Good Local Driver Brands

[greenhorn]

A long time ago, if you were building a speaker, your choices were restricted to philips, bolton & Dainty, plus some other no name brands.
Then word got out about peerless thanks to the internet.

Bolton is no more, dainty, well, I'm sure there are better options, and the philips hiq 8" lives on as a bolton (though the dome tweeter is no more)

nowadays plenty of imported drivers are available, but I'm not really sure about their quality - I was looking for a midbass to retrofit on my dad's old minicompo, and found an imported driver at the same price range (1.5K) as the indian ones, but it turns out that its available for a fraction (1/5th) on ebay.com. I've seen some other crappy stuff (like piezo tweeters) being sold for fancy prices because they are branded & imported

at that price, I'm sure the local competition - toyotone, iwai etc should be able to make some decent stuff. Ahuja drivers(which are a class above) have already been used successfully in FM's builds.

Are there any other 'good' specific local drivers that can be used in projects, available cheaply and plentifully?

It's okay if there are some limitations - like lesser power handling or sensitivity or frequency response. If they can deliver good bang for buck within a set of constraints - that should be fine.

 

[linuxguru]

Minor correction: the Philips line was bought by DMPSS, whose parent company also owns Denon and Marantz. It's branded now as a Boston.

What size of mid-bass do you require? From 4" to 6", there are a variety of good imported drivers available locally in Chennai, if all you need are a few units.

 

[greenhorn]

Minor correction: the Philips line was bought by DMPSS, whose parent company also owns Denon and Marantz. It's branded now as a Boston.

What size of mid-bass do you require? From 4" to 6", there are a variety of good imported drivers available locally in Chennai, if all you need are a few units.

Whoops, that was a stupid typo - i meant to say boston.

I'm not sure if its a 5 inch or 6 inch - Will measure once I am in tvm for christmas. My Plan is to use an AMT tweeter pair I have lying around with a decent woofer (It's a 70's era ampli-deck - used to have a paper cone woofer and tweeter, which I replaced when i was in college with a philips dome tweeter & a dainty woofer - the woofer was a disaster, so planning to upgrade it again this christmas) -


What sort of imported drivers do you have in mind? My max budget is 3k for the pair, ideally within 2K

 

[aniruddha82]

I may be wrong but, Usually I have noticed that some of the local speakers may be good for midrange or mid woofer but they do not produce much lower frequency if compared with peerless and other brands.
Also, I cannot find any good local tweeter yet, I used philips tweeter in past but it is not even comparable with peerless ones.

I had a local bookshelf speaker in past, I replaced its woofer with toyotone woofer. I found Toyotone good for the price

I built a 3 way system 10 years ago with locally available speakers
It had imported tweeter (no brand or label on it) bought from a shop on main lamington road, mumbai, don't remember the name but it was a big pro audio shop near perfect electronics. These tweeter were good as compared to philips.
Used philips 8 inch woofer as a mid woofer because lows were not enough that should be expected from a 8 inch woofer. But It was a very good cheap woofer for the price.
For bass I used 12inch local car subwoofer, those were awesome because of a simple reason that they were pair of 12 inch in a bandpass design and in a small room.


How is Dainty? I never used it, but curious to know about their price/quality ratio.

 

[linuxguru]

I'm not sure if its a 5 inch or 6 inch ...

What sort of imported drivers do you have in mind? My max budget is 3k for the pair, ideally within 2K

For 4" and 5", Robertson Audio mid-bass drivers are available. I have used them to replace the mid-ranges in a Technics SB-CR77 3-way, and I like the audible sonics (less shouty and edgy).

In 5.25" and thereabouts, there are drivers from Sanyo, Daewoo, Panasonic (occasionally) and similar consumer electronics surplus. In 6", you'll probably get a surplus Sanyo or Panasonic.

Try to get the exact diameter of the cutout, as well as mounting hole spacing - that will help in minimizing/eliminating time-consuming cutting or filing. Your budget will be easily met.

 

[greenhorn]

For 4" and 5", Robertson Audio mid-bass drivers are available.

any available with 90+ dB sensitivity? I could use one to replace/upgrade my Car's Dash mounted midrange ( it's a hertz 2 way component set currently running as a 2.5 way with a local 4" driver which has become aged with too much sunlight exposure)

 

[linuxguru]

How is Dainty? I never used it, but curious to know about their price/quality ratio.

There are various Dainty drivers - it depends on what you're looking for. They're rather durable for the price. Many of them use plastic (polyester) cones. Two of my Dainty 6" woofers survived 48+ hours of immersion in dirty/silty water on Dec 2nd/3rd. I just rinsed them off, dried them and measured continuity - good, cone depression - no obstruction, all surrounds, spiders and cone material intact. I did not much care for the sound earlier, but now I have a lot of respect for their build quality for the price I paid for them (~Rs.300). Most paper-cone speakers would not have survived such immersion.

I have also tried 3" Dainty wide-ranges for use in satellites, and they're decent for the price (~Rs.150).

Their 1" fabric-dome tweeters are also excellent, but require relatively large cutouts to accommodate the ferrite magnet ring as well as terminals. Two of these also survived immersion for 48+ hours and are electrically fine.

For small, low-power silk-domes, I prefer the sound of Aiwa/Sony over Dainty fabric-domes, but Dainty can handle more power.

 

[linuxguru]

any available with 90+ dB sensitivity? I could use one to replace/upgrade my Car's Dash mounted midrange ( it's a hertz 2 way component set currently running as a 2.5 way with a local 4" driver which has become aged with too much sunlight exposure)

I'm not sure about the sensitivity of the Robertson drivers - however, they have rather robust/big magnet/pole sections, and may not fit in automotive applications where shallow pole pieces are more commonly found. You may want to just go with generic Gurgaon-made plastic-cone Pioneer/Kenwood/Philips for car-audio applications.

If you're OK with 3.5", I have Kevlar Cone Tymphany TPY03W06O (6-ohm) wide-range drivers. While not designed for car audio, where 4-ohms is the norm, it should still work OK.

 

[saheb11123]

If you're OK with 3.5", I have Kevlar Cone Tymphany TPY03W06O (6-ohm) wide-range drivers. While not designed for car audio, where 4-ohms is the norm, it should still work OK.

What is pocket damage for this driver?
I am searching for something to make a diy center channel and small full range speaker.

 

[rajesh srinivas]

A long time ago, if you were building a speaker, your choices were restricted to philips, bolton & Dainty, plus some other no name brands.
Then word got out about peerless thanks to the internet.

nowadays plenty of imported drivers are available, but I'm not really sure about their quality - I was looking for a midbass to retrofit on my dad's old minicompo, and found an imported driver at the same price range (1.5K) as the indian ones, but it turns out that its available for a fraction (1/5th) on ebay.com. I've seen some other crappy stuff (like piezo tweeters) being sold for fancy prices because they are branded & imported

at that price, I'm sure the local competition - toyotone, iwai etc should be able to make some decent stuff. Ahuja drivers(which are a class above) have already been used successfully in FM's builds.

Are there any other 'good' specific local drivers that can be used in projects, available cheaply and plentifully?

It's okay if there are some limitations - like lesser power handling or sensitivity or frequency response. If they can deliver good bang for buck within a set of constraints - that should be fine.

For all your queries I suggest "PEERLESS' drivers they are the best amoung all the drivers mentioned in your thread and also equivalent to imported drivers such as Tympany,dayton or scanpeak,the difference in price is the extra import & excise duty you have to pay to get the imported drivers to india..

Pricewise also its according to your budget i.e within 2k...

more Details regarding its quality you can find in my post (last)

http://www.hifivision.com/speakers/57905-peerless-speakers-duplicate-4.html

I Request you to kindly go for peerless instead of experimenting with cheap drivers,with peerless you can never go wrong provided you have the correct matching xover and box design,the drivers are made from fully imported components only thing is its assembled in india.

thanks
r/s/

 

[greenhorn]

most of the peerless models I'm interested in are out of stock on both diyaudiocart and theaudiocrafts - is there another channel for buying them?

Rajesh, Please do post what you can post publicly of what you had PM'd me - I'd like to continue the discussion on that thread rather than PM

 

[rajesh srinivas]

most of the peerless models I'm interested in are out of stock on both diyaudiocart and theaudiocrafts - is there another channel for buying them?

Rajesh, Please do post what you can post publicly of what you had PM'd me - I'd like to continue the discussion on that thread rather than PM

what peerless model number you are looking for mention it,may be i can help you.

i have also posted publicly the same PM I Had sent you,,link i have shown in my earlier post in this thread..

r/s

 

[Vinay2013]

You can also check by calling them. Recently I bought yellow kevler 6.5" woofer from the Audiocrafts while apparently it was out of stock.

 

[magma]

greenhorn
did i read you want to pair an AMT with a driver ?
im sure you know that driver needs to be pretty fast

Pyramid W64 6-1/2" Pro Plus Midbass Woofer

sasta sunder tikao

 

[keith_correa]

im sure you know that driver needs to be pretty fast

Pyramid W64 6-1/2" Pro Plus Midbass Woofer

sasta sunder tikao

Fast? Meaning what? What parameter/s in the driver link that you posted is a measure of "speed"?

 

[magma]

none
theres no measurement

 

[rajesh srinivas]

You can also check by calling them. Recently I bought yellow kevler 6.5" woofer from the Audiocrafts while apparently it was out of stock.

hi vinay

indeed the kevlar m16ki is out of stock since october.15 till date,i ordered them directly from peerless india 12nos for my HT,though peerless dont support small orders as a special case got fresh ones..

r/s

 

[greenhorn]

You can also check by calling them. Recently I bought yellow kevler 6.5" woofer from the Audiocrafts while apparently it was out of stock.

How recently?
this is one of the drivers I've shortlisted

 

[Vinay2013]

About one month back. I ordered black Kevlar M16KI M16KI- 6.5" Black Kevlar Woofer

but he called me and said that black kevlars are out of stock and only yellow is available. I was more than happy to get them because i also wanted yellow kevlars.

 

[Vinay2013]

hi vinay

indeed the kevlar m16ki is out of stock since october.15 till date,i ordered them directly from peerless india 12nos for my HT,though peerless dont support small orders as a special case got fresh ones..

r/s

Rajesh - you are lucky and I am jealous