If you're in a receptive state, I'll recapitulate...(remember that line?)

Above, you can see all the extra red of the RS180 when driven with 5 tones. The drive level is adjusted so the spl is 79dB at 0.25m. Again, this just seems like an aberrancy given all the other data. So, let's try a a similar 4 and 3 tone test. The assumption is that the extreme excursion of the 20 and 28 Hz tones is the problem.

I dropped the 20 Hz, then the 20 Hz and 28 Hz tones. The difference persists, though it's improved. Hard to draw a dramatic conclusion. Let's try lowering the drive level until the RS180 equals the Peerless. I'll just skip all the intermediate graphs and jump to the final graph below.

NOTE IN THIS GRAPH the RS is in BLACK, unlike above. You can tell because the RS always has that slightly "noisy" spectrum, from it's cone breakup. Cross low and fast...

Now the Peerless is a little worse. But, the drive level of the peerless is 80.4dB, while the drive level of the RS180 is 79dB. Basically, there is just over 1 dB of headroom in the Peerless.

So, what does this all mean?

Going back to the first page, in general, the RS180 has lower second order products in virtually all the tests. And again, in general, second order products come from asymmetry in the motor field. But, the RS180 doesn't do any better, in fact, does marginally worse on the third order products. Third order products again, in general, are predominantly influence by symmetric motor field irregularities. So the take home message is that the effective xmax of the Peerless is marginally better than that of the Dayton, although the Dayton seems to have symmetric motor field when operating within it's xmax.

Now, there's a lot of generalities in that paragraph, so take it with a grain of salt.

Blah, blah, "which is better?" Now that's a tougher call. I used to think the RS180 was the clear winner in terms of low end distortion. Now it's less clear. Either Peerless needs to make my life easier by having a more symmetric motor field, or PE needs to eek out a bit more xmax out of their RS motor. I think I'd still give an edge to Dayton, but only because you can by two for the price of one Peerless. Two RS180's would outperform one Peerless. Is that a fair comparison? Well, it depends what your needs are, and whether you're talking speakers or dollars...

Either way, they turned out to be closer than I originally thought.

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On to Page 3 of the comparison