I want to upgrade my front 6.5" Kenwoods to something with more bass and color (sound color :0). If someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

-Kaleb

 

Mids. I must say I like these better than the MB Quartz or the Boston Pros. These speakers have a "in your face" sound detail and excellent staging. Most of people who get in my car are blown away by how deep the staging is. One of my friend actually thought that I had speakers hidden in the A pillars and the Dash. You might want to get a seperate Amp for these to get the most sound.

 

I had some Infinity Kappas a few years ago, and they were great on lower power.. slightly louder than my MB Quart 6.5", and had noticeably more bass.

You can also find some FOCAL seperates for pretty good money.. Last time I checked, zalytron.com still had some 6.5" components for $99. go to their site and look at their "car audio sale" link.. it has some there I think.

They're not as good as the ones I've got in my car, but then again they don't cost $450/set either.

 

If you want decent mid bass don't go with MB Quarts. I made the mistake of putting them in my car without a subwoofer and there was little to no bass whatsoever with 50W powering them. They are good speakers for an all around system, but unless you are planning on adding some bass elsewhere I would stay away from them.

I have heard really good things about Diamond Audio though, and I really like the ID Chamelian line, although I haven't heard them in an actual car without anything so I can't vouch for them.

 

heheh BTW, my Focal 6.5" mids get 200W RMS each and my tweeters get 50W each..
beat that.

 

DYNAUDIO
150 watts RMS for the 2 way, 200 RMS for the 3 way,( but you need quite a bit of room for the 3" dome midrange. No harshness, perfect midrange, and bass? My 2 ways are crossed over at 65 hz and run with 75 rms. But they do cost...$760 retail. IMO the only reason MB wins more at sound off's is because they are easier to find. Just about every town that has car audio stores has one that sells MB's. I like them. I have a pair in my wifes Kia. But for the money and sound quality, you cannot beat Dynaudio. Remember, at one point I say a list of which maker won more competitions, and Dynaudio was 2nd. I have nothing but respect for Focal especially if you can get them for $99!!!, but I prefered the Dyna's with the amps I chose. Just work together better to me.

[Edited by Whitemax on 10-18-2000 at 12:18 PM]

 

Hmm, so who's first on that list of IASCA winners now??

Last time I checked, MB Quart was dropping like a rock and Dynaudio and FOCAL were the top two..


My focals don't NEED 200wRMs.. they're rated at like 75 or 100.. I dunno.. all I do know is that they're loud enough to clearly hear from far enough away to attract cops in the next town.

They sound great with just a few watts, they sound even better with 20-30, and start to lose a little when you crank 'em way up.. That's mainly because of the enclosures though.

I stuck my 6.5" mids in some bookshelf speakers with about 1/2 cu ft ported.. I can run them down to 40hz with full power, and all they do is kick the crap out of you. Kickdrums are absolutely awesome. Can't wait until I get my fiberglass door pods done and I can see what they sound like "correctly" installed in my car.

 

Don't forget CD Technologies, they're pretty kickass especially for the price.

 

They are very nice for the price. Like I said matt, it has been a while since I've seen the stats..... 40 hz is sweet, I still have mine in the factory mounts, I hope to build a sealed enclosure in the door panel in the next few months....

 

I must admit my diamonds do sound better than anything else I have ever heard in an automobile. But the power you guys are talking about is completely ridiculous. The only driver that has a voice coil which can take more than 75RMS in a mid is the Dynaudio. Purely physics. A bigger, higher quality coil can take more power. Those of you who think your Diamond's, MB's, BA's, Polks, or whatever can take 100, 200, 250 WRMS just stop by my place and we'll hook them up full range with some real power.

 

I think some competitions can handle 125W RMS fine. I didn't feel any need to go higher than 50W RMS, and I didn't want to fry the speakers as I wanted PPI amps and the next amp avail was 4x100W (I wanted 4 channel). I think my MB are rated at 90W RMS though. . .

And I must say that my MB are a little metallic with cymbals and stuff like that. It is typically older music though where I hear it more frequently. It will get annoying though if you have it turned up loud, but the music I listen to normally doesn't have that extra stuff. If I had to do it again, I would probably go with Diamond if I had the money.

 

My roomate is running the top of the line JL 6.5 coaxes with 60 watts rms in the doors of his Saturn and they sound sweet as hell.

 

First of all who cares which speaker can handle more power? We're talking about little 6.5"mids not 21" Cerwin VEga Subs. I had my Diamond Audio mids running with 75W RMS and it was loud and clean. My ears prob start bleeding before the dam thing start to distort. One thing I like about DA mids is that it sounds better as it gets louder. It has low fatigue factor compared to MB's. I couldn't listen to those for more than 5 mins at 3/4 volume. The reason why they do well in competition is that they respond well to EQs. If you want MB Quartz you need a real nice EQ.

 

Doug, the voice coil is not kevlar. The cones are a kevlar/nomex core/kevlar sandwich. I am not denying that they are great drivers. I am only pointing out that even great drivers will distort when you push them beyond their limits. I have spent thousands on Diamond drivers alone since I first started using them over three years ago and I wouldn't keep buying them if they weren't great sounding speakers. But trust me when I say that I can make them distort with less than 100 watts RMS 'clean' power. If you want to smell pure kevlar I have several linear yards in my garage and you can please yourself all you want. By the way, my kick panels are a kevlar composite.

 

They can only handle 130 watts RMS.... How much can the DA's handle? I have had both my amps bridged running 150 to each speaker, and had no probs, running about 85% volume...
Oh, speaking of voice coils.. CAN YOU SAY 3" !!!!!

[Edited by Whitemax on 10-20-2000 at 07:44 AM]

 

Nah, I had mine first powered by an Xtant 202A at 50wRMS. Sounded ok. Then I tried a 302A @ 75 RMS. Better. But when I hooked the 2200ix up to them (underrated 100w RMS) they sounded much much much better. Amazing you might say. They can handle it. Distortion is bad, but you can't put a power rating on distortion. I've not met many speakers that couldn't handle more than their power rating, underpowering is where you really get into speaker killing territory.

 

Not RMS.

 

I thought you were meaning that they could handle 20-170 RMS. My bad.....

 

Matt,

recommend a good 4 channel amp to power cdt 642 comps (rms 150 watts) the other 2 channels will power a separate sets of tweets....thnks

 

wow this is an old thread, i haven't seen matt post anything in this forum yet during the year or so that i've been on the org. i guess you can try pm him and mention this thread.