Great speakers, cheap drivers?

[Goodman]

Has anyone heard great speakers that used cheap drivers? I have actually.

 

[AwesomeSauce2015]

Does the JBL Studio 580 count? It uses fairly cheap drivers but the implementation is very good.
I have yet to hear the Linkwitz LX521, but the tweeter on that isn't what I would call "expensive"...

 

[eddy555]

what makes one cheap in the first place? Like a stamped frame vs casted?

 

[mhardy6647]

It was de rigueur to use cheap drivers in good to very good quality loudspeakers for decades -- at least/especially the US.
Klipsch, in PWK's day, was notorious for it, e.g. Early on, he/they used good EV drivers, but by the 1970s they'd gone to very cheap OEM woofers (Eminence-made, if memory serves) and truly awful Atlas PA compression drivers for their MR "squawkers". Klipsch did stick with the EV T35 family for tweeters for a long time, though (for better or for worse).

Here's a lowly HH Scott product from the late 1960s/early 1970s that used three very unimpressive, nigh-on generic, cone drivers made by CTS (originally "Chicago Telephone Systems", EIA code 137) but sound quite good.



Henry Kloss used pretty unimpressive drivers in most of his KLH loudspeakers, too -- and many of those were and (in some circles, still are) pretty well-respected.
Heck, Kloss's last hurrah, Cambridge Soundworks, used pretty chintzy drivers to good effect, at least in their early/inexpensive products like the CSW Six.

what makes one cheap in the first place? Like a stamped frame vs casted?

I'd say low cost, first and foremost.
I'm actually not trying to be snarky -- there are (have been) very fine drivers with stamped baskets and, especially nowadays, some inexpensive and rather questionable drivers with impressive looking cast baskets.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Most drivers are cheap
A $10K speaker can have 100$ worth of drivers

 

[AwesomeSauce2015]

what makes one cheap in the first place? Like a stamped frame vs casted?

I would define it as me being able to go and buy the drivers in question for lower than the market average would suggest [either for a speaker of said price class, or just plain under the average market price].
Like for example, I can go buy the JBL 2414H-1 for about $60 on amazon. Most decent quality compression drivers land firmly around / above $100 (USD).
Therefore, I would define that JBL driver as cheap, since I can get it for cheap.
Another example would be the Tectonic BMRs. They are priced much lower than their performance would suggest, especially considering the weird breakup bit of their design. They are also used in the Philharmonic BMR monitors to great effect...

 

[test1223]

Has anyone heard great speakers that used cheap drivers? I have actually.

Yes with DIY speakers definitely. There are many cheap very good drivers out there. It is also relatively easy to build a very good cabinet which didn't cost much if you only consider the material costs.
It is however very hard to design a very good speaker with these ingredients. One problem is the higher tolerance of the frequency responses of the drivers and if you use a passive crossover of the components. These problem can be minimized with measurements and individual crossover adjustments.

I don't know any really cheap and very good speaker you can buy new these days. Some speakers provide the potential but the cheap enclosure and higher tolerance of the components is a problem which is nearly impossible to overcome with a commercial cheap design.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Cheap drivers in high end monitors / speakers

I saw on another forum that famous monitors costing thousands of dollars use outsourced drivers that cost around 100€ , obviously I was shocked, but then I realized it was much more common than I thought with many companies. Obviously there are much more costs other than just parts, but I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[DonR]

Most of the cost of a speaker is in the cabinet construction, is it not? Labour and materials both. In some instances, drivers are almost commodities.

 

[windwolf447]

what makes one cheap in the first place? Like a stamped frame vs casted?

Usually factors like:

1. Location of manufacturing (e.g same driver made in China would be cheaper than in Norway most likely).
2. Manufacturing method (Stamp chassis is usually cheaper, you could also go crazy and CNC parts even metal cone diaphragm like YG acoustics).
3. Material (Neo magnets are expensive, things like ceramic coating / beryllium are expensive).
4. The geometry of the parts (like if you have undercut / curved features in motor parts the manufacturing cost would increase very likely depending on where these features are).
5. The quantity you make at once.

etc...

 

[DVDdoug]

I don't know, but there isn't that much difference between a cheap speaker (driver) and an expensive speaker, as long as we are talking about traditional cone & dome speakers.

Sometimes, the most important thing is that it looks expensive, especially from the front!

There is going be a minimum material cost, and then at some point of improving materials (bigger magnets and more expensive cone/come material etc.) you're going to hit the point of diminishing returns. I'd guess that at about 5 times the minimum you're getting almost as good as you're going to get. I'm not sure if a cast basket always makes a better woofer but I'd "feel better" If I get one... I'm pretty sure that a cast basket costs at least 5 times as much as a stamped basket, but that's not the only component.

And, the material cost for the highest-power woofers are probably more than 5 times the cheapest woofers of the same size.

After that, the manufacturing quantity, and where it's made are BIG factors. A custom driver for one speaker manufacturer is going to cost more, but usually it's going to be a customized version of something they already make, unless the speaker manufacturer makes their own drivers.

Good quality control also adds to the cost but that's it's only a part of the manufacturing cost.

Engineering & development costs are "fixed costs", so that's not a big factor in mass production but it can be significant in limited production.

 

[Vacceo]

I wonder how expensive is the R&D for a speaker driver or array. In cases such as Purifi drivers or Kef UniQ array, they show a very competent engineering and design behind. Logically, the buyer pays for that when getting those drivers, both in the form of a complete speaker or as spares.

 

[peanuts]

Does the JBL Studio 580 count? It uses fairly cheap drivers but the implementation is very good.
I have yet to hear the Linkwitz LX521, but the tweeter on that isn't what I would call "expensive"...

extension makes tweeters expensive. like the linkwitz orion needs to make it all the way to 1.4khz, thats low for a dome so its expensive. but the tweeter in lx521 is crossed over around 7khz.

 

[JimmyBuckets]

A lot of the whipper snappers around here probably don't remember Dunlavy Audio. On axis measurements were near perfect as well as time alignment. John didn't believe in spending hyper dollars on drivers rather he picked drivers based on frequency response and measured performance. Most of his really successful designs used Vifa drivers. Mainly the p15 and p17 for mid-bass drivers. His go-to tweeter was the D27 silk some. Back in the day those drivers were all about $25 a piece.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

A lot of the whipper snappers around here probably don't remember Dunlavy Audio. On axis measurements were near perfect as well as time alignment. John didn't believe in spending hyper dollars on drivers rather he picked drivers based on frequency response and measured performance. Most of his really successful designs used Vifa drivers. Mainly the p15 and p17 for mid-bass drivers. His go-to tweeter was the D27 silk some. Back in the day those drivers were all about $25 a piece.

Getting a really good speaker with really, cheap, readily replacable drivers is really IMHO the best thing ever. Just find a pair used, replace with brand new drivers, get a tech to replace the caps in the xover board, buy new batting, and put a coat of furniture polish on the cabinet and enjoy.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Most drivers are cheap
A $10K speaker can have 100$ worth of drivers

Dunno--I think that's pushing it a bit, particularly if that $10k speaker has deep bass extension. I source my drivers directly from the factory, albeit in smaller lots than the big boys do, but $100 wouldn't begin to cover the woofer cost for the $3,700 tower--or the $1,700 monitor for that matter.

 

[Ilkless]

Getting a really good speaker with really, cheap, readily replacable drivers is really IMHO the best thing ever. Just find a pair used, replace with brand new drivers, get a tech to replace the caps in the xover board, buy new batting, and put a coat of furniture polish on the cabinet and enjoy.

Yes - a manufacturer should just do a fuss-free SEAS Prestige speaker. Better that than whatever mediocre exotic driver they can design in-house, that will be obsolete together with the rest of the loudspeaker when the next loudspeaker comes. Look at the ELAC Carinas Amir just measured. Middling performance. Very few manufacturers can design drivers that equal or outdo the likes of SEAS and Scanspeak.

Mid to high-end drivers have a much longer product life-cycle than most complete speakers on the market, and most boutique brands. Ascend comes the closest but they are hard to access outside of the USA.

 

[D!sco]

You can easily rack up thousands in driver costs, but the fact that the top performing brands don't is what's telling to me. Revel, JBL, Adam, Buchardt all use drivers that cost less than or about $100 a piece. Most of them accomplish quality with control and design. I always find the "lowest effort" designs have high expense components expected to be valued above actual effort, like Wilson's monitors and the entire B&W lineup.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

You can easily rack up thousands in driver costs, but the fact that the top performing brands don't is what's telling to me. Revel, JBL, Adam, Buchardt all use drivers that cost less than or about $100 a piece. Most of them accomplish quality with control and design. I always find the "lowest effort" designs have high expense components expected to be valued above actual effort, like Wilson's monitors and the entire B&W lineup.

I think that's a fair statement. Decent, but not super premium drivers, plus a well designed crossover will beat a Haphazard crossover + a $2500 diamond tweeter and exotic material woofer any day. But if you want a woofer that combines deep bass reach with low distortion, reasonable sensitivity, and linear response at the top end, you still have to fork over some $$.

 

[D!sco]

But if you want a woofer that combines deep bass reach with low distortion, reasonable sensitivity, and linear response at the top end, you still have to fork over some $$.

I only bring it up because most high end drivers are treated more like jewelry than clockwork. At this point it's as likely to inspire my criticism as my curiosity. For example, I know the Philharmonic BMR is a top-quality speaker design, but the $400 tweeter almost makes me suspicious at that point. Not the $25 midrange, but I see the ribbon and think "hand spun gold wire by tibetan monks in a nitrogen purged EMI sheath" instead of a perfect horizontal dispersion pattern. Maybe ASR is rubbing off.