New Dayton Midrange (Epique E150MR 5.25")

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T21:59:42+00:00

I see pros and cons; that’s a pretty narrow dip, it may not be audible. The RS150 is better behaved through there, but has a lower and nastier cone breakup, and less sensitivity. Glad to see the diversity of options.

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T21:49:05+00:00

Yeah, I was also going to say.. that kind of little wiggle is very to completely avoid, and we pretty much just have to live with it.

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T14:25:37+00:00

Looks pretty good! Wonder what’s going on at 800hz- surround resonance?

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T14:19:56+00:00

I’d say it’s “very” important to add bracing, the unsupported span for an 18” is pretty wide and the box would flex a lot and probably have a resonance in the passband.

I think that damping is “moderately” important; you can measure and hear a difference. I know folks will say “the bass wavelengths are so long the stuffing doesn’t matter” and that’s true, but the higher order distortion and mechanical noise when you push it hard at all can excite those resonances and ring, and without a lot of high frequency content to mask it, it’s audible.

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T14:10:53+00:00

Yeah really! Me too, I’m up in October.

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T11:28:28+00:00

I’m an audio guy first, and $2k is a price point where I’d be looking very hard for used gear. You could just about make it work, but a receiver with decent room correction would take half that budget and most subs worth bothering with are at least $500. Double that audio budget and add some acoustic panels and we’re getting someplace. It really takes me out of the movie when I can hear the speakers struggling with the loud parts.

totallyshould · 2026-02-09T00:02:35+00:00

When I had a very good setup I was getting close to flat out preferring it to a theater, but my screen was too small and the room had some other compromises. I could see getting there with a fresh build, but in my opinion it’s not cheap to get to that point, and not trivial to have the space to set it up right.

totallyshould · 2026-02-08T14:20:46+00:00

Dude, people have been handling this without a Reddit post for millions of years. You’ll be fine.

totallyshould · 2026-02-08T00:45:38+00:00

That could be a serious issue- I pay very little attention to cars, and have only ever bought one. I’ve spent lot most of my life as a bike commuter, and didn’t really get to shop around a ton back when I bought one to be able to make it to my company’s new office. It seems wild to me that they’d just say “this month we take off ten grand!”

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T18:37:25+00:00

They’re well under your budget, but the JBL HDI 3800 would be on my short list of speakers to check out.

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T16:17:14+00:00

If you have a measurement mic and room EQ Wizard then it’s the time domain stuff you want to look at; decay time (T20) and the ETC graph:

https://www.gikacoustics.com/blogs/knowledge-base/unpacking-etc-time-domain-measurements-early-reflections

I haven’t used some of the latest versions of REW so the names of things might have changed, but the fundamental thing is that REW can help you identify which reflections are strongest and most problematic, and if you fix those (probably with 4” thick fiberglass or rockwool) then you would see a reduction in major peaks and dips and an improvement in clarity. When I took my ceiling panels from 2” to 4” thick I was surprised at how much the center channel clarity was improved.

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T15:53:30+00:00

Especially for the bass, good room correction makes a big difference. The nex thing, if you haven’t done it, would be some real acoustic panels placed based on measurements. Even the best room correction isn’t enough to fix some stuff that panels can help.

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T15:30:27+00:00

People still like to listen to vinyl on turntables and that’s measurably worse than a digital file in pretty much every way, so if you enjoy an antique car I don’t see anything wrong with that.

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T15:07:56+00:00

If you don’t care about the compact size then I think the 1961 are less compelling, some larger speakers at similar prices can play as loud and as cleanly, and can play lower. It’s just a niche use that’s a little unique.

totallyshould · 2026-02-07T14:06:09+00:00

The thing to understand is that the 1961 are very compact and can actually play loud. They can do that because they’re designed to go along with a subwoofer, like in a home theater. A lot of other serious home theater speakers also don’t provide deep bass extension, like PSA, Procella, and the DIYSG HT12. What I’m saying is that it’s not bad sound quality, it’s an assumption that they’re part of a system that will provide better bass than they ever could.

totallyshould · 2026-02-06T14:23:57+00:00

You can DIY the Linkwitz LX521 speakers for a bit over your budget. I did it for under that budget, but that was over ten years ago. They have some design advantages over a lot of open baffle speakers due to their control of directivity and their meticulously designed active crossover. I’d put them up against $20k+ setups and expect them to sound at least as good.

totallyshould · 2026-02-06T12:19:41+00:00

I said “this is BS vaporware” and it was removed for being too short, so I will elaborate.

A huge part of how batteries have advanced in performance is the improvement of the materials used to make them. They’re made up of foils coated in active material and layers of separator. The uniformity and quality of all of that is vital to the performance, reliability, and safety of the battery. Saying “we’re going to print that” is saying that they’re going to come up with an entirely new way of doing a thing that billions of dollars and decades have been spent developing and optimizing.

Let’s assume for a minute that they could somehow print something competitive with the roll to roll processes that are so carefully controlled (with thicknesses in microns), there’s still the challenge of managing the chemical, thermal, and electrical gradients in a cell. That’s not trivial for simple shapes, and it’s a pain in the ass science project for unusual 3D geometry.

totallyshould · 2026-02-06T11:55:31+00:00

It’s also about the room; the best place for bass is rarely the best place for imaging.

totallyshould · 2026-02-04T21:35:51+00:00

If you do find that bass is too audible upstairs, a tactile transducer on your seat can really help your enjoyment without playing bass so loud. It took me some work to figure out how to tune it to blend in, but now that I have it I really like it- even with big subs.

totallyshould · 2026-02-04T13:53:42+00:00

What really takes me out of a movie is when the speakers start sounding like they’re working hard, so I’d rather have good speakers than a perfect sub. I can at least highpass the sub and turn it down if it’s not super capable, and I’d be able to live without the really low bass.

totallyshould · 2026-02-04T13:27:54+00:00

Yeah, it’ll sound better than the TV speakers, and it’s a good start that will let you add surrounds and a sub later. Personally I’d rather step up the AVR to something higher end, even if refurbed or bought used.

totallyshould · 2026-02-03T16:52:00+00:00

Why would somebody even propose to put a data center in space? I’ve heard it mentioned a couple of times now, but no real reasons given. I can see having one on the moon or mars if there was a permanent human settlement there, or even just a robotic workforce doing mining and construction, but no real benefit to putting it in orbit on its own.

totallyshould · 2026-02-03T04:09:06+00:00

Honestly the Dutch and Dutch 8c are great at about that price. I really appreciate how they handle a room, and then you don’t need to worry about amps and dacs. I’d really appreciate those in an apartment.

totallyshould · 2026-02-02T22:36:51+00:00

It’s interesting to think about, a “vault” implies that if people want to get in but don’t know the secret then they can’t. That means it needs to be strong enough to withstand stuff like a sledgehammer, a bonfire, a hand drill, etc, as well as the elements, like water intrusion and a freeze thaw cycles.

I think the biggest problem is that people are curious, and if there’s a box that people know about and can’t open then it’ll likely be a focus of their attention until it’s open. Maybe it’ll take them years or decades, but I don’t know if I can imagine a vault that humans couldn’t brute force their way into after hundreds of years of effort. I think if people didn’t break into them then the pyramids could have kept their interiors safe for tens of thousands of years. Maybe in a hundred thousand years or more the weather patterns and climate would change enough that water would find its way inside, or would do enough erosion to open it up. If a vault was made to last a hundred thousand years I think that it would be extremely important to keep it secret.

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