JL "critical mass" coax's?

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Sorry about the jackass comment, it was early when I posted that. Yeah, I realize they're not JL's. Remind me again... what was your point? I'd never heard of critical mass, so shoot me.

Still a little angry I see. That's okay, I understand actually. I guess it doesn't seem odd to you to be shopping for such expensive speakers you seem to know nothing about. I guess Im just wondering what made you pick those particular speakers out to ask us about.
We really dont know what your goals are, other than to fit factory Mustang holes. Give us as much info as possible.

edit: I just re-read, are you asking about these for rear fill? $600 coaxes for real fill? Id honestly skip the rear speakers, especially in a mustang. If you do get rears, you certainly dont need any that extravagant or expensive. But its your money.

 

[Rubrignitz 10+ year member]

Nah, I'm over it. I was actually doing a search for some other parts for the car last night when I ran across the critical mass 5x7's on the bay. Since quality speakers are so difficult to find in that size and the ad said "Best Coaxial Ever" - Car Audio magazine it perked my interest so I thought I'd see what you guys had to say about em'. It may sound silly to spend that kind of dough on rear fill but my front sets are such high quality I feel like replacing the BA SL80's in the rear with something better may be worth it???. I don't know, I'm no expert. That's why I asked. After researching the critical mass line more fully I'm seeing that not a lot of people have good things to say about them (the coax's at least).

 

[MrDave 10+ year member]

Someone I knew had a set of those. They got pretty loud, but really not worth the cost.

If you want some rear fill, get something like the Rainbow SL Sound Line. Tweeter mounted on the woofer, internal crossover, and cheap at around $250.

 

[Rubrignitz 10+ year member]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out those Rainbows. The MT-22's in the morel set are sooooo smooth and the (?) tweeters in the SL80's are really bright. I prefer smoother hi's and full-range rear fill....that's why I'd like to replace them.

So I guess a better question, now that I've been hammered for posting drivers that I'm unfamiliar with and really expensive.... although I would be happy to pay ~$500 for some smooth, quality rear fill, is:

What rear speakers in 5x7'' size (plates or coax's) would give me the same smooth high frequency/roll of the Hybrid Ovation front sets? I just don't think they're that great of a match with the BA SL80's, IMO.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Nah, I'm over it. I was actually doing a search for some other parts for the car last night when I ran across the critical mass 5x7's on the bay. Since quality speakers are so difficult to find in that size and the ad said "Best Coaxial Ever" - Car Audio magazine it perked my interest so I thought I'd see what you guys had to say about em'. It may sound silly to spend that kind of dough on rear fill but my front sets are such high quality I feel like replacing the BA SL80's in the rear with something better may be worth it???. I don't know, I'm no expert. That's why I asked. After researching the critical mass line more fully I'm seeing that not a lot of people have good things to say about them (the coax's at least).

Improper rear-fill will detract attention away from your nice front stage. That is what you want to avoid. Rear-fill should simply fill the void in the rear of your car that your fronts apparently aren't handling well (due to various reasons).
Mainly two things will shift attention rearward and away from your front stage... rear output level and frequency response. Obviously the rears need to be atenuated down some so their output level is lower than the fronts, so as to not pull your attention to the rear. They should never compete with the front stage.

The other, frequency response, is based on the idea that different frequencies are easier or harder for your ears to discern their source location. The lower the frequency, the less 'localizable' it is, in general. For this reason, proper rear-fill will be bandpassed, meaning the lower most and upper most frequencies will be filtered out and not played through the rears. 500hz-5khz is a rule of thumb for rear fill, but that is install/environment dependent.

In other words, the rear-fill speakers do not need nor want tweeters. And they dont have to be anything spectacular because they wont be playing loud. Just some decent mids bandpassed and atenuated as I described above.

Cheers.

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

I wouldnt get them because oval speakers emit oval waves which can cause high distortion and transient flex.

 

[AVSTANG02]

I have critical mass in my pants.

 

[Rubrignitz 10+ year member]

So I should never need to hear/approximate >5khz from the rear in the ideal situation? I prefer a balanced sound over pure front stage. And wouldn't I want the same quality rear as front?

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

So I should never need to hear/approximate >5khz from the rear in the ideal situation? I prefer a balanced sound over pure front stage.

Do what your ears like.

 

[soloXgt 10+ year member]

I wouldnt get them because oval speakers emit oval waves which can cause high distortion and transient flex.

troof

 

[Rubrignitz 10+ year member]

Exactly and in that case I'm looking for some nice smooth rear fill. I mentioned that but I'm getting the point. I may just have someone build me a rear plate setup with Morel Ovations with the high's mounted on the rear glass lol/

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

So I should never need to hear/approximate >5khz from the rear in the ideal situation? I prefer a balanced sound over pure front stage. And wouldn't I want the same quality rear as front?

The music you play is recorded in stereo, no rear channels. A true rear-fill, or ideally a front stage that properly immerses you in the sound and renders rear speakers obsolete, would be what I would call a 'balanced' sound. I call rear mounted tweeter setups 'night-club surround-sound'.
I dont mean to sound petty, I agree set your system up what ever way you think you will prefer. But people just putting any speaker system in the rear and calling it 'rear fill' is one of my pet peeves... much like people installing subs to accompany their stock speakers and call it 'SQL'. *shrug* No offense meant.

 

[Rubrignitz 10+ year member]

I understand why you guys are laughing. In a perfect world all mid/bass sound would come from front stage while only sub-bass frequencies from rear but that's not the case in my "semi-sedan" car.

With major money being spent to completely seal my doors that would be feasible. Has anyone suggested that yet?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[bass_lover1 10+ year member]

This really has nothing to do with the OP, but....

JL is clearly over priced, but somehow CM is a good idea? WTF are half of you smoking. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif