Best 12" Driver?

Stay away from the Dynaudio 12s. I had 8 of their top of the line 30W100, and they sucked! I've never seen such an expensive/poorly performing sub driver in my life! (Although we also blew up 1 of the focal audiom 12s in an array of 4 subs / side) - strange project, we were trying to build a poor mans genesis 1 out of carver 60" ribbons, scanspeaker 2905/9300 tweaters & dyna/focal woofers. god the dynas sucked!! We actually ended up going with a sub from TC Audio in california. Their 12" could do 24hz in a sealed box @ 112db spl @ 89db sensitivity. That's pretty f*ning impressive. ALthough TC 10/12/15s are extremely expensive.

Orca Design is THE US parts division of JMLabs, the maker of Focal drivers. Go to their website(orcadesign.com) for a list of dealers. I like Madisound, but Zalytron is good once you get over the initial hump of dealing with Elliot for the first time(not very polite to first time callers - you have to become a customer for him to open up, but his real world knowledge is immense). The 12" Focal driver is excellent, but very expensive. European(some companies such as Vifa and Peerless excepted) drivers larger than 8" tend to be quite exhorbitant in the area of price. Usually, the larger Focal woofers do better in vented boxes, but you would be OK. I suggest you contact Audio4fun. If you can get a nice deal on those Dynaudio woofers, you will NOT be able to match them for the money. Be sure to check the model number, to make sure it is OK(correct impedence, etc.) for your speaker. If you find the prices of these Euro woofers are too high for you, the best domestic woofers for sealed box configurations are from Audio Concepts(ACI). Their woofers are designed for sealed enclosure applications; their features are most suited for this type of use than almost anything else you can find. Not sure of the current prices(should be a fraction of the Euro drivers), but you absolutely cannot do better for the money for this application. Please also consider the crossover parts and wire. Being that you have been using drivers of such high quality, the OEM Infinity parts will SERIOUSLY hold you back. You need to go up at least two levels of quality to realize the potential of your drivers. Feel free to discuss this area in greater depth, as I can give you the sources for this stuff. Good luck!

Focal's are very good indeed, you can check with www.Zalytron.com out of Long Island N.Y. or Solen Electronics in Canada.(you'd have to do a name search for them). One other site is www.orcadesign.com which is a large Focal dealer and U.S. designer of great speaker kits based on focal drivers. I have had great success with their raw drivers in biulding some home-brew speakers that turned out very , very nice. Bass was extremely tight and musical at a reasonable cost.Good Luck!!!!!Bruce

I have 4 Dynaudio 12" drivers that were for Duntech 2001 Soveriegns. These retail for $2,200 plus shipping. I would suggest these are a correct match for your other Dynaudio dirvers. Let me know if you are interested in the ones I have. These are about 1 year old.

Bro. Ray I have heard good reviews of the 12" driver used in NHT's 3.3 I can't think of the manufacturers name, but I'm certain that it wouldn't be difficult to find. Its my understanding that these woofers offer quite good performance esp. considering the cost.