German sub recommendations?

U-571.
Hey, someone had to say it.

OP, you should try a German site as well.

Look at the reviews (and ads) in Hobby HiFi and Klang+Ton to survey the market.

The Dayton DVC 15 is a fairly ordinary driver. Moderate throw by today's standards, no shorting rings, and stamped basket.

Here is a much better subwoofer for less money:

http://www.europe-audio.com/Product.asp?Product_ID=7098

Dayton RSS390HF-4.

Sounds like an odd handicap for someone living in Germany, and one that should be fixed.

They won't make it onto the plane, due to the magnets. Special procedures are used for shipping drivers by air. In any event you're buying Chinese drivers by way of the US, which is silly. At the least there must be sources that import Chinese drivers direct to Europe, if not actually manufactured there. Many driver manufacturers are located in Italy.

Wow. Things have certainly changed. Ten years ago, this security theater nonsense wasn't quite as evolved...

(Though I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the notion of living somewhere and not speaking the local language.)


You'd be surprised. When I lived in Mitteleuropa (1998-9, 2001-3), upon returning home from a visit to family/friends in the States I would generally bring two things back for my European friends/family: Alden shoes and Seas and/Peerless drivers. Nothing, admittedly, bigger than an XLS12, but that has a pretty hefty motor structure. While I did have to pay import duties in Europe, everything always made it through security.

The shoes make sense, because Aldens are US made, and reasonably priced for the materials/build quality here but exorbitantly expensive in Europe.

As for the drive-units, one would think that on balance prices would be similar, because they have VAT but no trans-Atlantic shipping. That was at the time not the case. European drivers, to say nothing of Chinese ones, were cheaper at Madisound/Meniscus/PE than from the European venders.

Perhaps things are different now, especially with the comparatively stronger EUR. but back then there the EUR and USD floated in a range of parity ± ~15%. I haven't looked into European driver prices in a while.

It's not security, it's navigation. One would think that would not be an issue with GPS, but it is. There are strict limits on magnetic flux leakage on air freight. It can be addressed by placing two drivers tightly back to back, so that their flux fields buck each other, but accomplishing that with large magnets is no easy task.

Interesting.

FWIW, passenger carriers (at least ~10yrs ago) either didn't know or didn't care about magnets in luggage.

A friend of mine owns a company that sells drivers and he told me of the hoops that he has to jump through to use air freight. Because of them he doesn't, he uses ground service only.

It all depends on how close to the compass unit the package is. In a big airliner, they are typically out in the wingtips. But smaller planes may have them in the tail cone. If the magnet is strong enough, the heading indicators will get a mis- compare indication.

Why not? it would take you a couple of days to learn some basic survival phrases (like another beer please and where are the bathrooms?) , After you use up the German you know, switch to English and you will be surprised how much better their English is after they realize you've made an attempt to learn their language.

Just a FYI, From a trip to Germany over a couple of decades ago I remember walking into a couple of stereo shops that sold raw drivers and they had no problem communicating in English.