Well I stopped by the local "best of the retail crap" as I call it store today to snoop around a little and was pretty surprised to see that they are now carrying Diamond gear. No amps or subs in stock yet, but they did have the D9 (D971) components. So I was like hey, lets give these a sample why don't we.
First of all they have a powered passive over //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif which is humongo!! No idea how you could get that in any door. I was nice though as it had flip switches for tweeter attenuation, phase, and one other thing I can't remember.
The mids a built like tanks from what i could see. They had this odd shaped grill thing that sits out like 1/4" from the front of the mid. Not sure what the hell that was all about becuse it's not pictured on their website at all:
http://www.diamondaudio.com/products/dsp_PopUpImages.cfm?id=4&imageID=109
This set featured an aluminum dome tweet. Not sure if a silky is option on them or not.
The retail price on them was like $1300 or so. I'll save my comments on this once I review the sound //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
I brought my trusty Brothers In Arms disk in with me for a little critical listening. The speakers were being powered by a Rockford Power 4 channel...the 800.4 maybe....so I assumed they were getting at least 50 watts rms. The first deck I tried was an Alpine 9857. Not too bad with this combo...the music was lively and somewhat accurate. Then I switched to their top of the line Kenwood they had (don't remember the # on it....889 possibly??) and the SQ improved quite nicely. The imaging was way better and in all it sounded more natural....more like my Eclipse...but not really THAT good hehehehe. And then for fun I tried their top of the line Sony deck and then almost puked! I got my CD out of that **** thing faster than it went in!!
Anyways, overall I thought the D9's sounded pretty good, but a little on the cold side...until I turned up the volume and then it was ALL tweet....bad tweet...harsh tweet. Now, I don't know if there was some type of preset eq setting on the Kenwood or where the HP x-over was set at because I couldn't figure it out. But I did manage to set the Alpine deck to flat and the HP to 80hz. And even with Money For Nothing cranked on the Alpine the sound really broke up badly. Yea, yea I know it was on a soundboard being underpowered...but still $1300 for THESE speakers was my most recurrent thought. Holy average was my second most recurrent thought. But again....for all you Diamond lovers....it WAS a soundboard....so save the flames. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
I hope I'm wrong about them and they are better than average because for $1300+ we're beyond Polk SR, Boston Z and heading toward Rainbow Platinum territory. So if someone has some more usfull imput on these speak up because this might be the most overpriced comp set out there!!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif Which, unfortunately for Diamond seems to be the norm - the overpriced nature of their D9 series stuff [think amplifiers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif]
For fun I switched back and forth between the D9's and the Type X's and I have to admit I did like the D9's better - more open, dynamic sound....although I think the Type X's just **** *** in general anyway. And now that I mention it, the 9857 sucked *** too - friggin flying saucers and shit all over the screen. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif
