Rival Acoustics

PaulEbert

I thought I'd start a new discussion so the Viawave thread wouldn't continue to be diverted. The Rival Acoustic drivers look very nice, but since they are basically new to me, I'm wondering where they fit into the hierarchy of drivers (if there is such a thing).  Has anyone used them enough to have a firm opinion?  Any measurements?

Wolf

I have 2 pair of Rival woofers currently, and I would say they are on-par with SS, Wavecor, and Usher. They are very well made.

Ed_Perkins

Several of us have ordered the R176-CP-08 Carbon/Pulp-Coated that's currently on sale.  I'd imagine you'll see measurements posted once we get them.

MartyH

Mine are due in around the 27th.  I'm planning on giving them to Chris Roemer to measure and will post the results sometime in January.

Nicholas_23

day after Christmas here 

Nicholas_23

They have arrived ! Very usherish , built quality is super nice. Vented out the ass end and a suspended spider suspension . Vented pole and I think Im seeing some copper in there , kind of tarnished copper maybe? They are in the house now and getting acclimated to warmer temps. 

jr@mac

Mine are sitting at work, sigh. 

jr@mac

Well, pulled one from the package and a couple quick observations (still at work)...

1. Packaging is not world-class, but the driver construction appears to be. It is the equal of many other high-end drivers, at the least. My pair of 5" kevlar offer the same high-end feel as these. 

2. Some paint missing off the frame, and the dustcap is not quite centered but otherwise look flawless.

3. The pulpy cone gives it a beautiful "old school" look to it. 

If the T/S parameters are there, these should make for a very solid build in the future. 

R-Carpenter

No speaker porn? Common guys. Make the old man happy!

jr@mac

Couple pix for ya, Roman. Flash kind of wrecks the color of the surround, of course. 

Yes - that is fucking frost on it... They accidentally spent the night in the Kia, and this is what Mother Nature did to me this morning (two days in a row):



Build quality is overall very, very good. You can see the copper sleeve peekaboo-ing out there, the suspension is loosey goosey like I like. Loose enough out of the box that you can physically bottom the driver out without any of those weird "cracks, creaks, crunches" etc that a lot of drivers exhibit during a manual exercise. In that respect, they are very similar to the Usher 8" Nick let me play with a few years ago. 

Wish the top plate was a little thicker, but he motor is giant and if the magnet is charged properly, Bl might be through the roof. 

They look Ushery from the front, but use a way better basket design than the Usher. Actually, it appears to be the same basket used on Wavecor. I imagine Wavecor is the build house for these guys. That kind of information isn't generally something I find useful outside of satisfying academic curiosity, though. I know a lot of people in the community love to possess "inside information" and I will admit it is mildy irritating when those people hint at things they know - like they personally know the identity of Deep Throat. 

Anywhoo, once these drivers are defrosted and at room temp, I will break them in and take some T/S parameters. Very curious to see how they measure up, and what I can expect from them. 

dcibel

If that temp is in F, then you've got the same lovely weather as I do, it's been -25 to -30 C since xmas Eve and is conveniently going to stay that way until I head back to work next week.

Just a note on the frame, I'm not saying these aren't a Wavecor OEM, but someone in the know told me that the "wavecor frame" is an off-the-shelf Chinese frame that is very good, but not used solely by wavecor. It does tell you that they were made in China. There's at least 1 Dayton part that uses the frame, PS95.

jr@mac

Yeppers, that is in Fahrenheit - going to get colder this weekend. Yuck. No fun. 

jr@mac

Yeah, I have seen those frames on a lot of AliExpress drivers over the years. I am certain it is an off-the-shelf component. I think the new Dayton coaxial drivers use it, as well. I may be mistaken, however. 

ani_101

We are just a bit more colder here in Minneapolis.... Till it snows on Thursday when we warm up a bit, other wise just lovely, dry and bitterly cold right now - looks good out the window and no issues driving!

dcibel

You can tell from the driver photo that you have a true high-end woofer there. An extended pole piece with copper cap, looks very similar to my Wavecor WF120 from the side. I'd expect you'll get similar world-class performance from them as well.

Gowa

We are colder here.
An Extreme Cold Warning is issued and expected to reach levels ranging from minus 30°C to minus 55°C. That's -22F to -41F.  

Gowa

jr@mac said:

Couple pix for ya, Roman. Flash kind of wrecks the color of the surround, of course. 

Yes - that is fucking frost on it... They accidentally spent the night in the Kia, and this is what Mother Nature did to me this morning (two days in a row):



Build quality is overall very, very good. You can see the copper sleeve peekaboo-ing out there, the suspension is loosey goosey like I like. Loose enough out of the box that you can physically bottom the driver out without any of those weird "cracks, creaks, crunches" etc that a lot of drivers exhibit during a manual exercise. In that respect, they are very similar to the Usher 8" Nick let me play with a few years ago. 

Wish the top plate was a little thicker, but he motor is giant and if the magnet is charged properly, Bl might be through the roof. 

They look Ushery from the front, but use a way better basket design than the Usher. Actually, it appears to be the same basket used on Wavecor. I imagine Wavecor is the build house for these guys. That kind of information isn't generally something I find useful outside of satisfying academic curiosity, though. I know a lot of people in the community love to possess "inside information" and I will admit it is mildy irritating when those people hint at things they know - like they personally know the identity of Deep Throat. 

Anywhoo, once these drivers are defrosted and at room temp, I will break them in and take some T/S parameters. Very curious to see how they measure up, and what I can expect from them. 

WOW! Those look nasty.

jr@mac

Yeah, frost can make stuff look pretty bad. They should be toasty warm today, though - might be able to get some testing done. 

Gowa

I hope there's no condensation inside the woof.

jr@mac

I'll give them a good once over. 

Actually, though, I recently transferred my primary PC into a new case - and it has USB3 on the front. My Mobo does not have USB3 headers. I ordered a PCIe card that has the header on it - but it has not arrived yet, so odds are I will be letting them sit a few more days. 

Nicholas_23

Just a couple more pictures to add in with JR's. No hard data yet . I'll echo what JR mention earlier , the suspension was looser than I expected and reminded me of the usher 8955a. I did run an impedance sweep the other day, one had an fs of 37 and the other 38. I'll have to break them in more and do another sweep , or just wait for JR's data .

Nicholas_23

Oh , they also came with a gasket.

dcibel

Everything about these photos says Wavecor to me. The motor looks exactly like Wavecor balanced drive, and even the label on the motor, you could literally replace the Rival logo with Wavecor. This is good news, as the retail cost a Wavecor WF182 is a lot more than the sale price of these Rival units.

I've been thinking of what to build with my pair of Motus tweeters. Realistically I want to use the nice underhung Motus woofers, but they carry a pretty high price tag, or do I cave in and buy a pair of the Rival drivers at the current sale price? Decisions, decisions...

Here's some photo of my WF120 for comparison.

Driver and packaging:


From the back with label and terminals:


And the motor:

Nicholas_23

Very interesting indeed. Cut from the same cloth maybe, eh? Sure looks that way doesn't it

kennyk

Mine arrived on the 27th. Opened one before running to work. They look just like the pictures.

MartyH

Same here Kenny. Mine on the 26th.  I’ve spoken to Grumpy Roemer (who gave him that nickname anyway?). He’s looking forward to getting them measured but we probably won’t get a chance before mid-January. Hopefully by then some of you have posted your measurements.  As Tommy said ‘The waiting is the hardest part.’

PWRRYD

That was me!  He's always piss'n and Roem'n about the PETT website, or the catalog, or Vas in Ft^3 and L, etc.  That and using Caps to yell at people.

Gowa

dcibel said:

Everything about these photos says Wavecor to me. The motor looks exactly like Wavecor balanced drive, and even the label on the motor, you could literally replace the Rival logo with Wavecor. This is good news, as the retail cost a Wavecor WF182 is a lot more than the sale price of these Rival units.

I've been thinking of what to build with my pair of Motus tweeters. Realistically I want to use the nice underhung Motus woofers, but they carry a pretty high price tag, or do I cave in and buy a pair of the Rival drivers at the current sale price? Decisions, decisions...

Here's some photo of my WF120 for comparison.

Driver and packaging:


From the back with label and terminals:


And the motor:

Those 120's are very nice drivers but pricey.

Ed_Perkins

Tested my four today using DATS V2 and a test box to calculate Vas.  For breakin I physically exercised the drivers in both the +/- directions and then ran them at near xmax for four hours.  All four tested closely to each other as shown below.  The only item of concern is the multiple impedance blips shown in the impedance plot. Frequency response and harmonic distortion tests should show whether the blips indicate real problem areas.  I should note that my test box is small enough (4.35 L) that the volume taken up by the driver can alter the Vas calculation.  I used the driver drawing to calculate the volume of the magnet and estimated how much volume is taken by the cone.  I ended up with a driver volume of 0.5 L.

Wolf

I tested my R176-P-08, and they didn't ripple like that, likely due to the scale. I can see a phase shift at 1.1k that is indicative of one. The storage at that point is mainly a function of driver diameter. There is a small dip in the FR on the spec sheet for that one.The other shown below on sample 2 at 7.5k is the location of the second breakup peak.

Yours is the CP-8, correct?

Mine:

Gowa

I asked my Nephew to measure the four R176-CP-08 woofers he has. DATS V2. He said these were measured cold out of the box.I will check mine tomorrow and post the results.