Dayton MK402X Review (Bookshelf Speaker)

[Helicopter]

Thanks Amir. It is great to see this level of performance at the price point, from a retailer I like, and in an attractive design. The cup and binding posts look great for the price.

 

[Kennyknetter]

If I ever were to do another install at a restaurant, I think I'd choose this speaker. Very small, very cheap, and great performance at low listening levels.

 

[Ismapics]

They remind me of the Micca RB42.

 

[Abstract_Painter]

Ha! These have been my daily driver desktops for 2 years. Getting tons of use now working from home. My inner audiophile keeps nagging at me to upgrade since they were so cheap, but I haven’t since they sound great (that hump at 100hz sounds a bit tubby). Both drivers look identical to the Micca rb42... been so curious if they measure the same. Thanks for the review!

 

[YSC]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ultra-budget Dayton MK402X bookshelf speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $70 a pair plus $8 shipping on Amazon. Note that this is the revised version of MK402 (hence the letter "X" after its model number).

From the front, MK402X looks to be a more expensive speaker than it is with chamfered edges and such:

View attachment 128891

The back gives out the budget look though:

View attachment 128892

Still, not too bad at all for what you are paying here.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.

Testing temperature was around 65 degrees F.

Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter (by eye).

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Dayton MK402X Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
View attachment 128893

Apparently the older version had a peaking tweeter and in this revision, it was brought down. That is a good thing given the broad dip proceeding it. This is not a bad response though. Beyond that dip we just have a resonance around 5 and 6 kHz. There is good bit of bass despite the little driver in there. Sensitivity is very low though as noted so you need good bit of amplification.

Good directivity results in similar early window and predicted in-room response:

View attachment 128894

View attachment 128895

Near-field driver measurements shows the reason behind the broad dip:

View attachment 128896

Seems like there is a slow roll off filter on the woofer, or a high order one on tweeter causing the two to not quite meet in the middle as far as level.

Port resonances are kept low which is nice.

I only dared to test the distortion at 86 dB SPL as it required ton of power to just to get to this level:

View attachment 128897


View attachment 128898

Horizontal Beamwidth is constant and broad for the most part which is good:

View attachment 128899

View attachment 128900

You have 10 to 20 degree leeway vertically as far as placement of the tweeter relative to your ears which is good:

View attachment 128901

Impedance drops to 4 ohm around 200 Hz:

View attachment 128902

Dayton MK402X Listening Tests
Other than needing a lot of power to get loud, out of box experience was fine. Really, it was fine which is not what one expects in this price range with so many compromises. I dialed in a broad EQ to fix the dip, pulled down the resonance between 5 and 6 kHz and the sound improved good bit to real hi-fi level:

View attachment 128903

There was enough bass to activate the one room mode in my room at 105 Hz to put in that filter. Half the time it was needed, half the time not. It reduced bass but also some high frequency harshness due to distortion harmonics. So you would want to play with that in your room.

The rear port makes noises that were audible around 2 feet and closer. So be careful in near-field listening. My tests were in far-field.

Conclusion
The expectation going into a review like this is that speaker is going to be junk unless proven otherwise. Well, it was proven otherwise! Somehow the designer managed to deal with the compromises just right to create a speaker that produces a very good experience with equalization. And not bad without.

Overall, I am going to recommend the Dayton MK402X. If you need a pair of speakers that can excite you with well recorded music most of the time and not cost more than a dinner, you have found it.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150

Nice speaker for the price! I remember a ton of more expensive ones don't do this good.

P.S. your dinner expense seems a bit on the high side

 

[Maiky76]

Hi,

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ultra-budget Dayton MK402X bookshelf speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $70 a pair plus $8 shipping on Amazon. Note that this is the revised version of MK402 (hence the letter "X" after its model number).

From the front, MK402X looks to be a more expensive speaker than it is with chamfered edges and such:

View attachment 128891

The back gives out the budget look though:

View attachment 128892

Still, not too bad at all for what you are paying here.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.

Testing temperature was around 65 degrees F.

Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter (by eye).

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Dayton MK402X Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
View attachment 128893

Apparently the older version had a peaking tweeter and in this revision, it was brought down. That is a good thing given the broad dip proceeding it. This is not a bad response though. Beyond that dip we just have a resonance around 5 and 6 kHz. There is good bit of bass despite the little driver in there. Sensitivity is very low though as noted so you need good bit of amplification.

Good directivity results in similar early window and predicted in-room response:

View attachment 128894

View attachment 128895

Near-field driver measurements shows the reason behind the broad dip:

View attachment 128896

Seems like there is a slow roll off filter on the woofer, or a high order one on tweeter causing the two to not quite meet in the middle as far as level.

Port resonances are kept low which is nice.

I only dared to test the distortion at 86 dB SPL as it required ton of power to just to get to this level:

View attachment 128897


View attachment 128898

Horizontal Beamwidth is constant and broad for the most part which is good:

View attachment 128899

View attachment 128900

You have 10 to 20 degree leeway vertically as far as placement of the tweeter relative to your ears which is good:

View attachment 128901

Impedance drops to 4 ohm around 200 Hz:

View attachment 128902

Dayton MK402X Listening Tests
Other than needing a lot of power to get loud, out of box experience was fine. Really, it was fine which is not what one expects in this price range with so many compromises. I dialed in a broad EQ to fix the dip, pulled down the resonance between 5 and 6 kHz and the sound improved good bit to real hi-fi level:

View attachment 128903

There was enough bass to activate the one room mode in my room at 105 Hz to put in that filter. Half the time it was needed, half the time not. It reduced bass but also some high frequency harshness due to distortion harmonics. So you would want to play with that in your room.

The rear port makes noises that were audible around 2 feet and closer. So be careful in near-field listening. My tests were in far-field.

Conclusion
The expectation going into a review like this is that speaker is going to be junk unless proven otherwise. Well, it was proven otherwise! Somehow the designer managed to deal with the compromises just right to create a speaker that produces a very good experience with equalization. And not bad without.

Overall, I am going to recommend the Dayton MK402X. If you need a pair of speakers that can excite you with well recorded music most of the time and not cost more than a dinner, you have found it.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150

Hi,

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 3.80
With Sub: 6.10

Spinorama with no EQ:

• Decent directivity which invites EQ
• Typical Smiley curve
• not very smooth
• A few resonances that could probably be improved by better internal damping
• Looks like a bargain when EQ is applied and not pushed too hard i.e. connected to a PC in near field...

Directivity:
Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/20deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.

EQ design:
I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.

• The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
• The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.
• Some deviation from flat at HF to compensate for the surplus of energy.
• Better listen ON axis if the EQ score is used, and Off axis when using the LW EQ

Score EQ LW: 5.4
with sub: 7.6

Score EQ Score: 5.9
with sub: 8.0

Score with Amirm EQ: 4.2
Score sub with Amirm EQ: 6.7

Dayton MK402x APO EQ LW 96000Hz
May102021-104805

Preamp: -2.3 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 45.6 Hz Gain 0 dB Q 1.25
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 149.5 Hz Gain -2.83 dB Q 1
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 498.6 Hz Gain -0.92 dB Q 4.4
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 707.5 Hz Gain 1.88 dB Q 6.27
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1663 Hz Gain 0.8 dB Q 2.19
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5116 Hz Gain -1.94 dB Q 3
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 15417 Hz Gain -1.85 dB Q 0.3

Dayton MK402x APO EQ Score 96000Hz
May102021-104244

Preamp: -2.3 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 45.4 Hz Gain 0 dB Q 1.25
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 160 Hz Gain -2.83 dB Q 1
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 481.3 Hz Gain -1.78 dB Q 5.88
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 706 Hz Gain 1.38 dB Q 5.8
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1627 Hz Gain 1 dB Q 4.73
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5214 Hz Gain -1.67 dB Q 3
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 9846 Hz Gain -0.8 dB Q 0.84
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 11377 Hz Gain -2.75 dB Q 0.3

Spinorama EQ LW

Spinorama EQ Score

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal

Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Large improvements

The rest of the plots is attached.

Bonus:
@amirm EQ
Score with Amirm EQ: 4.2
Score sub with Amirm EQ: 6.7
Tuning broadly similar to JBL 305 MKII?

 

[GWolfman]

Wow, interesting. Maybe worth a try for my kids' bedroom.

 

[milosz]

Hats off to the engineers at Dayton! See! It CAN be done!

Of course there are limits encountered here. But within those limits, you have excellence. Even some multi-thousand dollar speakers fail to exhibit such good engineering, balance, and value for money paid.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

It's certainly better than the original. On the other hand, it didn't take much to smooth that one out:

 

[Newman]

Hats off to the engineers at Dayton! See! It CAN be done!

Of course there are limits encountered here. But within those limits, you have excellence. Even some multi-thousand dollar speakers fail to exhibit such good engineering, balance, and value for money paid.

I’m happy to praise the speaker but not quite as overexcitedly as some.

Beam width control is pleasing, but FR is classic “Hifi smiley” and output is miserable.

$70 is its saving grace and has to be appended to every single praise. Which means it’s an outstanding $70 speaker and not at any other price point.

 

[daftcombo]

Is it possible to find an amp cheaper than these speakers and still ok?

 

[MZKM]

Both drivers look identical to the Micca rb42... been so curious if they measure the same.

Amir has measured them, not as good:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/micca-rb42-bookshelf-speaker-review.11267/

 

[PeteL]

Their profit must be single digits.

The daily salary of those who makes the drivers must be single digit too.

 

[tktran303]

Well this speaker is junk.
But not funky junk.
If I wanted a passive speaker this tiny, I’d still prefer the Salk Sound WOW1.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/salk-wow1-bookshelf-speaker-review.14842/

open 2 windows side by side and look at the data

 

[beaRA]

Well this speaker is junk.
But not funky junk.
If I wanted a passive speaker this tiny, I’d still prefer the Salk Sound WOW1.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/salk-wow1-bookshelf-speaker-review.14842/

open 2 windows side by side and look at the data

So I need to scrutinize the data side by side to appreciate the benefits of a $1300 speaker over this $70 speaker. Thanks, that's all I need to know.

 

[Xyrium]

Yeah, this is one of those designs that people think they can buy a $39 50W chip amp fpr, only to blame the speaker for the "weak" sound, even though it was their fault for underpowering it. Great job again, Amir!

 

[beaRA]

I'm impressed by the spin data for a $70 speaker like everyone else, but wouldn't the typical buyer of a product in this price range run into trouble powering them given the 80dB sensitivity and 4ohm minimum impedance? I suppose they could be fine for nearfield use.

 

[F1308]

Thank you, thank you and thank you.
You came right on time with this review !!!!
Cancelling my Grimmaudio LS1be order with Custom Hi-Macs™ finish and SB1 Motion Feedback Subwoofer corresponding pair...

https://www.grimmaudio.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=63&product_id=61

Thank you.

 

[Spkrdctr]

Well this speaker is junk.
But not funky junk.
If I wanted a passive speaker this tiny, I’d still prefer the Salk Sound WOW1.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/salk-wow1-bookshelf-speaker-review.14842/

open 2 windows side by side and look at the data

Comparing a custom made $1300 speaker to a $70 speaker? I'm appalled!

 

[Spkrdctr]

I'm impressed by the spin data for a $70 speaker like everyone else, but wouldn't the typical buyer of a product in this price range run into trouble powering them given the 80dB sensitivity and 4ohm minimum impedance? I suppose they could be fine for nearfield use.

Not really. The average buyer with the cheapest AVR's at say 75 watts per channel will do fine. You can't listen to these loudly as the speaker falls apart as shown in Amir's results. BUT, low 80's SPL and lower is fine for 80% of listeners use at this price level. Near field computer, background music in a garage or bedroom. A cheap setup to replace the ultra cheap TV speakers and a replacement where an ultra cheap sound bar might be used. This little speaker can fill many specialty roles when the buyer wants to spend basically nothing and get sound. Overall a decent value proposition!

Or to an Audiophile, cheap Chinese junk. It can swing either way depending on the buyer.