Dayton Audio OPAL1 speaker launches

[a4eaudio]

What if someone takes that same Epique 1W 2PR and the Dayton waveguide tweeter to make an ASR Opal?

Also how loud do people really need to have things? I run bass boosted double 3" on my desk and they are more than enough even standing back in the room a little

I'd use the SB26ADC tweeter in an AugerPro/Soma Sonus 3D printed waveguide.

 

[a4eaudio]

I get it, but have so many better ideas queued, that fixing PE or any other brand’s design does not interest me (notably to spend my money to fix a more marginal design).

It's not fixing anything. It's designing a whole different speaker that just uses the same woofer as the OPAL1. Just like there is more than 1 speaker that uses the 6--1/2 Purifi woofer.

 

[ta240]

Also how loud do people really need to have things? I run bass boosted double 3" on my desk and they are more than enough even standing back in the room a little

I'm guessing from the reviews here and my experience having speakers demoed in stores that a lot of people like them really loud.

 

[RickS]

It's not fixing anything. It's designing a whole different speaker that just uses the same woofer as the OPAL1. Just like there is more than 1 speaker that uses the 6--1/2 Purifi woofer.

fine, it is a redesign nevertheless; still more investment than I would put into a compromised design.

it is still a free country; you or any other members are free to do as they please.

 

[Penelinfi]

I'm guessing from the reviews here and my experience having speakers demoed in stores that a lot of people like them really loud.

I feel like some people like it excessively loud, having heard some friends listening levels and others. Bordering on blowing drivers or me wanting earmuffs

 

[ta240]

I feel like some people like it excessively loud, having heard some friends listening levels and others. Bordering on blowing drivers or me wanting earmuffs

Note to self, buy stock in hearing aid manufactures.

I still have flashbacks to actual ear pain when having speakers demoed months ago.
My wife was fine with spending way more than I ever thought on speakers, but instead we went home with nothing but a headache.

 

[RickS]

I had a seriously disappointing exchange with PE regarding these speakers. I got to hear a pair and thought they were just meh. I really do not like speakers with elevated 1khz region, just harsh and make my sinus feel weird. It's crazy to me that the best speakers from Dayton are still the c-notes. I don't really understand how the company just keeps putting out average to below average speakers.
Anyway, I tried leaving a review for the speaker with a few suggestions on what could be improved and how some of the marketing was just straight up misleading. PE was not happy about this review and took it down. They reached out to me under the guise that they wanted to confirm that I was a real person and not a bot. Fair enough, I happily responded to let them know I'm real, but that wasn't enough for them. They then claimed they only allow reviews from verified purchases. I felt they were just moving the goal post in an attempt to block the review and I cited there are already reviews on their site for the speaker that are not verified purchases.

A lengthy back and forth via email ensued and it was just clear they were just doing everything they could to avoid having the review posted as it was largely negative. I really didn't feel like I was being treated fairly and got tired of arguing the most basic points so I just left the conversation and haven't bought much from them since.

As far as misleading marketing, their site and flyers claimed the speaker had large round overs to reduce diffraction. I'm not sure what planet the tiny rounded corners of the opal would be considered large. They are very small and it's clear in the data that they really aren't doing anything to reduce edge diffraction. They did end up changing the wording on their site, but it's still not really accurate.

For whatever reasons whenever I bring up technical complaints with this companies products, they do everything they can to try and make it go away and that really bothers me.

There are surprisingly few Opal reviews on the PE website. The response to a less favorable one offers another potential reason for the low sensitivity - buy our A400 amplifier.

My last speaker comment there is older one (2017). It was a response to a question and it remains there still. This may be a way to get past the review screening. The Opal questions include a critical one that was allowed. Apparently, GR measured and was so bad to him, Danny walked away from offering his usual upgrades. Do not see that happen very often.

 

[a4eaudio]

LOL, good to see Danny is now a reliable authority.

He couldn't do anything because it was "low sensitivity," it measured at something like 79dB. This should come as a shock to anyone considering buying the OPAL1, as the mfg lists it as...wait for it...78.5dB sensitivity.

He then proceeded to discuss the driver, magnets, surround and concluded it is "really designed like a miniature subwoofer and that is pretty much what this little driver is". I'll give it to him in this case, that is pretty insightful and he could be right. Actually, not only is it "pretty much" like a subwoofer, it is in fact an actual subwoofer driver described on its product page as a subwoofer.

 

[Wolf]

An "Extended Range" subwoofer at that. Hoffmann definitely is at work here.

 

[RickS]

LOL, good to see Danny is now a reliable authority.

Let’s not get carried away.

He couldn't do anything because it was "low sensitivity,"…

Danny still allowed someone to ship them to him despite known low sensitivity. The more likely explanation was he simply chose not to try. Could replace the tweeter and maybe even the woofer, but his “upgrade” range seems limited to crossover mods (and drivers that he sells).

 

[a4eaudio]

...Danny still allowed someone to ship them to him despite known low sensitivity. The more likely explanation was he simply chose not to try. ...

He has a video (which I won't link as I don't want to promote him). They ran a sweep, he barely heard anything and was shocked by the low sensitivity. Because they are low sensitivity and the area that needs to be fixed is a dip rather than peak, he decided it wasn't worth doing anything.

 

[RickS]

He has a video (which I won't link as I don't want to promote him). They ran a sweep, he barely heard anything and was shocked by the low sensitivity. Because they are low sensitivity and the area that needs to be fixed is a dip rather than peak, he decided it wasn't worth doing anything.

That was his posted excuse. From your earlier posts, you seem to feel you could improve. Do not know what his customer expected, but he was not happy AND there is plenty of room for improvement. So, as the proclaimed "king" of upgrades and "expert" speaker designer, Danny's lack of creativity is more indicative to me than what he posted.

 

[a4eaudio]

Just to reiterate from earlier in the thread...I am not promoting or recommending this speaker. I am just pointing out the inconsistency of comments relative to the objective measurements. It seems some speakers/people/companies generate subjectively favorable or unfavorable opinions. There are valid criticisms of the OPAL1 speaker but those are hardly addressed relative to the unfavorable hyperbole.

As an example:

• The OPAL1 (blue traces) is 79.5dB sensitivity but can reach ridiculously low F3 and handle a ton of power (see Hoffman's Iron Law). It has a preference score of 5.0. All levels of HD are down about 50Hz at 96dB from 400Hz and up. It has been referred to as "trash," "embarrassment," "compromised," and "a joke". Many of the comments complain about the sensitivity. But power is cheap and it can handle TONS of power.
• Speaker B (red traces) is 81dB sensitivity, has an F3 of ~70 Hz and has a lower preference score (largely due to lack of low frequency output). HD was down 50Hz at 90dB but it could not be tested at 96dB because of the high distortion. Low sensitivity was mostly dismissed as power is cheap these days (even though they aren't going to handle much power anyways). This speaker has over 50% Fine (Happy Panther) and over 30% Great (Golfing Panther).

Listening Window (OPAL1's linearity is poor relative to a lot of other options, although it is practically +/-3dB from 55Hz to 17kHz)

Early Reflections and ERDI (ER and PIR (not shown) are pretty good for the OPAL1, despite the nonlinearity of ON/LW, thus probably why it gets good subjective comments from people who have actually heard it (and even know that it doesn't measure great).

 

[RickS]

Just to reiterate from earlier in the thread...I am not promoting or recommending this speaker. I am just pointing out the inconsistency of comments relative to the objective measurements. It seems some speakers/people/companies generate subjectively favorable or unfavorable opinions. There are valid criticisms of the OPAL1 speaker but those are hardly addressed relative to the unfavorable hyperbole.

As an example:

• The OPAL1 (blue traces) is 79.5dB sensitivity but can reach ridiculously low F3 and handle a ton of power (see Hoffman's Iron Law). It has a preference score of 5.0. All levels of HD are down about 50Hz at 96dB from 400Hz and up. It has been referred to as "trash," "embarrassment," "compromised," and "a joke". Many of the comments complain about the sensitivity. But power is cheap and it can handle TONS of power.
• Speaker B (red traces) is 81dB sensitivity, has an F3 of ~70 Hz and has a lower preference score (largely due to lack of low frequency output). HD was down 50Hz at 90dB but it could not be tested at 96dB because of the high distortion. Low sensitivity was mostly dismissed as power is cheap these days (even though they aren't going to handle much power anyways). This speaker has over 50% Fine (Happy Panther) and over 30% Great (Golfing Panther).

Listening Window (OPAL1's linearity is poor relative to a lot of other options, although it is practically +/-3dB from 55Hz to 17kHz)

View attachment 460141

Early Reflections and ERDI (ER and PIR (not shown) are pretty good for the OPAL1, despite the nonlinearity of ON/LW, thus probably why it gets good subjective comments from people who have actually heard it (and even know that it doesn't measure great)…

As was pointed out earlier, there are other threads that specifically try to address why speaker measurements and subjective opinion may be different. If the Opal measured well and got poor reviews, that would seem to be the greater injustice. In any case, the Opal speaker was not reviewed by Amir, so let’s focus on solutions that apply here…

Returning to whether a competent designer could improve the Opal’s measurements, you suggested as much earlier. If the speaker was sent to me, I can think of many ways to improve. Many could be done within a reasonable budget. Even with its low sensitivity, am pretty confident the crossover could be improved. If the complaint is the design trades off too much in terms of sensitivity, there are other relatively inexpensive woofers that could improve it. The tweeter is also a common size, so could be readily swapped as already discussed in this thread. I agree with @Ktacos, this could be a fun project. I do not agree that it is as hopeless as Danny portrayed.

 

[Azrael]

but how do you arrive at a box size for passive radiators?

A enclosure using passive radiators is nothing else than a bass reflex system and so calculating Vb is done in a similar way as calculating for a bassreflex system which is using the more usually conventional ports.

I know that rear ported speakers require a minimum of the port diameter to work, but don't know what is true for passive radiators.

A similar regulation that you have to have a look at by using a PR-based bassreflex-systems is, that the displacement volume Vd of the PRs has to be at least (!) twice as large as Vd of the active bass driver.

 

[Arindal]

the displacement volume Vd of the PRs has to be at least (!) twice as large as Vd of the active bass driver.

That is a rule of thumb for passive radiators using a textbook tuning frequency, but in this case this requirement is surely met as the speaker is employing 2 passive radiators per 1 active bass at a lower tuning frequency.

If the complaint is the design trades off too much in terms of sensitivity, there are other relatively inexpensive woofers that could improve it.

The low sensivity results from the 2 voicecoils being in serial arrangement. That is where also the high impedance is coming from, which makes it basically a 10 Ohm (even close to a 12 Ohm nominal impedance) model. If you want higher sensitivity, go for parallel mode, which will add in this case even more than just the calculated +6dB. This comes at a price of very low minimum impedance around 2 Ohm, for a limited frequency band

You would not find an inexpensive 5" with similar properties.

If you want to do a serious fun project out of such speaker, go for active amplification with 3-channel, one amp per voicecoil. Other issues like dips in FR, low sensitivity or low passive radiator tuning as a result of insufficient enclosure volume for the given can easily be tackled with DSP x-over as well.

The second thing I would do is trying to get the passive tuning frequency higher. Not sure if it is possible to remove weight from the radiators.

But power is cheap and it can handle TONS of power.

Due to the nature of a 10Ohm (or 12 Ohm) nominal impedance speaker, the issue is not power but insufficient voltage. And voltage is not as cheap, you would basically need a 500 Watts RMS into 12 Ohm amp to really kick this one to its limits.

 

[Azrael]

That is a rule of thumb for passive radiators using a textbook tuning frequency, but in this case this requirement is surely met as the speaker is employing 2 passive radiators per 1 active bass at a lower tuning frequency.

However, only such a rule of thumb was asked for. You can see at first glance that the speaker fulfils it, which I find very nice (although the Vd requirement for passive radiators can be up to three times as high compared to the active driver).... )

With not so rare loudspeakers that only use one passive radiator per active driver, which is identical in construction to the active driver except for the missing motor, it is often argued that passive radiators are not limited in their excursion capability by a motor geometry (voicecoil length, gap height for example).

However, when I look at the Klippel criteria for determining the excursion capability of a driver, it is often enough the cone compliance Cms that limits the excursion. Following this rule of thumb, such a single passive diaphragm allthough should be capable of a excursion two to three times as large compared to the active driver.....

The second thing I would do is trying to get the passive tuning frequency higher. Not sure if it is possible to remove weight from the radiators.

In addition, the resulting boost around fb would probably have to be ironed out with an active EQ (DSP) (this would hardly be possible with a passive crossover).

 

[Ktacos]

Looks like they're on sale, $499. The woofers and PR's alone cost $412 right now. As someone with a PA amp by their desk and some recent DIY speakers that leave me sad in the bass department, this is tempting.

 

[Penelinfi]

Looks like they're on sale, $499. The woofers and PR's alone cost $412 right now. As someone with a PA amp by their desk and some recent DIY speakers that leave me sad in the bass department, this is tempting.

I bet shipping outside the US will make it so we are paying US full price

Edit : seems like it costs more than the speaker lol. It's really more than $500 shipping?