Dayton RS621MK passive bookshelf speaker kit (Maple) $299 + fs.

Very nice. I've used plenty of Dayton Reference speakers in both home and car audio applications, and they have never failed to please.
Good deal.
 
Great company. Wonderful products and prices. These speakers are solid and an easy diy project.
 
Looks good. I love my Dayton BR-1 speakers that I built from their kit and they sound great.
I can only imagine these would be better.
 
Zenshi said:
I didn't compare them to anything except the regular price at PE. When I bought them, the price was $349. Recently the price had risen to $399. I have never seen it at this price during the past year (at least whenever I checked up the price).

Edit: My little blurb of the speakers

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1566653
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Whoops my wording was too vague. I meant to ask what other speakers did you compare this kit to. Read through your build thread quickly and noticed that you have(or had?) a set of Sierra 1's too. I know the Sierra 1s are more than double the price of this, but do you find the RS621 kit able to reproduce sound close to the level of accuracy achieved by the S1, or are they not in the same league?

Thanks for the reply. Curious mind wants to know :p
 
Ah sorry Lol. No I don't have Sierra 1s. If I had them, I would not need these speakers. ;)

Its been awhile since I had quality speakers at home prior to owning these so I cannot do a direct 1 to 1 comparison. However, I have heard some other speakers at studios. I tend to find these quite clean. I am not sure if they are considered neutral. However, some speakers like the Klipsch or the Mirage sounded a bit more bright while others like the Rokits sounded more striking. I still think these sound quite laid back but that may be me. The sound separation seems to be very good at least in my opinion and according to some of the other comments by people who listened to them, they image nicely.

These definitely have weak bass so I would not get them compared to other ported speakers if you don't have a sub. I think something like the Sierra 1s would blow these away in terms of bass extension. However, if you have a sub, these things sound very nice. Again, this is from the opinions of an audiophyte noob so take with a grain of salt.

The thing what impressed me to buy these was the reputation of the drivers and the quality of the build. The Reference Series drivers are well regarded and supposedly the RS28A tweeters that you get with this kit are built by Usher Audio exclusively for Dayton Audio. There are a whole bunch of DIY builds that used both the RS28A and the RS150s-8 due to their good value (just Google the driver names and "diy" and you will get a bunch of links). The RS28A is often compared to the SEAS 27TBSCG tweeters and many say they are comparable. One such thread is given below

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/120503-dayton-rs28a-4-vs-seas-27tbfcg.html

As you know the tweeter in the Sierra 1 is a SEAS tweeter.

Also if you look in Zapf's website you will see that he states both the RS28A and the RS150s to be good value drivers only beaten by the top of the line SEAS and Scanspeak drivers. He did mention that the RS28 had some quality issues but I think that was resolved awhile back.

http://zaphaudio.com/tweetermishmash/

http://zaphaudio.com/5.5test/

Next, the speaker cabinets that are provided with this kit is very good and structurally rigid. It uses 1" MDF in the front panel and 3/4" MDF all around.

The crossovers were designed by an audio engineer and speaker designer named Darren Kuzma. Some have said the crossovers could be improved and there are a few suggestions on the possible modifications. On the other hand, for me I find these sound fine the way they are.

Finally if you go to someplace like Madisound, you will find that the price of the RS28A tweeter is comparable in price to the SEAS tweeter used in the $1000.00 Sierra 1s.

Price of the RS28A
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=275-130

Price of the SEAS Prestige tweeter used in the Sierra 1s.
http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...ters/seas-prestige-29tff/w-h1318-fabric-dome/

Price doesn't always mean quality but considering these are comparable in price and experts in the field say the RS28A is a value leader (good price to performance ratio), I take it to be a good measurable. And as you know Sierra 1s are killer speakers.

In fact, if you add the price of the RS drivers alone, the cost comes to over $180.00 for the two speakers. So at $299.00, you basically are getting the two complete speaker kit for a bit more than the cost of the drivers. Considering most commercial speakers around $299 use drivers that only total below $100 and sometimes total below $50, I found the speakers to be a great deal, even at the $340.00 price.

Sorry for the long explanation but I just wanted to give my reasoning of why I chose to get these speakers when looking for passive bookshelves.

That said, remember, these have weak bass extension.
 
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Zenshi said:
Just an update. Noticed that the Piano Black and Cherry cabinet ones are back in stock as well as the Maple cabinets.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=302-960
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=302-962

Don't know about the other cabinets but the Piano Black ones are very pretty.
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Thanks for the detailed response! Now I'm wondering if I should take the plunge and build one just to see how it stacks with speakers twice its current price :D
 
chrnochime said:
Thanks for the detailed response! Now I'm wondering if I should take the plunge and build one just to see how it stacks with speakers twice its current price :D
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If you do get these and do a comparison, I would love to hear your opinion.
 
chrnochime said:
Thanks for the detailed response! Now I'm wondering if I should take the plunge and build one just to see how it stacks with speakers twice its current price :D
Click to expand...

I have no doubt that it will compare favorably with speakers three or four times its price. I've built with the Dayton Reference series drivers in the past - they require working around the ugly breakup mode of the woofer (I use steep active crossovers), but are fantastically detailed and accurate if implemented right. I'm sure that the engineer at Dayton (Kuzma) has designed and tested the crossover extensively.
 
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