Just got my DATS V3 last week, found a discrepancy with the numbers provided by JL for my sub which could have cost me about 10% of the low end response on a design, and would have made the box larger. Already paid for itself. Thanks for your videos!
That 10% could be due to break in. I've seen 10% differences in drivers that are older and well used. You could retest the JL after a few months and see if you feel the same.
@@practicalguy973 Sure there could be a change with break-in, but I'd rather find out that I should design an enclosure with a 5-7Hz lower resonant frequency and more moving energy before break-in, before I see an even lower resonant after break-in (meaning my design would have been even further off). No reason to give away performance due to bad data. Early thing we learn in hardware engineering is to trust datasheets but verify - then we find out which manufacturers we can no longer trust... And we either get used to it due to cost constraints, or we pick another (better) vendor.
Break-in will shift specs a little. Fs will drop, Vas and Qms will go up... I've seen as much as 10% (I've probably measured over 1000 drivers)... However, if you model the same driver before and after break-in, in the same enclosure, the change is almost nothing. So, in the end it is usually not something to worry about. I do recommend loosening up the spider on brand new drivers before making your measurements. Just to break up the starch that is used on the spiders. The specs change a lot from temperature change. That is your real concern. The Qes increases as Re increases due to heat. Drivers are more efficient when they are cold and loose efficiency as they heat up... which causes them to require more power... which causes them to heat up more... and so on.
Small signal TS you measure with DATS (or 3USD equal equipment made by yourself) are not the best way to represent a woofer in a real world application. Some manufacturers might provide TS parameters measured using large signal, which suit the real world better. However in most cases it's just manufacturing differences between the batches
When asked, Precision Power would not provide TS parameters for any of the speakers. They told me that it was an internal document not to be shared with customers. Sad.
I had a similar experience from MTX. Was really looking forward to get a pair of vintage Magnum red's going. Mind you they were from the early 90's and aren't made anymore. The TS parameters I got was a pamphlet from back in the day advertising them. Doh! But to be fair they might not have those documents anymore.
"The company replied" The human you spoke to likely has no more idea what any of these terms mean: real number, complex number, function, sine, cosine, radian, steradian, derivative, integral, ring, field, vector space, linear transformation, inductance, capacitance, reactance, pole, zero, simple harmonic oscillator, transfer function, Laplace transform, ...than his employer does of these: customer, return on equity, and goodwill. Same old same old. James B. Lansing committed suicide for a reason. Care, but take care that you don't care too much.
@@HexiBase I think the problem is many brands just re-use already built subwoofers or „kits“ as in manufacturing term and they just rebrand those finished subs, without actually knowing the parameters or doing any research on it. Why put effort and money into research when there’s already a lot of stuff to choose from - same with class d car audio amps - a lot of brands use the same boards or very similar designs, as you can see in barevids amp repair videos.
Cracking video. I bought a dats 3, delivered yesterday, having watched this video. Thank god amazon delivers in the UK lockdown... I’ve been watching you for a while now - your series on T/S parameters is brilliant, but no matter what topic you tackle, I always learn something. Please keep ‘em coming!
I agree. Imagine if all these RUclips basshead channels knew how to operate a DATS. But the manufacturers would get upset and stop sending them free subwoofers.
awesome video sir, the added mass method has not often been accurate for me when using car audio drivers with the DATs V2, i imagine since there is not enough power supplied when running the sweep. I think the V3 would be far better at dealing with these extremely inefficient stiff drivers.
Would non ferrous, but also *non conductive* weight be better than brass? Magnetic fields can and do impart force on *moving conductive* materials including brass. For example: ruclips.net/video/38XPT9sWIso/видео.html
Just ordered my DATS V3 along with a UMM-6 and iMM-6 for further comparing and equalizing. I'm so excited to model my cases of random Parts Express speakers!!!
With some basic soldering skills you can make an equipment for TS measurement yourself for a very low price (2 jacks, 1 resistor and some wire). You can than use software like LIMP (ARTA), HOLMimpulse or REW for measurement. Schematics can be found in ARTA and REW documentation.
Im old lol. I actually worked for a man that was an engineer for Altec Lansing when they were on Manchester in anaheim back when all their stuff was made in USA. Having tools like this so affordable to the masses is amazing. TS parameters are critical to predicting the responce of a driver in a enclosure and I have had people recone 4 of the exact same speaker the same way 4 times and have very different specs. Ill never trust the specs from a compay even though I used to assist the engineer at PAS when they were in Harbor City. A ( coughs) FEW years ago lol
Hi! I bought the DATS V3 and have found it pretty useful. I discovered it can be used as a basic oscilloscope, but I am not quite sure if it is accurate. In oscilloscope mode you have to set the test tone output to minimum setting and then you can use the test leads for measuring whatever signal. I am unsure how much signal level the DATS can handle so I am a bit wary about using it that way.
Just searching for info on the DATS3 and landed on your video. Good presentation, transition editing and proper use of background music. Great content all around, I subscribed 2 minutes into the video.
Makes me wonder how uniform a series or run of subwoofers can actually be. They hypothetically, Pull one off the production line, every so often, and measure t/s? Is that sufficient enough for 15" car audio subs. For a sound qaulity application. It honestly worries me. How far off can a "reputable" build house be? Thanks for this new found apprehension, Hexibass..
Excellent video! I'm not sure if you mentioned it or not, but the DATS V3 also makes extremely accurate resistance, capacitance, and inductance measurements.
Have you ever compared the different versions of the dats system to things like the smith and larsen woofer tester 2 or the klippel or a diy jig and soundcard for pulling ts parameters? Would be really cool to see.
Glad to see so much knowledge in your videos. I have the DATS V3 and every sub I've tested has different parameters than published. When testing what is the correct setting for LE. 1khz or 10khz? Thank you
With low frequency drivers you want to use the 1 kHz setting for Le. Really, the 10 kHz measurement is only useful when you are designing a passive crossover that will affect frequencies that high. Not that often really.
@@chrisperez7592 Not only for passive crossovers! From the DATS V3.x Help File (Measuring Tweeters section): "Measure the tweeter's impedance as follows: Launch the DATS software and make sure the volume is at maximum. Under the Edit menu select Preferences and set the L(e) Measurement Frequency to 10 kHz." ------------------------------------------- So, you should use the 10kHz setting for measuring tweeters too.
I've found the factory ts parameters to be off on sundown, skar, and resilient sounds subs woofers so far. Is there a similar device to test amplifier parameters?
I bought a dats v3 this week and this video was the main reason for this purchase. I ran in thesame problem you describe, so thank you for taking the time to make this video. I run into the problem that vas measurements vary when i place a non vented sub direct on the table or on foam pads. Vas is 14liters on the pads 20liters on the table, 21liters on a mousepad. How shouls i approach this problem?
3:11 "that the proverbial circle has a diameter of something than half its radius" whoops. Never caught that before, but on my 4th rewatch i stuttered :D
Can you not do the mass trick on a driver from say the q100 since the middle is occupied by an unmoving tweeter "grill"? How do you get the rest of the parameters?
Do you recommend breaking in a subwoofer before running these tests? Would it make a big enough difference to warrant waiting before designing an enclosure?
Post-break-in can be massively different, but we'll just pretend that's not a thing. As will all the parameters once bigger power is applied, also.... we'll just ignore that.
@@HexiBase Every major company I've worked with says 70-80 hours of break-in majorly change parameters. Kicker, DD, Sundown, etc... all these companies do Klippel testing not just DATS as I'm sure you know.
@@bassahaulic @John Smith @HexiBase Actual Before & After "Burn-In" Measurements here... www.gr-research.com/myths.htm & www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm
DATS V 3 Looks great. When I received the V2 model, placing it into a project box crossed my mind. To protect the leads from fatigue n such. Anyway, thanks for the great videos.
I don't have a printer but you should print one out for fun. Guess the new enclosed design is to address this issue but wish they did that before I bought my V2. Take care my friend. Always good to see your videos.
I suppose some companies will write their ts parameters after break in. GR Research tested the same driver out of the box and after 50h of hard playtime and the fs was way lower for example. So one company they discussed with mentioned that the parameters they state are after a certain run in period. But of course, the numbers within should still match mathematical rules as explained.
My DATS V2 is still in the box, adding something to PE list won over no immediate need, so maybe it doesn't matter too much, but do you see much difference V2 vs V3?
Do you know if it uses the current source method or the voltage source method? The largeish calibration resistor gives me some concern that it might be current source. P.S. I don't have the hardware but I downloaded the software and installed it under WINE and it does start so any LINUX users out there that are interested in this it looks like it might in fact work. The manual in the help menu is all blank pages however.
Nice explanation and tutorial. I'm intrigued to test the parameters of my two new subs to see what sort of variance they get from the factory listed parameters.
can't say that I've ever drove that deep in box design before I've only work with the space I've had to work with i'am just not as technical as you are but I'm learning thanks for the video hexibase
I tried measuring a 3" woofer using the enclosure method and couldn't make an enclosure small enough. I had to use the weighted add mass. Used two American quarters which way 5.67 grams each for a total of 11.34 grams.
Hi Pet, thank you so much for all your contributions over the years and for more recently designing enclosures for the public under AD. I have a question about how to get the t/s parameters from a woofer that has a phase plug IE Pioneer TS-M800PRO, would it be any different? I contacted Pioneer and asked for the t/s and was told thy did not have them and to contact a installer! I was outraged. and gave him scathing review of his response. Scot
Off topic for this video but was wondering if you could do (or have done) a video on acoustic dampening, pollyfill, fiber glass insulation and so on. Had a new sales men tell me to shove as much polly fill in a box has possible and have someone help force the sub into the box to screw it in. At what point does it hurt the rear sound wave, polly fill for the interior of the box or something to line the walls of the box.. Enjoy your videos very much! Look forward to more of them. Thank you
love your videos HexiBase, you answer a lot of questions i never knew i had. any thoughts on the ssl12? i got it "bassed" on it's ts specs, now i wonder if they jive with your software.
Very important I also received a DATS V3, but I have problems compared to the previous version of V2, namely what it is about When I measure extremely poorly suspended Dynaudio 30W54,30W100 drivers, an error appears in the measured values for Re as well as for Le, the true value for Re is around 5.6ohm with version V2 in all measurement cases, as well as with a universal instrument, while when measuring via version V3 it appears at one 30W100 15ohm, while at 30W54 even 29ohm at which Le cannot be measured at all on one ... ??? By measuring the same drivers with version V2, all measurements are error-free and show identical values I sent an email to the manufacturer to know about this inadmissible error because it calls into question all other measured values in other drivers and I don't like it at all because I wanted to switch to this new version but it turned out that I didn't get a better and more reliable device for this money I noticed one important difference that seems to contribute to the device making errors, and that is the speed of the test signal, which is slower in the V3 version, lasts longer sweep signal If someone can confirm this, let them try a device with low resonant frequency drivers that has a soft suspension, an error occurs with two of the same drivers.
Sorry if I've missed this, but I'd love to see you talk about measuring the listening environment and factoring that into the design of an enclosure. I have a background in car audio where that's probably more important(?)
the problem tends to be that modern companies will not allow employees that actually do stuff to communicate with customers, they have marketing people as mandatory comms middlemen even more worrying is that this "works" better than not having the marketing middlemen because the vast majority of the population/users like their answers better than the accurate/factual answers an engineer would provide
Thats pretty cool, I have several speakers that I would like to re-purpose, one set came from a nice Sony portable with built in sub that blew up when someone plugged it into 220 when it was set for 110. But I had no idea where to start designing an enclosure without any of the speaker spec's, and i'm sure if any spec's exist i'm not going to find anyone at Sony to give them to me.
Spent good money on car audio speakers. I'm talking speakers that retail 1kUSD for a pair. T/S parameters were way off. Fs on the midrange was 2x higher and on the tweeter 5x higher. Was told they would break in and not to worry. I pointed out that that's not going to happen. They later admitted an error on their manufacturer T/S. This is years after they were released. The retailer was great and gladly refunded, but I think I was lucky to have a good retailer.
as a beginner, should the dats be the first purchase? when will your next video on the DATS be? Loving the content, can you do a series on sigma and the dayton/wondom dsp?
@@HexiBase I have an Anechoic chamber I purchased military surplus. I want to test speakers in it and link to them on Amazon. +Profit enough to fund my HiFi fetish. I'm a listener not a lab guy, but i'm finding the curve easy, so This will be another skillset mastered. Car Audio, Home audio, aficionado of em' all. My lexus has a mark levinson and my Dodge... ugh.. i wrecked it today. It has a rockford fosgate component system. Someone pulled out in front of me and I T boned them.
It's effectively a high pass filter that cuts frequencies below it's selected value, typically used to prevent subsonic frequencies that the driver performs poorly at from playing. I like to think of it as Gandalf saying the subsonic frequencies shall not pass.
Oh man this is a great video. I have been looking for a good way to test the SP audio xxx 9k 15. The parameters that they give are just what you speak about on the subject, that they stand by their literature. Yet the parameters dont match up.
I hate to say it, but I am getting inconsistent data from the DATS V3 system, in particular with under-hung voice coil speakers. Sadly even using the device to measure known resistances does not match up to my Fluke or Tektronix meters. I think the DATS device is directionally correct, but I am not sure I would refer to it as really accurate, particularly on under-hung voice coil drivers for whatever reason.
Hoping to get one of these or find someone that has one to help me, bought a refurbished sub from AB it’s an older version and can’t find parameters anywhere. More I dig into it it would appear it’s a motor off one revision of the sub, a basket from another and who knows what recone. In the generic box I put it in it sounds good but I really wondering what more if anything I could do with it. Even worse then no parameters AB has refused to respond to my emails and phone calls as to what recone they used so as much as I’d like to build a second one I can’t.
I’ve had my dats for about 2 weeks and I have yet to test a driver that’s reasonable close to its advertised specs. So much so that a basic taped pipe is both slightly out of tune but also designed based on incorrect parameters which dictate a false impression that now clearly is audible through the trench in the middle of the bandwidth and undesired symptoms of delay.... I then proceeded to rest everything I had, a majority from this huge multiple decades of popularity and following of ignorant(now no longer including myself) consumers. The two pioneer 10” subs I happened to test from the shelves of the garage were quite closely matching the published. Everything is fully broken in and in good working condition. Not much of a pioneer speaker buyer. Apparently mistaken and should note in closing Rockford Fosgate has klippel testing references yet did t remotely test properly on my new dats and there’s an enclosure the p3s were designed around erroneously and that’s fuct.
My first ever subwoofer build consisted of a Philips Car Audio Sub which had no parameters listed anywhere. I only could find some on forums. And only the bare minimum to even calculate something. So I squeezed them into WinISD and got something out. It sounds surprisingly good but I didn't follow the bass reflex recommendations from WinISD
@@HexiBase yes, and thats a shame! There must be so many people out there not knowing what their subwoofer could actually achieve just because the manufacturer is vague or even outright wrong about the T/S parameters..
Of course you have to, they can never produce 2 of something that share identical parameters. The glue used won't adhere all the same, the surround material has variance, the spider may be harder than normal(even worse if the speaker has multiples of spiders), the coils may have bad windings that distrupt the condictivity, even the cone material will have stiffness differences, the magnet can be charged to a lower specification than it should, any number of these can happen to a single driver many times before it reaches the shelves. Did you think that they could just bang out perfect speakers everytime?
@@bassfan71 Doubt ALL parameters from ALL manufacturers (not just audio). Specs are often massaged by the marketing department to make tat look better. e.g a STEREO amp with 1kW PEAK output (SINGLE channel @10% THD - ouch, my ears!!!) will probably be lucky to output a 100W continuous stereo signal @ 0.1% THD. 1000W vs 100W - marketing vs engineering depts.
what about a brand new speaker and one that is already ( same speaker) "broken in" i'm sure the specs would be night and day different due to the slightly softer suspension??? care to elaborate on this topic? this is something i have been pondering for many years .
Sometimes no as big a difference as you would think, but yes I think it would be good to break it in, plus there is also a difference in what position you have the driver under test, so for example if the factory had it held vertical with very minimal surfaces around the driver compared to this example where the driver is horizontal with a table close to it and a little restriction of the vented pole, but with something big and heavy I can see the reason for doing horizontal even though not as accurate.
Here is a copy and paste of a reply I made above... Break-in will shift specs a little. Fs will drop, Vas and Qms will go up... I've seen as much as 10% (I've probably measured over 1000 drivers)... However, if you model the same driver before and after break-in, in the same enclosure, the change is almost nothing. So, in the end it is usually not something to worry about. I do recommend loosening up the spider on brand new drivers before making your measurements. Just to break up the starch that is used on the spiders. The specs change a lot from temperature change. That is your real concern. The Qes increases as Re increases due to heat. Drivers are more efficient when they are cold and loose efficiency as they heat up... which causes them to require more power... which causes them to heat up more... and so on.
I've noticed a lot of manufacturers do not provide a inductance (le) spec. Also a few that list very limited amount of t/s parameters. So little in fact it's not enough to model the driver (I stay away from these brands). Dats would be a great tool to have for someone like myself that enjoys building enclosures. I invested in bass box pro sometime ago. Time to invest in dats. Thanks for the video 🖒
Also, if you were to hook up DATS to a woofer that is already in a ported enclosure, would the "FS" be the frequence the port is tuned at? For measuring unknown enclosures...
I just wanted to add that if you run an impedance measurement on a driver in a ported enclosure you will end up with two peaks. The lowest point between the two peaks is the tuning frequency. It's especially useful for vents with many bends or irregular shaped ports (even tapered ports). Enclosure design software can't exactly account for airflow resistance due to things like corners, and that could shift tuning by quite a few Hz. However, it is low power... So you need to keep in mind that once the air really gets moving, and airflow is being restricted by the port, the tuning frequency will go lower (essentially that also means the port is too small, but is just how is has to be sometimes).
Pete my brotha from anotha motha excellent good video topic of choice for discussion. That's a very important piece of information and knowledge to know about
@@HexiBase Ahhhh , that makes perfect sense. Mahalo. I'm actually going through that right now building a box for 2 Sundown X-8 V3 subs. They do not provide sD or vD parameters so I'm having a hard time measuring port velocity. Thanks to this video I'm going to try and measure the cone area myself and also pick up that Dayton speaker analyzer when it comes back stock! Awesome video as always 🤙🤙!
V3 is twice as powerful as V2. That doesn't make a big difference with large, high power drivers. But it can drive smaller speaker pretty hard, the specs you get will be a little more "real world". I've even measured some drivers where I could see cone and frame resonances show up on the impedance curve that I never noticed with V2. I thought something was wrong at first, and then I realised it matched the frequency of a peak in the response (it took me a minute to figure out what was going on 🤔). It is even enough power to excite resonances in enclosures and ports, and that will show up as little ripples in the impedance measurements. So that is a nice upgrade. Also, the added accuracy is great for measuring caps, resistors, and inductors. Heck, I have mine mounted under my desk... that alone made it worth it to me, lol!
Hi! i love your informative videos and they have helped me in numerous ways. I was about to build a transmission line "soundbar" type of speaker that should be very flat and accurate, as it will be mainly used for music. I know that TL enclosures require a lot of trial-and-error tuning, and I was wondering if that is probably due to the manufacturers' dodgy specs that you reference here. Also, I was thinking about building it in a way that I could create a cross-section that could add or reduce port length to tune it. Or would testing the TS parameters provide a clear design direction? Any input would be greatly appreciated. And thanks again for the persistently informative content!
Do you think that those who have the V2 should upgrade to V3? I have the V2 and cant complain about anything, and using it to help my friends when they got new woofers but can find any T/S parameters and also to my own projects.
Anyone have issues with the software crashing a few seconds after startup? I just got it and I can't use it do to this issue. EDIT : Problem has been solved; RivaTuner was attaching itself to the window causing the crash. Make sure to close it before using DATS!
Ideally, your added mass should be about the same as the Mms of the driver. If the spec sheet lists the Mms then just make your added mass about the same, that is something that shouldn't change much unless a pretty big change was made to the driver. If Mms isn't listed then it is a pretty simple 2-step process. Just add enough mass to get an initial Vas measurement. Then change your added mass to be about the same as the result of the first measurement. That will get you close enough. You can repeat that process to narrow it down even more, but it really isn't necessary. Things like temperature and barometric pressure affect the specs so much that you really don't need to get that exact (maybe for speakers in a strictly controlled environment, lol).
What would make interesting videos like Willson audio here on yt would be someone testing parameters against factory specs... Probably cause an industry shake up. Hexi could you do some testing on several subs of the same model to see if the parameters are consistent wirh each other... dont disclose brands though
Just got my DATS V3 last week, found a discrepancy with the numbers provided by JL for my sub which could have cost me about 10% of the low end response on a design, and would have made the box larger. Already paid for itself.
Thanks for your videos!
That 10% could be due to break in. I've seen 10% differences in drivers that are older and well used. You could retest the JL after a few months and see if you feel the same.
@@practicalguy973 Sure there could be a change with break-in, but I'd rather find out that I should design an enclosure with a 5-7Hz lower resonant frequency and more moving energy before break-in, before I see an even lower resonant after break-in (meaning my design would have been even further off). No reason to give away performance due to bad data.
Early thing we learn in hardware engineering is to trust datasheets but verify - then we find out which manufacturers we can no longer trust... And we either get used to it due to cost constraints, or we pick another (better) vendor.
Break-in will shift specs a little. Fs will drop, Vas and Qms will go up... I've seen as much as 10% (I've probably measured over 1000 drivers)... However, if you model the same driver before and after break-in, in the same enclosure, the change is almost nothing. So, in the end it is usually not something to worry about.
I do recommend loosening up the spider on brand new drivers before making your measurements. Just to break up the starch that is used on the spiders.
The specs change a lot from temperature change. That is your real concern. The Qes increases as Re increases due to heat. Drivers are more efficient when they are cold and loose efficiency as they heat up... which causes them to require more power... which causes them to heat up more... and so on.
My JL TW5 had different parameters then listed. It is already broken in so not sure how big a difference that makes.
Small signal TS you measure with DATS (or 3USD equal equipment made by yourself) are not the best way to represent a woofer in a real world application. Some manufacturers might provide TS parameters measured using large signal, which suit the real world better.
However in most cases it's just manufacturing differences between the batches
When asked, Precision Power would not provide TS parameters for any of the speakers. They told me that it was an internal document not to be shared with customers. Sad.
bugsz1 , I guess they don’t want to sell many drivers. That’s nuts.
Something to hide?
Wow that's bad
This is what happens when investment companies get a hold of audio companies.
I had a similar experience from MTX. Was really looking forward to get a pair of vintage Magnum red's going. Mind you they were from the early 90's and aren't made anymore. The TS parameters I got was a pamphlet from back in the day advertising them. Doh! But to be fair they might not have those documents anymore.
The fact the company replied saying the specs were correct is the most alarming part. It shows they really dont care about their products performance.
@@HexiBase Curious, where do you work?
@@HexiBase So in Farmington, MO? Was hoping a lil closer to NYC😣
The Chinese don't like to admit when they're wrong
"The company replied" The human you spoke to likely has no more idea what any of these terms mean: real number, complex number, function, sine, cosine, radian, steradian, derivative, integral, ring, field, vector space, linear transformation, inductance, capacitance, reactance, pole, zero, simple harmonic oscillator, transfer function, Laplace transform, ...than his employer does of these: customer, return on equity, and goodwill. Same old same old. James B. Lansing committed suicide for a reason. Care, but take care that you don't care too much.
@@HexiBase I think the problem is many brands just re-use already built subwoofers or „kits“ as in manufacturing term and they just rebrand those finished subs, without actually knowing the parameters or doing any research on it. Why put effort and money into research when there’s already a lot of stuff to choose from - same with class d car audio amps - a lot of brands use the same boards or very similar designs, as you can see in barevids amp repair videos.
Cracking video. I bought a dats 3, delivered yesterday, having watched this video. Thank god amazon delivers in the UK lockdown... I’ve been watching you for a while now - your series on T/S parameters is brilliant, but no matter what topic you tackle, I always learn something. Please keep ‘em coming!
New here - This seems like a perfect example for a Wiki covering speakers with user provided data.
I agree. Imagine if all these RUclips basshead channels knew how to operate a DATS. But the manufacturers would get upset and stop sending them free subwoofers.
awesome video sir, the added mass method has not often been accurate for me when using car audio drivers with the DATs V2, i imagine since there is not enough power supplied when running the sweep. I think the V3 would be far better at dealing with these extremely inefficient stiff drivers.
Would non ferrous, but also *non conductive* weight be better than brass? Magnetic fields can and do impart force on *moving conductive* materials including brass. For example: ruclips.net/video/38XPT9sWIso/видео.html
Good demo on using DATS v3. Now I know why BBP6 would display red ticks on some values straight from the driver's documentation.
Why make so few videos, they are some of the most informative I have encountered.
Quality takes time
Just ordered my DATS V3 along with a UMM-6 and iMM-6 for further comparing and equalizing. I'm so excited to model my cases of random Parts Express speakers!!!
With some basic soldering skills you can make an equipment for TS measurement yourself for a very low price (2 jacks, 1 resistor and some wire). You can than use software like LIMP (ARTA), HOLMimpulse or REW for measurement.
Schematics can be found in ARTA and REW documentation.
Then the table saw happened.
Im old lol. I actually worked for a man that was an engineer for Altec Lansing when they were on Manchester in anaheim back when all their stuff was made in USA. Having tools like this so affordable to the masses is amazing. TS parameters are critical to predicting the responce of a driver in a enclosure and I have had people recone 4 of the exact same speaker the same way 4 times and have very different specs. Ill never trust the specs from a compay even though I used to assist the engineer at PAS when they were in Harbor City. A ( coughs) FEW years ago lol
Great video man! To the point! I am debating if I should pull the trigger on the DATS v3 for my own speaker design...
Ive been watching alot of your videos and youre truly an insight to enclosure design and what actually defines how a given driver performs.
Hi! I bought the DATS V3 and have found it pretty useful. I discovered it can be used as a basic oscilloscope, but I am not quite sure if it is accurate. In oscilloscope mode you have to set the test tone output to minimum setting and then you can use the test leads for measuring whatever signal. I am unsure how much signal level the DATS can handle so I am a bit wary about using it that way.
How can i check a dual voice coil with the dats v3? I had to connect only 1 coil ? Both coil in series/parallel ???
Series
It would be cool if you could make a video about free progrmms to design Whoofers and other boxes. Good Day
Should u test a driver before or after its been broken in?
1:33 Just want to point out that the circumference is Pi * Diameter - No need to multiply by two and then take the half
Chris Wow. How would we ever have solved that?
Just searching for info on the DATS3 and landed on your video. Good presentation, transition editing and proper use of background music. Great content all around, I subscribed 2 minutes into the video.
Makes me wonder how uniform a series or run of subwoofers can actually be. They hypothetically, Pull one off the production line, every so often, and measure t/s? Is that sufficient enough for 15" car audio subs. For a sound qaulity application. It honestly worries me. How far off can a "reputable" build house be? Thanks for this new found apprehension, Hexibass..
Just purchased one of these, getting ready to get into DIY sub building. I have two old RF HX2 12" DVC subs. Heres to my journey. 🍻
Excellent video!
I'm not sure if you mentioned it or not, but the DATS V3 also makes extremely accurate resistance, capacitance, and inductance measurements.
It happened to me several times where I would get inconsistent parameters when inputting data from websites.
My guess it was a Rockville subwoofer :P
Have you ever compared the different versions of the dats system to things like the smith and larsen woofer tester 2 or the klippel or a diy jig and soundcard for pulling ts parameters? Would be really cool to see.
Glad to see so much knowledge in your videos. I have the DATS V3 and every sub I've tested has different parameters than published. When testing what is the correct setting for LE. 1khz or 10khz? Thank you
With low frequency drivers you want to use the 1 kHz setting for Le.
Really, the 10 kHz measurement is only useful when you are designing a passive crossover that will affect frequencies that high. Not that often really.
@@chrisperez7592
Not only for passive crossovers! From the DATS V3.x Help File (Measuring Tweeters section):
"Measure the tweeter's impedance as follows:
Launch the DATS software and make sure the volume is at maximum.
Under the Edit menu select Preferences and set the L(e) Measurement Frequency to 10 kHz."
-------------------------------------------
So, you should use the 10kHz setting for measuring tweeters too.
I've found the factory ts parameters to be off on sundown, skar, and resilient sounds subs woofers so far.
Is there a similar device to test amplifier parameters?
I bought a dats v3 this week and this video was the main reason for this purchase. I ran in thesame problem you describe, so thank you for taking the time to make this video. I run into the problem that vas measurements vary when i place a non vented sub direct on the table or on foam pads. Vas is 14liters on the pads 20liters on the table, 21liters on a mousepad. How shouls i approach this problem?
To my utter surprise, blaupunkt subs has tested the closest to manufacturer listed specs thus far.
3:11 "that the proverbial circle has a diameter of something than half its radius" whoops. Never caught that before, but on my 4th rewatch i stuttered :D
Can you not do the mass trick on a driver from say the q100 since the middle is occupied by an unmoving tweeter "grill"? How do you get the rest of the parameters?
Do you recommend breaking in a subwoofer before running these tests? Would it make a big enough difference to warrant waiting before designing an enclosure?
Post-break-in can be massively different, but we'll just pretend that's not a thing. As will all the parameters once bigger power is applied, also.... we'll just ignore that.
@@HexiBase Every major company I've worked with says 70-80 hours of break-in majorly change parameters. Kicker, DD, Sundown, etc... all these companies do Klippel testing not just DATS as I'm sure you know.
@@bassahaulic
@John Smith
@HexiBase
Actual Before & After "Burn-In" Measurements here...
www.gr-research.com/myths.htm
&
www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm
DATS V 3 Looks great. When I received the V2 model, placing it into a project box crossed my mind. To protect the leads from fatigue n such. Anyway, thanks for the great videos.
I don't have a printer but you should print one out for fun. Guess the new enclosed design is to address this issue but wish they did that before I bought my V2. Take care my friend. Always good to see your videos.
should u do burn in before testing ts perameters
I suppose some companies will write their ts parameters after break in. GR Research tested the same driver out of the box and after 50h of hard playtime and the fs was way lower for example. So one company they discussed with mentioned that the parameters they state are after a certain run in period. But of course, the numbers within should still match mathematical rules as explained.
Es lo que necesito. Para envios a Argentina puede ser por part express? Gracias
Nice insulated bannana plugs. I wish they were more common in audio gear.
My DATS V2 is still in the box, adding something to PE list won over no immediate need, so maybe it doesn't matter too much, but do you see much difference V2 vs V3?
Do you know if it uses the current source method or the voltage source method? The largeish calibration resistor gives me some concern that it might be current source.
P.S. I don't have the hardware but I downloaded the software and installed it under WINE and it does start so any LINUX users out there that are interested in this it looks like it might in fact work. The manual in the help menu is all blank pages however.
Would be interesting to see if there is any difference between TC parameters measured with WT3 and DATS V3.
Nice explanation and tutorial. I'm intrigued to test the parameters of my two new subs to see what sort of variance they get from the factory listed parameters.
can't say that I've ever drove that deep in box design before I've only work with the space I've had to work with i'am just not as technical as you are but I'm learning thanks for the video hexibase
I tried measuring a 3" woofer using the enclosure method and couldn't make an enclosure small enough. I had to use the weighted add mass. Used two American quarters which way 5.67 grams each for a total of 11.34 grams.
Is there a way to use the DATS V3 to find the SPL of a tweeter?
Hi Pet, thank you so much for all your contributions over the years and for more recently designing enclosures for the public under AD. I have a question about how to get the t/s parameters from a woofer that has a phase plug IE Pioneer TS-M800PRO, would it be any different? I contacted Pioneer and asked for the t/s and was told thy did not have them and to contact a installer! I was outraged. and gave him scathing review of his response. Scot
When the speaker is new, ts parameters change drastically, what is your suggestion?
Sundown x8 v3 ts parameters on the website are the same. Comes up red and yellow in bass box pro
What design software do you use?
Off topic for this video but was wondering if you could do (or have done) a video on acoustic dampening, pollyfill, fiber glass insulation and so on. Had a new sales men tell me to shove as much polly fill in a box has possible and have someone help force the sub into the box to screw it in. At what point does it hurt the rear sound wave, polly fill for the interior of the box or something to line the walls of the box..
Enjoy your videos very much! Look forward to more of them. Thank you
The rule is typically 1-1.5 pounds of stuffing per cubic foot of space, too much can cause the sub to overexcurt and ruin the surrounds.
love your videos HexiBase, you answer a lot of questions i never knew i had. any thoughts on the ssl12? i got it "bassed" on it's ts specs, now i wonder if they jive with your software.
Any idea on how to measure Xmax/Xlim?
Very important
I also received a DATS V3, but I have problems compared to the previous version of V2, namely what it is about
When I measure extremely poorly suspended Dynaudio 30W54,30W100 drivers, an error appears in the measured values for Re as well as for Le, the true value for Re is around 5.6ohm with version V2 in all measurement cases, as well as with a universal instrument, while when measuring via version V3 it appears at one 30W100 15ohm, while at 30W54 even 29ohm at which Le cannot be measured at all on one ... ???
By measuring the same drivers with version V2, all measurements are error-free and show identical values
I sent an email to the manufacturer to know about this inadmissible error because it calls into question all other measured values in other drivers and I don't like it at all because I wanted to switch to this new version but it turned out that I didn't get a better and more reliable device for this money
I noticed one important difference that seems to contribute to the device making errors, and that is the speed of the test signal, which is slower in the V3 version, lasts longer sweep signal
If someone can confirm this, let them try a device with low resonant frequency drivers that has a soft suspension, an error occurs with two of the same drivers.
Sorry if I've missed this, but I'd love to see you talk about measuring the listening environment and factoring that into the design of an enclosure. I have a background in car audio where that's probably more important(?)
the problem tends to be that modern companies will not allow employees that actually do stuff to communicate with customers, they have marketing people as mandatory comms middlemen
even more worrying is that this "works" better than not having the marketing middlemen because the vast majority of the population/users like their answers better than the accurate/factual answers an engineer would provide
Thats pretty cool, I have several speakers that I would like to re-purpose, one set came from a nice Sony portable with built in sub that blew up when someone plugged it into 220 when it was set for 110. But I had no idea where to start designing an enclosure without any of the speaker spec's, and i'm sure if any spec's exist i'm not going to find anyone at Sony to give them to me.
The ultimate shady equipment documentation has to be auto makers emissions control equipment. VW diesel gate
Spent good money on car audio speakers. I'm talking speakers that retail 1kUSD for a pair. T/S parameters were way off. Fs on the midrange was 2x higher and on the tweeter 5x higher. Was told they would break in and not to worry. I pointed out that that's not going to happen. They later admitted an error on their manufacturer T/S. This is years after they were released. The retailer was great and gladly refunded, but I think I was lucky to have a good retailer.
as a beginner, should the dats be the first purchase? when will your next video on the DATS be? Loving the content, can you do a series on sigma and the dayton/wondom dsp?
@@HexiBase I have an Anechoic chamber I purchased military surplus. I want to test speakers in it and link to them on Amazon. +Profit enough to fund my HiFi fetish. I'm a listener not a lab guy, but i'm finding the curve easy, so This will be another skillset mastered. Car Audio, Home audio, aficionado of em' all. My lexus has a mark levinson and my Dodge... ugh.. i wrecked it today. It has a rockford fosgate component system. Someone pulled out in front of me and I T boned them.
Pls may I ask that you explain what a subsonic filter is and when it's needed in a speaker design
It's effectively a high pass filter that cuts frequencies below it's selected value, typically used to prevent subsonic frequencies that the driver performs poorly at from playing. I like to think of it as Gandalf saying the subsonic frequencies shall not pass.
we want to see more videos with 3d printed cabinets for 4inch speakers and 6inch speakers
can i have a link for the bassbox pro installer?
i'm measuring a subwoofer manually and need to verify the numbers.
Bass box pro is not free. You have to pay for that program.
Hi, where/how can I open that "Driver Properties"-Window that is shown at 7:04?
Bass box pro program
so does datyon audio use that on their own subs?
Oh man this is a great video. I have been looking for a good way to test the SP audio xxx 9k 15. The parameters that they give are just what you speak about on the subject, that they stand by their literature. Yet the parameters dont match up.
I hate to say it, but I am getting inconsistent data from the DATS V3 system, in particular with under-hung voice coil speakers. Sadly even using the device to measure known resistances does not match up to my Fluke or Tektronix meters. I think the DATS device is directionally correct, but I am not sure I would refer to it as really accurate, particularly on under-hung voice coil drivers for whatever reason.
Hoping to get one of these or find someone that has one to help me, bought a refurbished sub from AB it’s an older version and can’t find parameters anywhere. More I dig into it it would appear it’s a motor off one revision of the sub, a basket from another and who knows what recone. In the generic box I put it in it sounds good but I really wondering what more if anything I could do with it. Even worse then no parameters AB has refused to respond to my emails and phone calls as to what recone they used so as much as I’d like to build a second one I can’t.
For a driver with a phase plug, I guess you would have to have a cylinder weight that clears the phase plug?
Pete, what are you doing with your old one? Selling it? Let me know!
I’ve had my dats for about 2 weeks and I have yet to test a driver that’s reasonable close to its advertised specs. So much so that a basic taped pipe is both slightly out of tune but also designed based on incorrect parameters which dictate a false impression that now clearly is audible through the trench in the middle of the bandwidth and undesired symptoms of delay.... I then proceeded to rest everything I had, a majority from this huge multiple decades of popularity and following of ignorant(now no longer including myself) consumers. The two pioneer 10” subs I happened to test from the shelves of the garage were quite closely matching the published. Everything is fully broken in and in good working condition. Not much of a pioneer speaker buyer. Apparently mistaken and should note in closing Rockford Fosgate has klippel testing references yet did t remotely test properly on my new dats and there’s an enclosure the p3s were designed around erroneously and that’s fuct.
I was told that DATS doesn't work well testing high power subwoofers to get accurate results. Hexibase, do you know if there is any truth to this?
Barevids mentioned this in reference to the v2, I believe it isnt known yet if the b3 has the issue still or not
My first ever subwoofer build consisted of a Philips Car Audio Sub which had no parameters listed anywhere. I only could find some on forums. And only the bare minimum to even calculate something. So I squeezed them into WinISD and got something out. It sounds surprisingly good but I didn't follow the bass reflex recommendations from WinISD
@@HexiBase yes, and thats a shame! There must be so many people out there not knowing what their subwoofer could actually achieve just because the manufacturer is vague or even outright wrong about the T/S parameters..
Very good info. Never thought I had to doubt T/S parameters from manufacturers.
Of course you have to, they can never produce 2 of something that share identical parameters. The glue used won't adhere all the same, the surround material has variance, the spider may be harder than normal(even worse if the speaker has multiples of spiders), the coils may have bad windings that distrupt the condictivity, even the cone material will have stiffness differences, the magnet can be charged to a lower specification than it should, any number of these can happen to a single driver many times before it reaches the shelves. Did you think that they could just bang out perfect speakers everytime?
94E22F7EE051 B0F6841E919E5C95DF1D yes
@@bassfan71 Doubt ALL parameters from ALL manufacturers (not just audio). Specs are often massaged by the marketing department to make tat look better. e.g a STEREO amp with 1kW PEAK output (SINGLE channel @10% THD - ouch, my ears!!!) will probably be lucky to output a 100W continuous stereo signal @ 0.1% THD. 1000W vs 100W - marketing vs engineering depts.
what about a brand new speaker and one that is already ( same speaker) "broken in" i'm sure the specs would be night and day different due to the slightly softer suspension??? care to elaborate on this topic? this is something i have been pondering for many years .
Sometimes no as big a difference as you would think, but yes I think it would be good to break it in, plus there is also a difference in what position you have the driver under test, so for example if the factory had it held vertical with very minimal surfaces around the driver compared to this example where the driver is horizontal with a table close to it and a little restriction of the vented pole, but with something big and heavy I can see the reason for doing horizontal even though not as accurate.
Here is a copy and paste of a reply I made above...
Break-in will shift specs a little. Fs will drop, Vas and Qms will go up... I've seen as much as 10% (I've probably measured over 1000 drivers)... However, if you model the same driver before and after break-in, in the same enclosure, the change is almost nothing. So, in the end it is usually not something to worry about.
I do recommend loosening up the spider on brand new drivers before making your measurements. Just to break up the starch that is used on the spiders.
The specs change a lot from temperature change. That is your real concern. The Qes increases as Re increases due to heat. Drivers are more efficient when they are cold and loose efficiency as they heat up... which causes them to require more power... which causes them to heat up more... and so on.
@@chrisperez7592 thanks, that is what I had heard also, nice to have confirmation 👍
I've noticed a lot of manufacturers do not provide a inductance (le) spec. Also a few that list very limited amount of t/s parameters. So little in fact it's not enough to model the driver (I stay away from these brands). Dats would be a great tool to have for someone like myself that enjoys building enclosures. I invested in bass box pro sometime ago. Time to invest in dats. Thanks for the video 🖒
Also, if you were to hook up DATS to a woofer that is already in a ported enclosure, would the "FS" be the frequence the port is tuned at? For measuring unknown enclosures...
@@HexiBase is there an effective way to test the tune frequency of an unknown enclosure?
I just wanted to add that if you run an impedance measurement on a driver in a ported enclosure you will end up with two peaks. The lowest point between the two peaks is the tuning frequency.
It's especially useful for vents with many bends or irregular shaped ports (even tapered ports). Enclosure design software can't exactly account for airflow resistance due to things like corners, and that could shift tuning by quite a few Hz.
However, it is low power... So you need to keep in mind that once the air really gets moving, and airflow is being restricted by the port, the tuning frequency will go lower (essentially that also means the port is too small, but is just how is has to be sometimes).
What sub?
Pete my brotha from anotha motha excellent good video topic of choice for discussion. That's a very important piece of information and knowledge to know about
My speaker won't sound right...can DAT v3 gave me wrong data?
i'm not sure about the 10X resolution increase compared to the previous DATS.
Do you think some of the errors are due to bnib measurements vs fully broken-in t/s parameters?
@@HexiBase Ahhhh , that makes perfect sense. Mahalo. I'm actually going through that right now building a box for 2 Sundown X-8 V3 subs. They do not provide sD or vD parameters so I'm having a hard time measuring port velocity. Thanks to this video I'm going to try and measure the cone area myself and also pick up that Dayton speaker analyzer when it comes back stock! Awesome video as always 🤙🤙!
Are you going to do that video about three or more subwoofers in isobaric enclosure?
Any information on whether the V3 is better than the V2? I have the V2, not sure if it's worth upgrading.
V3 is twice as powerful as V2. That doesn't make a big difference with large, high power drivers. But it can drive smaller speaker pretty hard, the specs you get will be a little more "real world". I've even measured some drivers where I could see cone and frame resonances show up on the impedance curve that I never noticed with V2. I thought something was wrong at first, and then I realised it matched the frequency of a peak in the response (it took me a minute to figure out what was going on 🤔). It is even enough power to excite resonances in enclosures and ports, and that will show up as little ripples in the impedance measurements. So that is a nice upgrade. Also, the added accuracy is great for measuring caps, resistors, and inductors.
Heck, I have mine mounted under my desk... that alone made it worth it to me, lol!
Hi! i love your informative videos and they have helped me in numerous ways. I was about to build a transmission line "soundbar" type of speaker that should be very flat and accurate, as it will be mainly used for music. I know that TL enclosures require a lot of trial-and-error tuning, and I was wondering if that is probably due to the manufacturers' dodgy specs that you reference here. Also, I was thinking about building it in a way that I could create a cross-section that could add or reduce port length to tune it. Or would testing the TS parameters provide a clear design direction? Any input would be greatly appreciated. And thanks again for the persistently informative content!
This is so cool, I think
Makes sense to design to what you actually have rather than what someone tells you you've been given.
This was super helpful
What do you do when your speaker has a dust-cap?
Do you think that those who have the V2 should upgrade to V3? I have the V2 and cant complain about anything, and using it to help my friends when they got new woofers but can find any T/S parameters and also to my own projects.
Thanks for the answer.
Anyone have issues with the software crashing a few seconds after startup? I just got it and I can't use it do to this issue. EDIT : Problem has been solved; RivaTuner was attaching itself to the window causing the crash. Make sure to close it before using DATS!
Thank you. Cheers
Awesome video and a product I am getting asap.
Not sure if i get this Right. Is It Important how much mass is Add ?
HexiBase Thanks, I used just 10 Gramms. Worked in Ma Case.
Ideally, your added mass should be about the same as the Mms of the driver.
If the spec sheet lists the Mms then just make your added mass about the same, that is something that shouldn't change much unless a pretty big change was made to the driver.
If Mms isn't listed then it is a pretty simple 2-step process. Just add enough mass to get an initial Vas measurement. Then change your added mass to be about the same as the result of the first measurement. That will get you close enough.
You can repeat that process to narrow it down even more, but it really isn't necessary. Things like temperature and barometric pressure affect the specs so much that you really don't need to get that exact (maybe for speakers in a strictly controlled environment, lol).
I have built a few smaller bookshelf type builds with door woofers from alpine and they wouldn't even give me TS parameters !
The BGM is playing trick on my ears, from my Samsung S5e
Cool Dude
What would make interesting videos like Willson audio here on yt would be someone testing parameters against factory specs... Probably cause an industry shake up. Hexi could you do some testing on several subs of the same model to see if the parameters are consistent wirh each other... dont disclose brands though
What about Wilson?
@@attainableaudio4533 Got the name wrong its Williston Audio labs, tests car amps against rated specs
Excellent.
That wasn’t the 2 Step. Leave Texaning to Texans. lol
I tried to find this product it's saying no longer available
@@HexiBase ok thanks