Hertz HSK 165.4 Quick Review

[Accordguyintake 10+ year member]

Heard it on a soundboard so not sure how it'll sound in an actual car. Initial thought was WOW... these sound very rich and realistic. After about 5 minutes of listening i concluded that they are very good besides being a little TOO rich in the vocals. But an EQ could smooth that out. I heard Focal Polyglass speakers first followed by the 165's, then Morel Tempos and some random DLS. Granted they were on different soundboards, i'm pretty sure the store wasn't trying to make the Hertz sound better on purpose.

All the other speakers sounded just like speakers, they didnt grab me and throw me into the music at all. The focals almost did but just lacked the incredible depth that the Hertz had. Morel Tempos were pretty much a joke and so were the low end DLSs... Granted they aren't in the same price range as the Focals or Hertz i was still VERY surprised of how ordinary and dull they sounded... Almost like hearing a boombox. So to conclude... i fell in love with the HSKs.. i must have some. lol //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/present.gif.046205b11bb0957af93450bd4cc53e1b.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/inlove.gif.6846f78f06b405429ef3a00129788a2a.gif

update: Listened to the Focals and Hertz again today to make my decision. Hertz for sure. The focal display had the speakers toed in and the hertz were oddly toed out just a little, this made it hard to imagine how it would sound in my car and even how it would compare to each other but i pretty much figured it out. The Polyglass sound is very open and spacious but it doesn't have much depth or realism to the sound. On songs with lots of instruments, the speakers seemed to struggle on reproducing each sound faithfully and cleanly... It kind of got "cluttered up" with sounds.

The hertz definitely presents the music in a more intimate, yet laid-back manner and is VERY smooth. The tweeters sound so delicate and sweet, it's very pleasing to the ear. the mids reproduce all the music with precision and sincerity. Honestly i cant praise the sound enough. They are nice indeed. Getting them put in on monday so i'll update in a week or 2 once they break in

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[Alpine4life89 10+ year member]

Nevermind, just saw it in your post.

 

[UpGradde 10+ year member]

Sounds about right...glad you like them, I know I do!

 

[Accordguyintake 10+ year member]

how do u like it with the pioneer? ironically i have the P4100! haha

 

[slconde 10+ year member]

just to add to the topic,

today i installed my hertz hsk 165 comp. system for my frontstage. the woofer is on the bottom of the door and the tweeter is near the corner of the window. before this i had 6x9 infiniti kappa components. i moved the 6x9s to the rear. i have my eq set to flat with about +2 on the lows btw .anyhow, i must say that they sound great. when ppl on the forums give reviews about tweeters and say they have a natural sound, i used to be like, wtf does that mean? now i know and thats how it sounds, natural. not harsh but nice and clean to the ear. it blends perfectly with the woofer as the sounds were coming from one central location where as the lows from the bottom and highs from up high. the mid bass is very good.t he woofer hits pretty hard too w/o sounding muddy. i thought to myself, with 1-10 or 12 sub sealed would make my system sound perfect as far as sq imo. but, i have my 15" btl on the way so i guess we'll see how they hold up then. but overall i am very satisfied with them and look forward to hearing them much more in the days to come.

 

[Accordguyintake 10+ year member]

i cant listen to them anymore... went to a home audio hi-fi shop and heard some Revel Studio or somethings.. wondered why these sounded 10x better than my speakers... well i came home, did some research, the speakers alone cost $13,000! sigh gotta get that sound outta my head so i can concentrate in tuning the HSKs //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

so far everything is pretty good, only issues i have is the harsh tweeters, they're detailed but quite harsh on the upper end. Mids are also pretty hidden, im going to call the shop and see if i could upgrade to the ht28 tweeters to hopefully smooth out the highs and also introduce more mids to the mix

 

[Accordguyintake 10+ year member]

after a day has gone by, my thoughts have finally settled and i finally got my ear to be in tune with the HSKs

EQ is dead flat besides a little reduction at the 200hz area to clear up the muddiness, tweeter is set @ -2db. For how little you pay, these speakers really deliver! They get so uncomfortably loud with no hint of distortion! The sounds they produce is pure and faithful. Though they do lack some midrange detail, the overall sound is very good and clear. I would not consider these speakers a top pick hi-fi speaker set. But honestly you're not paying to get that kind of sound. They are but a tiptoe into the world of high end music and present fresh and exciting sounds but not the whole picture just yet. They are **** close to being really good though... Perhaps if the tweeter could just sweeten up a tad and the mids open up a little more, then i'd truly have nothing to complain for.