Probably a hard vs thread, pro 60's vs cmx 265's

[theothermike 10+ year member]

Alright so i dont want something laid back, but i dont want something way to bright and harsh, soo i considered the cmx series from rainbows and the pro 60's from boston acoustics, both i hear are in the 300 range, both are slightly aggressive and get loud and produce fast mid bass while sounding great. Now i no there a lot of rainbow fanatics and theres a lot of boston fanatics in these forums, sooo ill be letting u no that these comps will be run off a arc audio, us amps, viper amps, or zapco amps. With aound 150 to the cmx's and 175 - 200 on the bostons. The amp that will be backing it up will be a si 12" mag d2 or 12" rl-s with around 1000 watts from same company of amps for comps.

So here is what i want the vs. categories to be done on

How good clarity is

How aggressive

How punchy and quick midbass is

How good crossovers are from adjustability stand point

How much power handling

How loud they can reach

How good hardware is that comes with the comp set.

Thx,

mike

Click to read more...

 

[IgnoreMe 5,000+ posts]

Boston Pro60

​

How good clarity is: so far its pretty darn good. speakers ive had experience with are alpine type r/s, cdt: cl-61, ef-61cfi, boston coaxials. my speakers before the bostons were the cfi's from cdt, and those were nice but the bostons just kill them and sound so much more "full" if you will.

How aggressive: how aggresive do you want..the bostons have a tweeter attenuation (sp?). 0db, -2db, -4db. so you can kinda customize it to a point. but they sound real good to me at 0db and even better at -2db, but i sometimes prefer more aggressive tweets (and sometimes not) so im diggin the 0db right now. but they are not fatiguing my ears at all yet.

How punchy and quick midbass is: they are in doors, with some sound deadening, but are still not optimally mounted, but with some good clean power, the mids kick pretty good, and are not muddy at all, to my ears.

How good crossovers are from adjustability stand point: with the bostons you can bi-amp the tweets and the mid's, and the tweet crossover also has the attenuation i talked about earlier...one con, seperatly the xovers arent too bad, but put together they can be quite big and cumbersome and a pain to fit in some places.

How much power handling: IMO can take 300 watts quite easily without any probslems. im sending mine 300 and they dont sweat it...didnt really believe the forum about the power handling on them, but decided to give it a try and low and behold...they were right. all i can say is i would NOT waste my time sending them their rated rms (125 watts)

How loud they can reach: pretty **** loud...with 250 or more watts will be able to EASILY keep up with 1 12" mag. hell my old cdt's with about 200 kept up with 2 15's. if your just runnin 1k watts total i probably wouldnt even send them more than 200 watts. just keep in mind, having the ability to send them much more power is always nice, so dont just limit yourself on power for the pro60s

How good hardware is that comes with the comp set. hardware is full and has most everything you need to get going. only gripe i have is the little allen head screws they give you. i found the allen bit they give you just mushes up the allen head in the screw makin it a ***** to get out...other than that its all good.

 

[theothermike 10+ year member]

wow, i sorry bout that review of what i was needing about bostons wants me to drop rainbows, but i wanna hear from a few more people, Only thing i see going for rainbows is dual midbass cause i might ad kick panels and run tweet and mid in kick panel and run 1 woofer in door

Mike

 

[theothermike 10+ year member]

nobody else has an opinion?

Mike

 

[WhoSayWho? 5,000+ posts]

Boston Pro60

​

How good clarity is: so far its pretty darn good. speakers ive had experience with are alpine type r/s, cdt: cl-61, ef-61cfi, boston coaxials. my speakers before the bostons were the cfi's from cdt, and those were nice but the bostons just kill them and sound so much more "full" if you will.

How aggressive: how aggresive do you want..the bostons have a tweeter attenuation (sp?). 0db, -2db, -4db. so you can kinda customize it to a point. but they sound real good to me at 0db and even better at -2db, but i sometimes prefer more aggressive tweets (and sometimes not) so im diggin the 0db right now. but they are not fatiguing my ears at all yet.

How punchy and quick midbass is: they are in doors, with some sound deadening, but are still not optimally mounted, but with some good clean power, the mids kick pretty good, and are not muddy at all, to my ears.

How good crossovers are from adjustability stand point: with the bostons you can bi-amp the tweets and the mid's, and the tweet crossover also has the attenuation i talked about earlier...one con, seperatly the xovers arent too bad, but put together they can be quite big and cumbersome and a pain to fit in some places.

How much power handling: IMO can take 300 watts quite easily without any probslems. im sending mine 300 and they dont sweat it...didnt really believe the forum about the power handling on them, but decided to give it a try and low and behold...they were right. all i can say is i would NOT waste my time sending them their rated rms (125 watts)

How loud they can reach: pretty **** loud...with 250 or more watts will be able to EASILY keep up with 1 12" mag. hell my old cdt's with about 200 kept up with 2 15's. if your just runnin 1k watts total i probably wouldnt even send them more than 200 watts. just keep in mind, having the ability to send them much more power is always nice, so dont just limit yourself on power for the pro60s

How good hardware is that comes with the comp set. hardware is full and has most everything you need to get going. only gripe i have is the little allen head screws they give you. i found the allen bit they give you just mushes up the allen head in the screw makin it a ***** to get out...other than that its all good.

That's great to hear! There was some guy on here recently who seemed to be having a problem getting his new Pro 60's to keep up with his 12" mag. Maybe you can find that thread and put him on the right path.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

LOL. That's the same guy, man.

Oh..and Orig poster..

My opinion is...get the Germanium's you already put in your sig... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif (you were right on the first guess)

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

Expy2000 has the CMX's I believe, inquire from him . Other than that you wont find many other CMX users. The Powerline is newer line, not much exposure.

The only thing that is certain is that the CMX tweeter is one that was in the Pro Vanadium $700+ set years ago. So for $300 a set, with some pretty detailed midbasess its a nice buying point. The tweeter has AWESOME off axis response, you can mount it anywhere- whether it be deep in the kicks, up in the pillars or even flush mounted in the doors-away from the mids, you'll hear it the same.

That kind of power, its perfect for that set-without lacking in midbass. This set is more install friendly because of the off axis response.

The Bostons seem to be very install dependant the more I read and need alot of juice to get optimal results. The fact that they are coax style mountable also leads me to the conclusion that set is best mounted that way, and designed for more on axis type of mounting . Likely why most of the Boston sponsored comp and show cars have them installed this way, on axis-coaxially mounted, facing the listener.

Perhaps thats their forte, as they appear to be designed for that 'full range' speaker type of sound, not hard to conceive being their roots and technology in the home audio market.

No wonder people throwing them flush in the doors require such huge amounts of power to be best satisfied with their response. Perhaps all they need is the advertised 125rms/250rms peak ratings for great sound on axis, but the off axis is so poor in comparsion that they need 3 times that juice to sound as good or to hear it as well? I dunno...

If you plan to separate tweet and mid you should look into the specifics of this set. I cannot find the info myself. A friend has some tuning issues with this set with the drivers mounted apart, and has a pretty annoying midrange peak using the passive xovers. Hes now gone active and is trying to do some underlapping of freqs between the mid and tweet to lower it, and hes getting a very harsh response in the 1-4khz area. Anyone know what the specific parameters for each driver are? Xover point between them on the passive?

 

[red metallic 10+ year member]

No wonder people throwing them flush in the doors require such huge amounts of power to be best satisfied with their response. Perhaps all they need is the advertised 125rms/250rms peak ratings for great sound on axis, but the off axis is so poor in comparsion that they need 3 times that juice to sound as good or to hear it as well? I dunno...
If you plan to separate tweet and mid you should look into the specifics of this set. I cannot find the info myself. A friend has some tuning issues with this set with the drivers mounted apart, and has a pretty annoying midrange peak using the passive xovers. Hes now gone active and is trying to do some underlapping of freqs between the mid and tweet to lower it, and hes getting a very harsh response in the 1-4khz area. Anyone know what the specific parameters for each driver are? Xover point between them on the passive?

A couple things about your friend's set of Boston Pro's. Inside the crossover is an adjustment for component or coaxial settings. If you set it for coaxial and use it as a component, you eliminate 1 pole of filtering in the crossover and increase the upper midrange output. Ideal when in a hard off-axis mounting. Before he rips everything apart, try that.

They were not designed to have the tweeter dramatically far away from the woofer. If it is more than 12", he should try them coaxially and at least evaluate another set of tweeters mounted high in the dash with a high crossover point. I'd bet even without a high stage they will sound better coaxially. Or, move the tweeter closer to the woofer.

Just some ideas.

 

[FoxPro5 5,000+ posts]

The Cal 25 hard dome is very nice as 3.5Max mentioned. I sold my old Pro Vanadium set in favor of the DIY route. But recently, I found my self going back the the Cal 25 silk because I liked it so much. Not sure if the silk dome is an option on the CMX set??

I've heard the Pro 60's a few times and just by own ears found the metal tweet to be a bit too much for me. They seemed to need a bit a taming. I love the build quality and presentation of Boston products though.

I vote Rainbow for plug and play.

 

[jacka 10+ year member]

the cal25 silk sure is an option with the cmx set. i was wondering the same thing a while back and got a good answer //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Kickerkitty 10+ year member]

I can offer you a bit of info on the Pro60's

The guy above with the very long post was absolutely correct on every point. As far as mounting tweeters coaxial style, that's how I did it, but mainly for the best possible imaging. Pro60's can handle a lot of power true, but I have given them amounts ranging from 175 watts per side, to 300+ per side and they loved it in both cases. For a metal tweeter I do not find them fatiguing to the ears, I even prefer titanium instead of aluminum and I can find no fault with them.

Basically when it comes down to it there isn't a single thing I would change about the Pro60's and I find no fault whatsoever with them. I run Pioneer PRS hardware throughout and I found that the Bostons are absolutely brilliant at taking a pure, unbastardized signal, and giving it perfect reproduction. I honestly wouldn't trade my Pro60's for anything, except just maybe some Pro 6.5's or Z6's.

 

[6spdcoupe 5,000+ posts]

The Cal 25 hard dome is very nice as 3.5Max mentioned. I sold my old Pro Vanadium set in favor of the DIY route. But recently, I found my self going back the the Cal 25 silk because I liked it so much. Not sure if the silk dome is an option on the CMX set??
I've heard the Pro 60's a few times and just by own ears found the metal tweet to be a bit too much for me. They seemed to need a bit a taming. I love the build quality and presentation of Boston products though.

I vote Rainbow for plug and play.

Anything is possible my friend. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[JoeHemi57 10+ year member]

Anything is possible my friend. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

wish i had known that before i ordered the X-lines //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif

 

[FoxPro5 5,000+ posts]

Anything is possible my friend. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Mmmk...how bout some Plats for one time FoxPro exclusive special of $99.95 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/naughty.gif.94359f346c0f1259df8038d60b41863e.gif

Well in that case I'd personally go with the Rainbow with the silk.

How does the Power line mid compare with the Germ and Profi mid??

 

[theothermike 10+ year member]

sorry everyone i was in hawaii //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif

Lots of new opinions, lots of new info learned, makes decision time that much harder

Mike