A novelty project

[MrBoat]

Day 3 listening to these little boxes. Probably about 25 hrs worth. I'm not finding much, or anything wrong about them. Mid range clarity is just nice as can be and am finding it hard to turn these off. I would easily recommend this simple build. These are going to be one of those favorite things I keep. This would make for a great active set of desktop speakers with a small subwoofer or even for a bedroom.

Now to see what is around the net for the Dayton PA130-8's.

 

[killdozzer]

finding it hard to turn these off.

This!

 

[MrBoat]

Right at about a month now and these are still holding their own, meaning, I have not tired of them or sought a better listening experience. I do notice them audibly opening up at about their halfway point. This must be where the dipole arrangement must start reacting more favorably with my room. By halfway, I mean from about nothing to where I pushed them initially finding where the enclosed driver started reaching audible low frequency distortion. Still, half of where I would dare to drive them is about my normal listening level at night, or around 75-80db with the sub. I have driven them for hours at higher levels and they don't mind.

If someone were to build these as a near field system with a responsive 8" subwoofer in a 12" sealed cube, they would be pretty tough to beat in that sort of 2.1 desktop class, if they were willing to let their audiophile guard down and just slum it for the sake of what amounts to some top notch, casual music listening. The fact that these perform as well as they do in a larger duty than that is telling to that effect.

 

[MrBoat]

5 years on and these made it to the messy table top sessions, along with one of the subs I built to go with them. My only real experience with a dipole type. These things actually sound sweeter than I remember, having been pushed aside while I went on to build, buy and try a lot of different, more notable designs. The one thing that never occurred to me is how these things sound good throughout the room, with no worries of on/off axis responses. This bout has me seriously considering building nicer cabinets for them, for the surprising little freaks of nature that they actually are. I also have another set of parts to build another set, so I must have been impressed enough to care to do such a thing more than once.

IIRC, these things actually measured better than most people expected for what they are.

I know, these topics are rather boring, but it just tickles me how something as simple and unlikely as this is still so much fun to revisit and how it can spark a listening marathon. That alone tells more of the value some less expensive things can have. I had around $70 in these at the time. I have been itching to DIY something again lately and some new, furniture grade boxes for these would do them justice.