I don't know if I told you guys or not... but I recently ordered a set of Clif Designs components. (QX6500C) I got them in and was initially impressed with the box. That was about as far as my 'good impression' went.

Clif Designs is NOT the same company that they used to be. (Circa 1992) There were parts missing from the box, wiring terminated with all male connectors, etc. The build quality was poor. The crossover PCB was not held down in the case, and could move inside the outer case.

If I had paid MSRP on these things, I'd have been pissed! I sent two e-mails to Clif for some answers. I got nothing in return. ZERO!

I got up with the company where I bought the speakers and they were cool about the whole thing. No restocking fees, no problems. I sent them back for a refund.

So now I am back to square one for new components.

Tonight I listened to Diamond Audio D971's, HEX S600's, D661S's, and some Infinity Perfect 6.1's.

The HEX S600's and 6.1's sounded very similar, with the S600's having just a bit more clarity. The D661S's sounded a bit more 'warm' if that makes sense. They were not as clear as the other two... but seemed to sound more 'full' in the vocal range. (I'm probably not describing it properly.)

The D971's were very good as well... but at $1,399 they are a little steep. (Found them on EBay for $497.99)

I have yet to listen to the Pioneer TS-C720PRS's but I hear nothing but great things about them. I have also heard Focals in the past, but unfortunately there aren't many places around OKC that are into high end audio... so I can't audition them.

Same goes for Morel, CDT, MB Quart...

I'm at a loss, guys. What is your opinion about the speakers I listed above vs. others I may have missed? I'm looking for something in the $200-300 range, but willing to go a little more $ if the clarity is just WOW.

I'm also shopping a new HU to replace my Sony. Looking at the Pioneer Premier DEH-P880PRS or DEH-P980BT as a replacement. I like the DSP, time alignment, and 16 band EQ functions that each have available.

The P880 can also run as a crossover by swapping from Sub/Front/Rear to Sub/low pass/high pass... might be interesting for bi-amping and time alignment of each driver.

The Alpines I played with just pissed me off. The menu functions were weird as hell... except for the one that was designed for the iPOD. That wasn't too bad... but no CD in-dash so WTF?

I'm all ears guys. Hit me back here or in a PM about what you have and why. I just want honest opinions, not "Brand-X is the best and kicks Brand-Y's azz!"

Thanks in advance.

Mark

 

If you are running the 880, I would bi amp and either do a set of the Pioneer 720 PRS for $250 from millionbuy.com or put together your own set using say a 7" Peerless mid and a Peerless HDS tweet for about $240. Check out solen.ca or timberlineaudio.com or madisound. If you run them active make sure you have some power to either of them(IE at least 50w RMS per driver), the 720's are less efficient but 4 ohms per driver, the peerless stuff is home derived and are 8 ohms per driver. Read this thread if you are concerned http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31

The other stuff I feel is too expensive for the performance. The OLD morel stuff is quite good, and most know how I feel about Focal, but it is hard to put something together that would compete for the $250 price range of the 720 set, hence the reason I grabbed my first pre-packaged set in years.


I am going to put my 720 set in the vette with about 70w per driver. Should be plenty but you never know. I am pulling the vette system and moving it into the truck since I DD it now.

G'luck
Fej

 

I thought clif design became cdt.

 

Exactly... I think the OLD Clif Designs became CDT, but guess who popped back up on radar somehow? Bastages.

They are advertising in CA&E and everything... but they can't be the same. How they can operate under that name is beyond me.

Mark

 

That's what I was thinking... if I run active, I can phase shift/adjust each signal independently. (And not worry about crossover phase issues, either.)

No concerns. I understand electrical theory so I follow you.

CA&E gave the Pioneer 720 set a killer review. Better than the Morel Ovation 6's which says a lot. I guess I haven't spent enough time here to get your opinion on Focals... so spill yer guts!

Also... I am not adverse to spending more $$ but I don't want to go overboard. $500 would probably be the high limit on components at this point... but that's pushing it.

Thanks for the input, bro. I owe ya one.

Mark

 

I am a big Focal fan .. specifically the Polykevlar line. I run 2 of their home derived 7" drivers for the midbass in the vette and really like them. I also like the utopia cones a lot, but at some point no matter what you do install or driver wise, the car is only so good as a stage for your music so I try and keep the expense somewhat in control
The polykevlar line is a more up front (but not in your face) sound to me. Dynaudio for example is much more laid back. Diamond d9's are very nice, and come with really nice crossovers, but I don't like their tweets much, and to me their midbass performance is lacking.

I really like the DLS Iridium line, specifically their 6.3 and 8.3 3 way set ups. Very smooth sound, but not too laid back. Very nice with jazz specifically .. lot of depth. I run the 3" dome midrange from that set myself now.

The rainbow line of speakers has really had a resurgence of late in the car audio world .. specifically the cal 25/27 tweets and the profi kick (great midbass driver, needs a very low lowpass point though). Sometimes you can find a very good price on their components which usually have the cal25 tweet in it.

Back to the price however, for the sound and performance the 720prs set is very hard to beat, the active Peerless set would be very good as well or maybe a Seas ca18rnx/Seas Neo tweet combo would be a very solid performer as well.

It all comes down to whether you want to just plug in the amp, plug in the drivers and the passives and be ready to go, or if you want to spend some time researching the charts on individual drivers and spend the time to tune it yourself, and obviously you can only do so if you have the gear that will let you.

All of the best gear in a shyt install doesn't mean much, take some time auditioning some locations once you pick your drivers as well to get the best performance that you can from your system. $5k components in factory locations is likely to get outperformed by $300 components in a great install.

Come over to diymobileaudio.com and read the review sections to give you a better idea .. damn near every popular car audio useable driver has been tested in the past few years .. but things like Seas, Peerless and Scan Speak (7" revelators + Scan tweet would be awesome, but cost you about $600) are always well regarded and solid performing.

Fej

 

... that was exactly what I was looking for.

I'll check them out for sure.

I'll probably go with the Pioneers based on your recommendation and what I have read about them, but it would be hella fun to come up with a 'custom' component setup.

Thanks again.

Mark

 

If you go with the Pioneers, IMO you really need to give them at least 100w RMS per side to get the true performance from them (through the passive crossovers). If you run them active 50w on the tweet is plenty, but you would want more like 75w or more per midbass. I will have 70w RMS per driver on mine in the new version of my vette system heh.

Fej

 

I'm currently running a Xtant 603 that's good for 75 per channel... but I have been thinking about getting a new 4 or 5 channel amp. I'd love to run my HCCA's in my Vette... but I'm afraid I just don't have the space without some serious custom work.

I stopped off at lunch and saw the new Alpine amps... damn those things are small! The place where I went was pretty 'proud' of them, too. Pretty expensive for what you get...

I took a look over at diymobileaudio.com. That's a great site... I'll have to sign up. Thanks for the link.

Mark

 

Woofersetc has the PDX amps for half price. There are other people that might sell them for even less.


Its their size that sold me on them.

Plus over 300 (330) watts a side for my front stage vs the 18-240 of most amps really sold me.

 

Let me know if you are interested in the PDX amps via PM

I am running them in the new system for the truck, 150w to the midbass and 150w to the midrange should be good

Fej

 

i'm in the same boat as you. thought i had decided on mb quarts, but am now looking at a seas combo or cdt's. too many choices! plus, i'm trying to use the 4.150 amp to power em and it seems like this amp may be too much for a lot of combo sets.

 

The 4.150 bridged to 300x2 seems to work very well for the Dynaudio sets.

The mid has 3" voice coil.

Lets put it this way, at 300x2, with my Dyns cranked on bass-heavy music, crossed at ~63hz 12db, I don't hear them bottoming out. :o

 

which set is this?

 

i dont want to hijack, but ill send you a pm.

 

Hijack all ya want, bro! Feel free to share here!

Mark

 

Sweeeeet!

Mark

 

You are correct about OKC not having much high-end audio! You mentioned Focal which Audio Midwest in Edmond, OK carries (They closed their Midwest City store, and still have one in Stillwater). Also, you may want to take a drive up to Tulsa or Down to Dallas where there are several higher-end stores. In Tulsa, I recommend Boomer's which used to carry Morel but have switched to Dynaudio as their upper-end speaker along with Zapco. And Audio Advice also carries Dynaudio and some other decent stuff as well.

Boomer's

Audio Advice