Hello all,
I just thought I ought to shed some light on the RBH driver design. First of all let me say that I appreciate the comments regarding RBH products. From a manufacturer's point of view, any discussion is good discussion, and I appreciate Audioholics providing a forum whereby these topics can be candidly discussed. Now, on to the driver design.
To make a long story..well, still pretty long, the 6.5" "Status" driver being discussed has actually been in existence since 1995, although it did not make its offical debut in a Status Acoustics product until 1997 (see
www.statusacoustics.com to view original product). For those of you that do not know the correlation between Status Acoustics and RBH Sound, Status Acoustics is essentially the "Hi-End" division of RBH. The driver initially evolved from a glass fiber cone driver I designed in 1993. In fact, the basic motor structure is virtually unchanged from that driver. Suspension, cone and phase plug have all changed somewhat during the course of time since then, but the basic parameters of the driver are essentially unchanged. Now, given that, I will tell you that all production of these drivers occurs overseas. Up to the the point when I first became involved with the driver design at RBH, all of the 6.5, 8, 10, 12 and 15 inch drivers used in RBH's freestanding product where made in the US. It was at this period in time that RBH started getting involved in the plastic plate in-wall and in-ceiling products being manufactured in Taiwan. Given the production facilities that were available in Taiwan at the time we decide to explore the possiblity of producing a higher-end driver to be used in our freestanding product. Over the course of several years RBH Sound collaborated with our overseas manufacturing partner to develop what we are ultimately using today in our MC and Signature Series products.
So, what does it mean to design/develop a driver? Well that depends. It can mean producing every single compontent from scratch, although this is usually not necessary or cost effective. It at the very least means specifying certain tolerences and performance parameters for the driver. And in the case of the driver in question, there were tooling costs associated with the components of the driver along with a fair amount of other engineering costs. Now, what about the Dayton brand driver available through Parts Express
http://www.parts express.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=295-362 . I can tell you this much for certain, it is not our driver. I don't know how long their driver has been available, but I guarantee it was not around when we developed our driver. The most obvious cosmetic differences are the different basket, phase plug and suspension. Beyond that, the TS parameters are different and the frequency response they are showing for the driver is certainly different from our driver. That being said, it may be a fine driver, but I reserve the right to pass judgement until I get my hands on one
