Test Bench: The SIG180-4 6.5” Woofer from Dayton Audio’s Signature Series

Dayton Audio’s SIG180-4 is part of a woofer series with five cost-effective, high-performance models, ranging from 4” to 10”. All drivers include single-piece concave aluminum cones, polyimide vented voice coil formers, open cast-aluminum frames, plus indexed shallow transition NBR surrounds. Rated for 80W RMS power handling capacity, the SIG180-4 woofer features a FEA-optimized ferrite motor design and a 1.25” voice coil wound with round copper wire.

This midbass woofer is the latest product from SB Acoustics to feature a Composite Sound Thin-ply Carbon Diaphragm (TPCD) cone and another significant product from its Satori Line of high end drivers. The SB Acoustics WO24TX-4 Satori features a curvilinear inverted single piece “bowl” shaped TPCD cone. Clearly a material choice that is starting to conquer a growing number of speaker manufacturers in all application segments. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2023.

The Wavecor WF182BD13 is a midbass driver that utilizes a unique proprietary cone material made with interwoven Kevlar/Carbon fibers with beneficial properties for midrange reproduction - a combination of low mass, rigidness, and damping. Unique features include a vented inverted dome-type phase plug (no dust cap), a shallow profile low loss high Qm NBR surround, accompanied by a flat 4” diameter black cloth spider.

This SEAS Excel Midwoofer is one the most highly inventive and innovative out-of-box Hexadym Motor designs from the Norwegian company. In this article, Vance Dickason details all that is unique in this midwoofer design and its historical motivations, helping to solve the problem of reflections off the motor system and frame of a woofer back into the cone. A fascinating exploration with complete measurements. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2022.

The driver on this Test Bench is from B&C Speakers and clearly designed for professional audio. The 10NW76 was designed for uses in line arrays, small two-way monitors, and as a subwoofer, or as a midbass driver in multiway systems. It uses a proprietary 12-spoke (six double spokes) cast-aluminum frame with a series of cooling vents that allow air to move past the voice coil and across the front side of the neodymium motor assembly. The cone assembly consists of a curvilinear waterproof coated paper cone and dust cap. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2021.

In this article, Vance Dickason characterizes the Bold North Audio BWX-6502 Midbass, which comes from a series of exciting new drivers designed and manufactured in the US by MISCO (Minneapolis Speaker Company). The BWX-6502 is built on the same platform with a similar XBL2 "dual-gap" motor design structure to the BWX-6501 model but with a cone assembly consisting of an Abaca fiber (paper) cone and a 60mm (2.4") diameter Abaca fiber dust cap, with compliance provided by a wide high excursion NBR surround, and a 3.5" diameter flat cotton spider (damper). This article was originally published in Voice Coil, January 2021.

This Test Bench characterizes the very recent BWX-6501 Midbass driver from MISCO’s Bold North Audio Line. MISCO (Minneapolis Speaker Co.) is the oldest OEM driver manufacturer in the US, founded in 1949, and Bold North Audio is its new brand, launched in 2019. The Bold North lineup was recently expanded to include two new 6.5” XBL2 motor woofers. These new models, all designed and manufactured in MISCO’s own facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, feature dual inside-outside copper shorting rings in the motor to greatly reduce distortion. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2020.

American audio solutions manufacturer MISCO announced the introduction of the BWF-6503, a 6.5" red carbon fiber woofer, and the BMW-4001, a 4" carbon fiber midwoofer to its growing line of premium and performance-based drivers. The two new designs are Klippel Verified and manufactured under the Bold North Audio brand in MISCO’s facility in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The new W12CY006 (E0091-08) is the second product recently launched into SEAS' updated Nextel Excel series, which brings the newly updated linear low-distortion magnet system design with titanium voice coil former into this series. The new driver is a successor to the famous W12CY003 (E0044-08S) and continues the brand's high-end paper cone heritage with the 2-layer Nextel coating technology and - as a special feature - adding a new edge coating. With the resulting smooth frequency response, it is suitable as a dedicated midrange in a 3-way design.

This Test Bench article focuses on the Scan-Speak Ellipticor 21WE/4542T00 midrange woofer, an impressive looking driver. The motor design for the Ellipticor 21WE/4542T00 is again an AirCirc multi-magnet and patented SD design, using an elliptical two-layer voice coil wound with round copper wire on a titanium former. Motor parts include polished front and back plates for the neodymium magnets that incorporates a 12 mm diameter rear vent for additional cooling. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2020.