NEW 15 Maxx MX15 Subwoofer Review compared to the Ultimax 15

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This Is Dayton Audios New 15-Inch Subwoofer.

It comes in about 50 cheaper than the Ultimax and in some ways. I think it might actually be even better. You know believe me let’s go ahead and take a look at the Max X15 what it has to offer and then compare it to the Ultimax and see what you guys think about it let’s go and do that right now Now This is the Max X15 and I gotta say this is probably one of the most beautiful subwoofers that i’ve come across. I really like the look.

I Think Its A Very Sleek Look.

There’s no graphics on it and it has this really classy parabolic satellite dish to it and it’s not quite black. It’s almost like a dark gray which contrasts really well with the surround and that to me is really nice now This is called. Max X15 and the reason why it’s called the max X15 is because it stands for maximum excursion and you can tell that when you take a look at the surround that surround is huge and with that surround. You can get plus and minus 24 millimeters of excursion that means 24 millimeters up and 24 millimeters down now for those who are not in the metric system that is almost an entire inch of excursion up and down so two inches of total now the other thing that the Maxx claims to have is be pretty efficient, which is nice now one of the times when we talk about efficiency we often refer to the sensitivity of the subwoofer.

  • subwoofer
  • subwoofers
  • surround
  • ultimax
  • maxx

Now.

This has a 90 decibel sensitivity rating. However, that rating is a little bit misleading. If you notice it says 90 decibels at 2. 83 volts well when we typically.

Test The Rating Of A Subwoofer With Sensitivity

we test it at 1 watt, but since this is a 4 ohm subwoofer and being tested at 2.83 volts that’s closer to 2 watts of power. So this particular subwoofer’s true sensitivity rating at 1 watt is closer to 87 Decibels, which is still really good for a subwoofer. Now the max x does come to be about 50 dollars cheaper than the ultimax. Because of that there’s some areas in which parts express had to save some money and the biggest area you can easily see is the basket if you take a look at the basket.

It Is A Stamped Steel Basket Versus A

cast basket. I know that’s going to turn off a lot of people right away. However, I would tell you that this stamp steel basket is actually pretty nice. They’ve rounded all the edges to. make sure that you’re not going to cut yourself while picking those up and honestly it’s actually pretty heavy duty.

I Have No Concerns About This

holding up but I did talk to Chris Perez from Parts Express and asked him about the basket, and he told me that it is really strong and that was probably the biggest cost savings on the entire unit and as long as it performs well. I think that’s a good place to maybe save some money. This of course is a vented pull system and you’ll notice that there’s some vents kind of at the top of this that have these little grates on them and I really like it. It looks really nice. Although there’s really no acoustical benefit that I can think of it probably does add a little bit more cost it maybe you don’t need, Although I do for whatever reason like the look of it.

Even Though I Know That Its

going to go in a box and I’ll probably never see it again, but it does give that subwoofer just a little bit more high-end look let’s go and take a look at some of the bits that make up the subwoofer If we notice this. This is actually a dual spider and they did that so that they can maintain linearity along with that high excursion and as we look at that spider you’re going to see the tinsel leads now the tinsel leads aren’t glued onto the spider like some manufacturers instead. If you take a close enough look, you’re going to look at it and. going to see that they’re actually sewed on now. The reason why that’s really cool is because when you’re really pushing a high excursion subwoofer up and down.

Those Tinseles Can Actually Smack Up And Down

against the cone and cause problems and so the fact that they actually went a step above even just gluing them and actually sewed them on is something that I really appreciate now as we follow those tinsel leads down you’re going to see that they have push button connectors anytime. A server has those I applaud them because it really does make installing it a little bit easier and you don’t have to worry about those crimp connectors coming off and honestly. You should never have to worry about those wires ever crossing and creating a short so I do appreciate that you will see two of those binding posts and that’s because. This is a dual 2 ohm driver so for those of you who are on car audio that means you can run this in parallel and bring it down to one ohm to get the maximum power out of your amplifier now for those of you are in home audio you’re going to probably wire this in series to get it to 4 ohms that way you can use just about any amplifier on the market now. If we follow it all the way down you’re going to see that this 15 inch woofer is a triple stack magnet and inside that magnet is a two and a half-inch voice coil now the real question that we have here though is how does the max X15 compare to something like the dayton Ultimax and not only that are there any concerns when you’re designing or building a box with.

This And There Usually Are So Lets

go ahead and open up wind isd and take a look at that all right so I went ahead and opened up Winisd and I have what I consider the optimal box designed for the max x at least for just a normal ported enclosure for that I’m seeing about 5.3 cubic feet at 5. 3 cubic feet. If you tune it 22 hertz Your f3 is right around 21 hertz. It’s 20.

8 Hertz And Thats Anechoically So In

room you should have no problem getting down to 20 Hertz and that’s what I think is really special with this box and if we go to our maximum power we’re going to go ahead and see that it will take that full 800 watts now on the 800 watts you should get an anechoic response just three feet away of a hundred and sixteen. Decibels that is incredible now for fifty dollars more you can get the Ultimax, so how does the Ultimax compare to it? Let’s go ahead and take a look at the Ultimax 15. It’s this red line here now if we take a look at this red line, it goes well what we consider significantly deeper at 18 Hertz. However, if we take a look at it, it is actually an eight and a half cubic foot box and so that gets a little bit more problematic because now we’re talking a significantly larger box than we were with the max X interestingly enough if we take a look at the max x in an extended, which would be an eight and a half cubic foot box. It actually will outperform on the low end.

Itll Go Down To 17 Hertz Compared To

the Ultimax, which is 18 Hertz now. It’s very negligible and you will notice Also the Maxx does have a dip in this region, so it’s almost like a trade-off. You might get a little bit deeper, but then you also have that dip there interestingly enough. Though if we take a look at the power that these can take at the maximum power we’re going to see that the ultimax can’t actually take as much power. It’s only about 750 watts in some of the low ends and the actual max x can’t really take 800 watts, but it can take it pretty close almost the entire frequency range.

So Once We Account For The Power You

take a look at it and really the output is within a half a decibel pretty much everywhere so when we talk about it, they’re almost identical with the Maxx just barely getting better on the low end. The advantage of the maxx is really getting it in that smaller box now what’s interesting about that is parts Express does tout like maybe using a three-cubic-foot box that’s where I would say well maybe not and here’s the reason why you can put it in a four cubic foot box and if we do that we to 22 hertz and honestly. The F3 is right around 23 hertz. So we’re not really losing much from the 5. 3 cubic foot box, and if you wanted to build something like that you easily could but here comes the issue.

  • x15 compare like dayton ultimax
  • does max x15 compare
  • subwoofer comes 50 cheaper
  • high excursion subwoofer
  • surround really nice called max

If We Go Over To Our Events

page we’re going to take a look at the first port resonance. Now that first port resonance. You typically want to keep an octave above wherever you’re crossing over your subwoofer Now what that means is like if you’re crossing over 80 hertz. You want to double that frequency say 160 hertz and that’s what you want your first port resonance to be at or above. So 160 hertz all the way up to 20 kilohertz.

You Want It Somewhere In That Range Now

on a four cubic foot box tuning this low that first port resonance is right around 182 Hertz. That means that you should be able to cross over at 80 hertz and not necessarily have any resonance issues with that port, but you still might and that’s why I recommend something more like the 5. 3 cubic foot box. Because at that your first port resonance is now 250 Hertz, which gives you a lot more flexibility to cross over your subwoofer. You should be able to cross it over anywhere between that 80 to 120 hertz range, which is typically a frequency range where most people like to cross.

Over Their Subwoofer So For Me That

5.3 cubic foot box is a little bit better, so how does it compare with the Ultimax if you really take a look at it? It exceeds the Ultimax and low end extension in the same size box, but it’s so close to call. I would say that it’s really a negligible difference whether you go with the Max X or the Ultimax when we’re just looking at the response curve. The real question is how does it sound and the truth that matters. I don’t have the Max X15 built into a box yet so I can’t answer that question.

However, I Will Be Answering That

question very shortly. I already have the MDF set out in the workshop and we’re gonna be starting to build and design an enclosure for this Mx15 using that 5. 3 cubic foot enclosure now having said.

Summary

Dayton Audio’s new 15-inch subwoofer comes in about 50 cheaper than the Ultimax . Max X15 has parabolic satellite dish to it and it’s almost like a dark gray which contrasts really well with the surround and that to me is really nice now This is probably one of the most beautiful subwoofers that i’ve come across. The Maxx claims to be pretty efficient, which is nice now the Maxx is because it stands for maximum excursion and you can tell that when you take a look at the surround that surround is huge and with that surround.& You can get plus and minus 24 millimeters of excursion that means 24 millimeter up and down now for those who are not in the metric system that is almost an entire inch of excursions up anddown so two inches of total . The max x does come to be about 50 dollars cheaper than the ultimax. The max X15 is a 4 ohm sub woofer….. Click here to read more and watch the full video