Speaker questions from the annoying newbie....

[Kschultz76]

Hi it is me again, the newbie. I honestly do know many of the basics of car audio folks, but have now decided to dive deeper into car audio again and invest another bunch of money in the Granpa mobile, my 97 olds cutlass supreme.....yoohooo. So now I'm concerned about the details of it that I never explored in the past.

So here's the story, I'm getting a new 4 channel and new full range speakers for front and rear of my car. Previously I've had 4 full range speakers run by my head unit, and an amp driven sub. I've pretty much settled on 3 amps, my fiance gets to choose which one I get cause she's getting it for xmas for me. I'm getting a set of Polk EX3550 5.25" components for my front doors, hope I made a good choice there. Price was the motivator, 120 bucks at crutchfield. Now I'm trying to choose a set of 6x9's for my rear deck to match the EX3550's in the front door. I am replacing a set of 3way alpines that won't hold up to being amped since they are 30 watts RMS, 100 watts peak. I am going to have an amp between 70-85 watts RMS, either Rockford Fosgate or Hifonics. So what of the following 3 6x9's from polk would be best suited considering a budget of $200:

EX 369's
db690's
MMC 690's

I have plenty of room in rear deck for mounting any of them, and am looking for great SQ that will match well with the components in front. I am using a Kenwood KDC MP8017 cd receiver head unit. Keep in mind I have a 12" blaupunkt sub(6 yrs old) being pushed by 200 watt rms amp.

One last question: How do I interperet frequency response ratings and efficency ratings?

Thanks once again for your input.

Kevin

[Kschultz76]

As a side note, I found the EX369's on sale at an authorized Polk dealer site for 99 bucks, the db690's are 149, and MOMO 690's are 199.

K

[PoweredByDodge]

ok -- well... i've got a pair of ex III 6x9's in my grandfather's cadillac...

we had put some mb quart speakers in there (3.5 in front / 6x9 in back) and i blew the **** out of the quarts which were rated at 60 rms with a 50 watt Xtant amp -- now Xtant is not garbage by any stretch fo the imagination, so to be blunt, Quart is a pile of dog shizzle.

anwyay -- i got a set of EX III 6x9's and have been pleased VERY VERY much. they're clearer - crisper, warmer, and give much more life to the music. they are a hell of a speaker for being mid priced, and i love them.

The dB's are new, and prolly even a little better, but for 99 bucks, hell you can't steal good speakers for that price!!!

in the back it's not going to make much difference since you've got a component set up front -- in the caddy it was different, with only piddily **** 3.5" up front we had to have something GOOD in back. i wish they made a polk 3.5" cuz then i could get rid of these goddamn quarts in front -- they're nto aweful, but they could be better... anyway...

ya -- i'd do the EXIII 6x9's at 99 bones and call it a day.


and as far as how to interpret frequency response -- its the sounds the speaker can play before losing about 30% of its "loudness" ... if it's got a falloff of 40 hertz to 20k hertz... then it'll play about 40 to 20 at the same volume... anything above or below that it will either play much quieter or not at all.

for a coaxial / component speaker you will want something like 40 or 60 up to 20 or 25 k hertz.

for a sub... 20 (preferably - but sometimes they only go down to 30 or 35) to 100 - 120. you'll actually cross the sub over at like 80 or 90 so it only plays 20 to 80 or 90, but u want that type of quality of construction.

same goes for the coax/comps -- u wont play them down to 40 or 60 -- you'll cross themover at like 70 / 80/ 90 / or 100.... but u want them to be of good enough quality to play the notes you choose for them well.

efficiency is basicaly loudness... if i put 10 watts on speaker A with efficiency of 85 db's... it will not be as loud as speaker B with 10 watts and 90 db's efficiency. however this is not the end of the world... most GOOD speakers are not nearly as high efficiency as others are. low power speakers tend to be more efficient than high power ones.... and spekaers with larger cones (like a 15" sub versus a 10 " sub -- or a 6x9" versus a 5.25" ) will have higher efficiencies than their smaller counterparts.

[Kschultz76]

WOW.....thanks for all the input PoweredByDodge. Very very helpful. You made frequency and efficiency easier to understand for sure.

It is awesome to hear from someone who'd actually experienced the EXIII 6x9's, I read all the reviews for them on Polks website, and they were all stunning. Yours just helped even more. Now I have to try and get my money conscience to overpower my desire for the biggest baddest best thing and buy the EX3's and not the MOMO's......hehe.

For the money were the EX3550's a good choice for components? Not that it matters now, but I think I made an educated buying decision.

Thanks again.

[PoweredByDodge]

well-- i'm the cheapest SOB on earth and I buy just about everything on huge sales from sounddomain or from ebay (new in box of course)...

but -- in all honesty -- retail value of the ex III 5 1/4 is like 250 maybe more.

ebay value is something like 160 - 185 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY - since ebay isn't an authorized dealer... so for the 120 u shelled out, you got a darned good deal - and a warranty.

barring the GNX / GXR line of speakers from polk, i've really never had anything bad to say about any polk speaker -- there are differences in the lines, as we've discussed, but the good polk stuff (EX II / EX III / original db / db junior / momo / baby momo / dx) are never cheap... so dont sweat teh 120 :)

[Kschultz76]

Ordered the EXIII 6x9's today from Crutchfield for $99........YOOHOOO, now I just have to wait until xmas for my fiance to give me my new amp and the fun begins. Sales person over the phone for crutchfield was also very entuhusiastic about the quality of the EXIII's, even so far as to say that he thought the EXIII was a better speaker, and better sounding speaker then the db690!! He is disappointed to have seen polk discontinue the line.

Thanks again for all your input and advice.....I'll let you know how it all sounds once I install everything.

-Kevin