SSA, Help me spend my xmas money!!!

[An-i-no 86]

Alright guys, I'm about to get a whole lot of xmas money with it being my last xmas at home (senior in high school) so I want a really nice front stage. They will be getting no less than 125wrms and mounted in the doors of my explorer with plenty of SDS,. I'll go as high as 400 bucks. I do have a pair of Pre-2008 Hertz HSK-165's in the box that I'll probably throw in the rear (i know, not fair.) and I'm currenty looking at the newest HSK-165's or RE Audio XXX components. I mainly just want you guys to throw some names out there so I can go do some research. Any hands on experience or reviews would be greatly appreciated. My subs will be 2 Sundown SA-12's ported LOW (27-28) getting 1200wrms so I want some mids that can play in the high 60's so that I can cross the subs lower. Tweet should be smooth and detailed. (Puts on flame suit)

Thanks in advance.

[emh9009 199]

ill help you spend your money, ill send you my pay pal addy

Check out Ascendant Audio's mids/tweets. Do a quick search and you'll find some info on them.

How do you plan to mount everything? what do you want to fab up? anything?

[helotaxi 46]

I don't know how much better you're going to do than the Hertz that you already have for the budget you have.

[Kanaworm$ 292]

Check to see what the SSA Store has for the Bravox components.

[An-i-no 86]

ill help you spend your money, ill send you my pay pal addy

Check out Ascendant Audio's mids/tweets. Do a quick search and you'll find some info on them.

How do you plan to mount everything? what do you want to fab up? anything?

I was hoping to mount everything in stock locations in the door using mdf mounting rings. My fab skills are slim to none as I have very little free time and tools. I will check AA out.

I don't know how much better you're going to do than the Hertz that you already have for the budget you have.

Hmmm...I did slightly figure that. But hey, I figure an upgrade is an upgrade. I already have my woofers picked out, the box plans modeled in RE's box calculator, headunit picked and installed and for the most part my amps picked. The front stage is the only real thing I know I'm willing to sink a few extra bucks into.

Check to see what the SSA Store has for the Bravox components.

I did, and the ones I saw didn't particularly catch my attention.

Thanks for the replies guys, keep em coming.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

The Ascendant pairing is excellent, the feedback on the Bravox Kevlars have been very positive too.

[Spanky33 0]

I did a search and I'm not coming up with a whole lot on the AA components. I also didn't see them on the AA site. Anybody have a link to some info and/or where to buy some?

[Sir-Lancelot 216]

Your going to have to run the AA's active and it does not sound like you have any experience with that.

Why not install the Hertz real proper like and call it a day? A good install is not going to be cheap and it's never a bad idea to have money left over so you can buy me something too. lol

[emh9009 199]

Your going to have to run the AA's active and it does not sound like you have any experience with that.

Why not install the Hertz real proper like and call it a day? A good install is not going to be cheap and it's never a bad idea to have money left over so you can buy me something too. lol

just put the hertz in and see how you like it, if it's not what you want then you can try something new. Could save a bit of money, get something else nice. like a battery or something. Heck i need just that, you could buy me a nice late present?

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Contact AA directly, the AA components are an excellent performance per dollar buy.

[An-i-no 86]

LOL sorry guys I had kinda abandoned the thread when I found THESE! So thanks everyone for their help, and unless I call AA and they want less than 219 for the entire Carbon set then I'll most likely go with the Imagines.

To anyone who is wondering, the reason I don't want to run the Hertz up front is because I did tons and tons of research on them and always came up with the same comments (Decent midbass, Tweeter is crossed too low and gets harsh, Updated set is 100x better) over and over and over and I didn't want to run into the same problems I had read about. Normally I would take my chances, but seeing people agree on something other than "Pure trash, they suck" or "awesome! so smooth and detailed!! etc." is not very common in this hobby and when it does happen I don't wanna take my chance on something as important as my front stage. Thanks though guys.

[brandonf 9]

LOL sorry guys I had kinda abandoned the thread when I found THESE! So thanks everyone for their help, and unless I call AA and they want less than 219 for the entire Carbon set then I'll most likely go with the Imagines.

To anyone who is wondering, the reason I don't want to run the Hertz up front is because I did tons and tons of research on them and always came up with the same comments (Decent midbass, Tweeter is crossed too low and gets harsh, Updated set is 100x better) over and over and over and I didn't want to run into the same problems I had read about. Normally I would take my chances, but seeing people agree on something other than "Pure trash, they suck" or "awesome! so smooth and detailed!! etc." is not very common in this hobby and when it does happen I don't wanna take my chance on something as important as my front stage. Thanks though guys.

Who cares what other people think about those speakers, how does it sound to you? What kind of amp you have on them, where are they installed?

[An-i-no 86]

LOL sorry guys I had kinda abandoned the thread when I found THESE! So thanks everyone for their help, and unless I call AA and they want less than 219 for the entire Carbon set then I'll most likely go with the Imagines.

To anyone who is wondering, the reason I don't want to run the Hertz up front is because I did tons and tons of research on them and always came up with the same comments (Decent midbass, Tweeter is crossed too low and gets harsh, Updated set is 100x better) over and over and over and I didn't want to run into the same problems I had read about. Normally I would take my chances, but seeing people agree on something other than "Pure trash, they suck" or "awesome! so smooth and detailed!! etc." is not very common in this hobby and when it does happen I don't wanna take my chance on something as important as my front stage. Thanks though guys.

Who cares what other people think about those speakers, how does it sound to you? What kind of amp you have on them, where are they installed?

Well they're still in the box, as I don't have an amp to give them a decent amount of power. And not to be an ass in any way, but not caring is sort of blind ignorance if you ask me...? Most of my intentions involved asking people for opinions on things I considered purchasing when I signed up for the forum so why would I ask for thoughts and advice and then ignore it...?

I could care less about brand names and prices because blanket statements get caught up in that. A lot of times I see "well they're Hertz, they were made in Italy! They're some of the best sound quality speakers you can get" but what does that really mean? That because of the name I should pay more money because they're "Some of the best?" Methinks not.

When I did further research about that particular set of speakers I kept reading about the xover point being too low for the tweeter resulting in harshness, which is a logical argument to me? Much more logical than top brand blanket statements. Hell, I'll be honest and say I've never even heard a decent set of comps and that I could instantly fall in love with the Hertz, but now that I'm aware of the problems with the set, why wouldn't I want something better?

EDIT: Damn man, that's gonna look like a straight up rant...hmmmm oh well.

Edited January 8, 2011 by An-i-no

[Shogen 325]

/rant... lol ... I'd vote for keeping the Hertz, although I have read a few good things about Hybrid Audio... Keep the HERTZ and install better with a nice amp....

[An-i-no 86]

I wish I could find the vid of the Imagines again. It was on photobucket. They played crazy strong and low like into the low 50's high 40's and I fell in love. I just want something that's smooth and that I can cross at 60-ish because my sub will be tuned so low. The Imagines are lookin to be that and more and just perfect for what I want. I'll will DEFINITELY do a review when I get my hands on them.

[Notorious97200 339]

You really should keep the Hertz. Install them correctly and if you don't like them, then get another set. But you don't need rear speakers.

that can make you save money for wires, batteries, or even a HO alt if you want, for future uogrades.

You may love the Hertz, try them first. Nothing to loose !!!

[helotaxi 46]

Low tuning on the sub doesn't mean that the sub won't play higher. The Le of the sub, not the tuning of the enclosure dictates high end roll-off. While it is a good goal to cross the front speakers as low as possible for point-source reasons, the difference between crossing them at 60 hz or 80 hz isn't catastrophic.

As far as the reviews on the Hertz comps, without knowing the specifics of the installs for each reviewer, it's impossible to properly weight their opinion. It could well be that they were over-driving the set. The harshness could be attributed to an on-axis listening position or poor choice of installation location causing glass reflections. Too many variables.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with those Imagine components, but if you're going to really upgrade, scrape together a little more $$ and get the Clarus set.

[An-i-no 86]

Low tuning on the sub doesn't mean that the sub won't play higher. The Le of the sub, not the tuning of the enclosure dictates high end roll-off. While it is a good goal to cross the front speakers as low as possible for point-source reasons, the difference between crossing them at 60 hz or 80 hz isn't catastrophic.

As far as the reviews on the Hertz comps, without knowing the specifics of the installs for each reviewer, it's impossible to properly weight their opinion. It could well be that they were over-driving the set. The harshness could be attributed to an on-axis listening position or poor choice of installation location causing glass reflections. Too many variables.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with those Imagine components, but if you're going to really upgrade, scrape together a little more $$ and get the Clarus set.

Someone explained it to me this way. When a sub is tuned low (or...not even) it will have the least excursion at it's tuning freq (hmmm...or was it resonant freq? one of the two), but it will aslo be at the highest impedance at that time. The sub will move most just above it's tuning freq and of course below it. HOWEVER, when a sub plays notes that are pretty high above it's tuning frequency, it won't move as much, AND the impedance that the amp sees won't be nearly as high as the tuning/resonant freq and heat will build up across the coil very quicky as the sub's cooling abilities have been cut off considerably. Granted, that could be total bs, but it makes sense in my head and makes me wanna cross my mids lower so I can cross my sub at 50.

This is the link that turned everything around for me. Just take a quick look.

And I understand what you mean about there being too many variables but the good usually said "Hertz quality, can't go wrong. Tweet can be a bit harsh but eq-able." All I see there is "harsh tweet, you need to fix it." The critical ones (because there weren't really any bad) said "Tweet is xover'd too low and is harsh sometimes." Did that scare me? No. The CONSISTENCY scared me. If people across a range of good and bad ears and installs agree on something, what is the lowest common denominator? Do I think the Hertz are a bad set of speakers? By no means? It's just that the general consensus is that there are better sets out now. They stopped MAKING them in 2008, and even then they were an aging set. My point is, I can do better!

Oh and Clarus prices give me nosebleeds maybe one day I will upgrade.

[helotaxi 46]

Someone explained it to me this way. When a sub is tuned low (or...not even) it will have the least excursion at it's tuning freq (hmmm...or was it resonant freq? one of the two), but it will aslo be at the highest impedance at that time. The sub will move most just above it's tuning freq and of course below it. HOWEVER, when a sub plays notes that are pretty high above it's tuning frequency, it won't move as much, AND the impedance that the amp sees won't be nearly as high as the tuning/resonant freq and heat will build up across the coil very quickly as the sub's cooling abilities have been cut off considerably. Granted, that could be total bs, but it makes sense in my head and makes me wanna cross my mids lower so I can cross my sub at 50.

That is mostly BS. The sub moves less in amplitude at higher freqs, that is true but its is moving faster because of the higher freq. Also, there is going to be less power applied there so power handling is largely irrelevant. As the coil heats up, not that it will appreciably because of a higher x-over freq, coil resistance and thus impedance is going to increase. Textbook power compression. Also because of the Le of the driver, it's natural impedance will rise with higher frequencies.

Real music at sane levels makes power handling moot. Crest factor alone means that you simply aren't going to approach the limits of the sub. Using power handling concerns as a justification for lowering the crossover freq is bordering on dumb. In your case you don't have enough power on tap to even be concerned. Realize that trying to cross your subs over at 50hz is going to cut output at 30hz as well and really kind of strangle the bottom end of the system. I might recommend trying to go a little higher with a steep slope.

And I understand what you mean about there being too many variables but the good usually said "Hertz quality, can't go wrong. Tweet can be a bit harsh but eq-able." All I see there is "harsh tweet, you need to fix it." The critical ones (because there weren't really any bad) said "Tweet is xover'd too low and is harsh sometimes." Did that scare me? No. The CONSISTENCY scared me. If people across a range of good and bad ears and installs agree on something, what is the lowest common denominator? Do I think the Hertz are a bad set of speakers? By no means? It's just that the general consensus is that there are better sets out now. They stopped MAKING them in 2008, and even then they were an aging set. My point is, I can do better!

Fair enough. I agree that you can do better, however...

Oh and Clarus prices give me nosebleeds maybe one day I will upgrade.

...you have to pay to play. Significantly better is going to cost you. You said that you have $400? Sell the Hertz set and use that money with your $400 to buy the Clarus.