View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.car
MOSFET MOSFET is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 810
Default Identifying MB Quart models

Oh sure, the Alpine Class R seperates I bought were $199 at Best Buy. I
unfortunately fried one of the tweeters in the Alpine set which is
completely my fault and I should have been more careful. You see, I don't
use passive X-overs in my system at all (including the ones seperates come
with) and my front's are bi-amped. I use a Coustic XM-3 crossover for my
mid-bass and tweets as they can high-pass a signal up to 6,000Hz at 12 dB
per octive. The crossover resides under my passenger seat and the
multiplier switch (1X or 20X) accidentally (a foot kicked it) got knocked
back to the 1X position so instead of a high-pass of 3,000Hz for the
tweeters, they were high-passed at only 150Hz, VERY BAD FOR TWEETERS as I
have them driven by a sweet sounding, but powerful 50 watt per channel RMS
vintage Phoenix Gold amp and there was nothing to tip me off that this had
occured until one blew. I've taken steps to ensure this never happens
again, BTW. And just for the record, my midbass drivers are driven by a
VERY underated vintage (1997) Rockford Fosgate Punch 225.2 (112.5 X 2 RMS,
550 watts RMS bridged), they don't number them this way anymore, BTW, I
believe they are numbered bassed on their max power, not RMS as they used to
be. It's a great amp and I would never part with it. It was built back in
the day when Rockford Fosgate amps were bullet-proof.

Anyhoo, so I find myself back in the tweeter market and I listened to a
whole bunch and finally decided on the Infinity Kappa 10.9's which I bought
new on Ebay for $70. I really like them alot and I can honestly say I
really don't hear a difference between the Alpine's and the Infinity's.
That was NOT the case, however, for a set of Infinity Refference series I
was using as a band-aid until I put in whatever new tweets I was going to
use. The Infinity Refference Series (bought new and cheap on Ebay some
years ago) has a very noticable tendancy to smear (that's the best word
because it's not clipping or distortion) the high's at high volumes. If you
never listened to your music loud, I can imagine the Refference series
suiting many people just fine, I mean they sounded great at low to moderate
volume levels. But I like my music loud and the Refference Series just
didn't cut it. The Kappa's, on the other hand, can take anything I dish out
(of course, as long as the crossover setting is correctly set which it is
currently set at 3500Hz, factory recomendation).

Anyway, that's why I have a mixed set for my front stage. I am always on
the lookout for someone selling a single Class R tweeter as I would get it
as a back-up set of tweets as the Class R tweets sounded outstanding before
I blew one. But honestly, if I had one magically fall into my hands I
wouldn't take out my Kappa's, I really like them.

Anyway, to sum up, I found that this Alpine $199 Class R seperate set to be
vastly superior to my old MB Quarts which cost more than twice as much. The
midbass drivers on the Alpine's can pump out SIGNIFICANTLY more clean,
punchy midbass. In fact, it really is quite amazing how much midbass I can
get out of those. I can turn my subs off and most passengers would not
realize I had done that as the Alpine's can dish out so much bass in the
60-80Hz region. The difference is really quite stricking and I remember the
MB Quart's limits well.

Also, and perhaps this is a bias on my part, I just don't like metal dome
tweets. True, they sound incredible on the showroom floor and their
frequency response usually surpasses soft-dome tweets (I think my MB Quart's
could play up to 32kHz or something like that). But I have found with EVERY
pair of metal dome tweets I have ever owned (Boston Pro when they used
titanium and MB Quart even though they were touting a new type of surround
they had just introduced that mine had that was supposed to soften the
sound) that my ears become fatigued after about 20 minutes or so. I like my
treble more laid back and I have found that soft-dome tweets are more
pleasing to my ears. Now this is just a personal thing and I'm sure other
people like their treble more "razor-sharp" and "upfront".

I have found this true of home speakers as well. I ALWAYS tend to prefer
those speakers with soft-dome tweeters.

Now some smart-ass is going to read this and say, wait a sec, the Infinity
Kappa's aren't soft-dome, they're a composite ceramic. And they would be
right! But to me they SOUND like soft-dome tweets with the laid-back
quality I like.

Anyway, that's proably more info than you wanted but that's the story.

MOSFET

"James" no wrote in message
...
MOSFET, I am just a bystander , reading this with interest. I have a
question about this comment in your recent post:

-----------------------------------------------------
I CURRENTLY use a set of Alpine Class
R 6.5" midbass drivers and a set of new Infinity Kappa tweeters for my
front-stage (I have used many different seperates over the years including
Infinity, Boston Accoustics Pro, Alpine, JL, MB Quart and others) and the
speakers I have now absolutely BLOW AWAY the $550 MB Quart Refference Pro
drivers I bought in 1999.

---------------------------------------------------
You compare your Alpines and Infinity spkrs with a $550 MB Quart, but you
don't state the cost of your Alpines and Infinities. It would be
interesting to see
the cost comparison as well....

Thanks !!

James