JVC CS XV620 6.5" coaxials

[Scarenius 10+ year member]

JVC

CS-XV620 6.5" coaxials

Cardomain.com ~ $45 shipped

IN A NUTSHELL: Average Speakers with real potential

PRICE: I bought these as a Christmas gift. $45 at cardomain.com, shipped. This is a very good price for a pair of speakers. No doubt I could find cheaper coaxials, though. 4/5

SOUND: Surprisingly good. Curiously bad. Install dependant. These were an upgrade to a stock install, and wow. They play loud, and they're distinct. I'm currently cranking my system for all it's worth, my PC putting out all the volume it can at a flat response. The speaker peaks right around the area of guitars, pianos, and vocals, playing In Flames, Lacuna Coil, Saul Bottcher, The Gathering, and other bands. These things are heavily dependant on imaging. Pointing up, they sound horrible, the frequency peaks at vocals, and drops sharply going up or down. Pointed at me, it's a night and day difference. Stock speaker locations should give a decent frequency curve. 3/5

POWER HANDLING - 150 watts max, the RMS isn't even given. Yay. These handle clipping fairly well, not good enough to crank gains. Being underpowered, they play, not much more than that. The quality could use a little work. The woofer cone's excursion limits hardly hold a candle to my 2 inch mids. 3/5

COSMETICS AND IMAGING: Awesome looking. Just wow, it's bronze, shiny, very simple, very clean. The grills look awful. If you're making them visible, lose the grills and people will go "Wow, neat looking speakers" 4/5 speakers 2/5 grills.

OVERALL: If you're gonna do it, do it right. You'll save some money over more expensive brands with these. If you're just drop these into a factory location that points at a window or something, get something else. They're average, nothing more, nothing less.

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[Scarenius 10+ year member]

I guess I should follow up with this.

This review was written with these coaxials in my room. As such, to me it is a fitting review for those wanting to put these in your room. They are not designed for this, they're designed for use in a vehice replacing stock speakers. Plug and play. This is my review of them in a plug and play environment.

I had a second opportunity to listen to this set, placed where they should be, powered by what they should be powered with.

I took this photo of them in my brother's F150. They are powered by a Pioneer DEH 1400. This was during a 45 minute trip. I listened to 2 CDs, Shinedown and In Flames.

My first impression was how amazing the midbass was in these. It shook the windows! Drum kicks were tight and natural, guitars shined nicely. After messing with his HU equalizer options, the vocals came out, and they were very impressive, too!

At low volumes, the kicks in drums start to fade, but once again, it's nice if you really want to listen to it that soft. Cranking the volume gives a telltale "honk and hiss", but after some more EQ playing, I was able to minimize this to being hardly noticable.

All in all, these speakers made a 45 minute drive very pleasant. I miss the way these speakers sound while driving around in my own car. For $45, you get an extremely nice set of coaxials that can nicely handle HU power. Just don't use them free air in your house.

IN A NUTSHELL: Bad for house, great for vehicle, best with a touch of EQ-ing.