly expensive, though conceivably competitive price wise if the buyer was compelled to buy a new AVR for their budget 2.0 system.
 

spacevector

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I can't test very wide soundbars as they require an extension to the Klippel. And may create such a complex soundfield that needs another optional module to test them. But I am game testing a narrow one if someone wants to recommend one.

Haha I can see this in marketing for soundbars on aliexpress:

- create very complex soundfield
- require optional expensive gear to measure
- amazing sound for your musical life
 

napilopez

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It may be tricky to get them to stand on their sides that way. But if possible and I can figure how to rotate the axis of presentation, then that would work.

A cam strap works wonders whenever I have to precariously balance speakers (i.e almost everytime I do vertical measurements), though idk if it'd mess with the klippel's fancy processing.
 

Severian

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I wouldn't waste your time with the cheap Vizio sound bars. I have the 5.1 model in my bedroom and while it's fine for TV dialogue it is horrendous for music. By default it runs everything through some DSP algorithm that sounds absurdly compressed. You can defeat the algorithm for some improvement, but you have to chance the setting every time in their terrible app. It gets "loud" but the distortion is unbearable. Most cheap, small portable Bluetooth speakers sound better.
 

dorirod

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Best selling on Amazon.com:
My vote is for Vizio, since it has more reviews and the brand is more recognized than the other 2.

I have a Yamaha YAS-107BL on my bedroom wall (no room for real speakers). It's a lot better than the TCL tv speakers, especially for dialog. Sometimes i even get surround effects that surprise me. Not sure how they manage that with a soundbar. The newest version YAS-109 is way too expensive at $240 new though (bought the 107 for $160). I would like to see how a Yamaha would fare. I'm pretty happy with mine considering my space constraints.
 
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