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General Help + Anyone know about Kicker 6.5 HLCD


95echelon

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Just now, shawndoggy said:

yeah and caveat I never heard the krypt bullet knockoffs.  The OG bullets were bad enough themselves tho.

I had the luxury of hearing every darn one of them side by side in a completely neutral scenario. Despite every manufacturer stated their 6.5" or 7" HLCD was better than the rest, all sounded beyond awful. They all simply sounded dreadful in slightly different ways.

With the Kicker you still have a horn tweeter that is too much for the 6.5" midbass to balance with, even with the tweeter in the attenuated position. However, the Kicker has a better crossover, a better horn, and a better midbass driver. It's still not enough to overcome the basic inequity of all 6.5" HLCDs.

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57 minutes ago, David said:

That would be a very busy competition....determining the worst sounding 6.5" HLCDs. I believe I have heard them all. The Kicker 6.5" HLCD is the best of the worst so stick with the Kickers if those are the only two choices. But as long as you are willing to go with a used product, try increasing the size to an 8" speaker, whether HLCD or surf. This way there will be a good chance they don't end up in the classifieds or on ebay again after one season.   

 

I was going to buy the kickers for my last hurrah trip. However I have decided to wait until spring just to see if I can't find a deal on some used Revs...

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  • 10 months later...
On 8/12/2016 at 0:47 PM, MLA said:

Well, if you want "cheap" HLCD, the Kicker KMS76 is not for you. They are a true marine component style HLCD built from the ground up and will handle some serious power. They are a wake range projection setup. Paired with quality pods, they will be in the price range of a wet sounds Rev-8, so no, they are not cheap speakers. 

Now, if you want a solid wake range HLCD thats going to be budget friendly because you already have tower pods? Then yes, the Kicker KMS67 is for you. Because they are sold as raw drivers (not in pods) they are less expensive that a complete HLCD pod setup. 

Based on this, I dont see why 2 pair of quality 6.5" coaxials with solid power and proper tune, arent getting the job done on the tower. I dont know what amp you have driving the tower setup right now and I do not know the power handling of the infinity drivers. What I do know, is that the Wet Sounds XS-650 can be driven with a solid 150-180 watts rms. If you want to keep the pods, I would consider swapping the infinity for another pair of XS-650 and get the Wet Sounds HTX-2

 

For those windshield pair, id consider the Wet Sounds 65i. The SW black works real well. 

So my jensen died and I realized there was a major problem with it all along. I frantically installed that Arc 300.4 last weekend and it was truly amazing the difference. My coaxial towers rock it now. Now my interiors sound like utter crap. I am ordering the kicker HLCD now. I am going to need another amp for the inboats. That 300.4 has a bad channel (bought used from a forum member and was damaged in shipping - i was so busy at work I never followed up with anyone). But hey for the towers it is rocking it!

So I am exited for the tower upgrade. I already have a pair of XS-650 in the tower that will go in cabin so I buy another pair of those and I have good in cabin speakers. then I will buy a nice amp for 4 channels in the boat and call it good. Any favorites under a few hundred bucks?

I also have a 420 BT waiting to be installed for all of this. Super exited.

Now my duct taped together pontoon will enjoy my old sony deck and speakers which will be nice, no tunes there now! Thanks for all the help everyone.

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On 9/2/2016 at 1:59 PM, David said:

I had the luxury of hearing every darn one of them side by side in a completely neutral scenario. Despite every manufacturer stated their 6.5" or 7" HLCD was better than the rest, all sounded beyond awful. They all simply sounded dreadful in slightly different ways.

With the Kicker you still have a horn tweeter that is too much for the 6.5" midbass to balance with, even with the tweeter in the attenuated position. However, the Kicker has a better crossover, a better horn, and a better midbass driver. It's still not enough to overcome the basic inequity of all 6.5" HLCDs.

I am hearing this now. Picked up some Kicker 6.5 HLCD on a sale for 200 and they sound overwhelmingly "bright" even at the 0db setting the +6db setting would kill your ears. I need my WS 420 to be installed to kill some treble on just the towers (which requires me to purchase an in boat amp). They project really far but they are hard on my ears right now and when I crank the treble down on my headunit to compensate I can't even hear voices the in-boat speakers. However I am needing to amp my in boats and change the 12 year old sony's over to wetsounds. Even at this price I am somewhat disappointed. I liked the sounds of the xs-650's in the tower properly amped. The sub augments the HLCD's lack of midrange nicely up close, but probably not far back.

I am however just listening on the back of the boat. I am not surfing, wakeboarding, or sandbarring it yet. I am sure I will enjoy listening while doing watersports over the last speakers 

So the brass tax questions:

  • Any recommendations on an in boat amp under 300 bucks to drive 4 channels (preferably under 200)? 
    • No matter what I do on the tower I will need to upgrade the inboats and install my WS-420
  • If I just buy a set of Rev 10's will my arc 300.4 power them? I can't bridge just 2 channels... So I think its only 125 watts per speaker.
    • I am assuming it's not worth it to buy Rev 8's.

Buy once cry once, I never learn...

The Kickers were amazon Prime, I am almost wondering if I should return and re-evaluate. Only the weekend will tell, but I need to get the in boat and amp situation sorted to truly review with individual equalizer settings.

@MLA @David

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Sorry to hear, you are disappointed with them. Thats just the nature of a 6.5" HLCD. The KMS67 is the best sounding 6.5" HLCD, but any way you slice it, they are a 6.5" HLCD designed to project, period. Hard to get enough near field mid-bass out any 6.5". 

I tend to like to keep the in-boat zone and tower zone separate, so if you feel its time to upgrade the 12 year in-boats, im with you. 

Yes, your Arc Audio KS300.4 is a good amp for a pair of Rev-10. Bridged to 2 chnl mode (correctly) is a solid setup.  

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9 hours ago, 95echelon said:

I am hearing this now. Picked up some Kicker 6.5 HLCD on a sale for 200 and they sound overwhelmingly "bright" even at the 0db setting the +6db setting would kill your ears. I need my WS 420 to be installed to kill some treble on just the towers (which requires me to purchase an in boat amp). They project really far but they are hard on my ears right now and when I crank the treble down on my headunit to compensate I can't even hear voices the in-boat speakers. However I am needing to amp my in boats and change the 12 year old sony's over to wetsounds. Even at this price I am somewhat disappointed. I liked the sounds of the xs-650's in the tower properly amped. The sub augments the HLCD's lack of midrange nicely up close, but probably not far back.

I am however just listening on the back of the boat. I am not surfing, wakeboarding, or sandbarring it yet. I am sure I will enjoy listening while doing watersports over the last speakers 

So the brass tax questions:

  • Any recommendations on an in boat amp under 300 bucks to drive 4 channels (preferably under 200)? 
    • No matter what I do on the tower I will need to upgrade the inboats and install my WS-420
  • If I just buy a set of Rev 10's will my arc 300.4 power them? I can't bridge just 2 channels... So I think its only 125 watts per speaker.
    • I am assuming it's not worth it to buy Rev 8's.

Buy once cry once, I never learn...

The Kickers were amazon Prime, I am almost wondering if I should return and re-evaluate. Only the weekend will tell, but I need to get the in boat and amp situation sorted to truly review with individual equalizer settings.

@MLA @David

Said it before and it's worth repeating. IMO opinion the Kicker is hands down the best tower 6.5" HLCD every made. The problem is that you can't escape that it's still a 6.5" HLCD and there is no fix on earth for small.  

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13 hours ago, David said:

Said it before and it's worth repeating. IMO opinion the Kicker is hands down the best tower 6.5" HLCD every made. The problem is that you can't escape that it's still a 6.5" HLCD and there is no fix on earth for small.  

Ok you all will laugh at me big time. I installed them bridged and you are supposed to install them in parallel. I am a big idiot. I have my whole ARC 300.4 going at them right now and they sound exactly like what I expected (which is pretty good but not Rev 10 good). 

Now back to inboats. As of Monday I will have 8 wetsounds 650's to play with. Also considering adding a pair of 8" to inboats. Anything left over goes to pontoons. 

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17 hours ago, MLA said:

Sorry to hear, you are disappointed with them. Thats just the nature of a 6.5" HLCD. The KMS67 is the best sounding 6.5" HLCD, but any way you slice it, they are a 6.5" HLCD designed to project, period. Hard to get enough near field mid-bass out any 6.5". 

I tend to like to keep the in-boat zone and tower zone separate, so if you feel its time to upgrade the 12 year in-boats, im with you. 

Yes, your Arc Audio KS300.4 is a good amp for a pair of Rev-10. Bridged to 2 chnl mode (correctly) is a solid setup.  

I had them installed wrong. After wiring them in parallel per the diagram provided they sound like what I expected. Going to surf and board with them today. 

They were horrific when bridged and I hope I didn't damage anything. 

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1 hour ago, 95echelon said:

Ok you all will laugh at me big time. I installed them bridged and you are supposed to install them in parallel. I am a big idiot. I have my whole ARC 300.4 going at them right now and they sound exactly like what I expected (which is pretty good but not Rev 10 good). 

Now back to inboats. As of Monday I will have 8 wetsounds 650's to play with. Also considering adding a pair of 8" to inboats. Anything left over goes to pontoons. 

Im still not sure i understand, because bridged is a term used at the amp and parallel would be a termed used at the drivers. You are supposed to parallel the mid and horn AND you can bridge the amp into two chnl mode. Entirely 2 different things. 

Now, if you do bridge into 2 chnl mode, that a Chit load of available power, so all the tuning has got to be spot on or you will toast a driver. 

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6 hours ago, David said:

Probably meant wired in series.  

Yes that's true the previous speakers were wired with a jumper between two posts. With the positive to one speaker and the negative to the other speaker and that jumper running in between. I thought that halved the ohms or something?

9 hours ago, MLA said:

Im still not sure i understand, because bridged is a term used at the amp and parallel would be a termed used at the drivers. You are supposed to parallel the mid and horn AND you can bridge the amp into two chnl mode. Entirely 2 different things. 

Now, if you do bridge into 2 chnl mode, that a Chit load of available power, so all the tuning has got to be spot on or you will toast a driver. 

Yes it is in 2 channel. Should I run it back to 4 channel? Feels like 125 is a little low and 350 is really high. 

In 4 channel I could run my in boats off the other 2 channels if I can get one more working (one was out). 

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Id run that amp bridged. The 4 chnl stereo output @ 4 ohm is actually 90W. Yes, 350W is quite a lot, but tuned correctly, that amount of available power is manageable. You will get all that speaker has to offer. 

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13 hours ago, 95echelon said:

Yes that's true the previous speakers were wired with a jumper between two posts. With the positive to one speaker and the negative to the other speaker and that jumper running in between. I thought that halved the ohms or something? 

When you run a properly matched set of a 4-ohm midbass and a 4-ohm tweeter wired in parallel you still get a load that is close to 4-ohms. The passive crossover network determines that within the primary range of each driver you are combining a 4-ohm impedance with a near infinite impedance of the alternate driver. In the overlap region both drivers have an impedance much higher than 4-ohms.

But wired in series? No can do with highpass and lowpass components. Series is only permissible with complete hi & low speakers, and preferably identical fullrange speakers.      

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4 hours ago, MLA said:

Id run that amp bridged. The 4 chnl stereo output @ 4 ohm is actually 90W. Yes, 350W is quite a lot, but tuned correctly, that amount of available power is manageable. You will get all that speaker has to offer. 

Thanks for that input. I spent a few hours in the driveway and on the water slowly increasing volume and adjusting the gain on my ARC to compensate. I am currently running the filter at about 80-90hz, but I am guessing I should increase that to lessen the load on the midbass. By the time I am beginning to distort I am well beyond comfortable listening.

Installing my 420 BT next weekend and switching the inboats to XS-650 then as well. I can do 4 or 8 xs-650's I don't know if I care about the speakers up front or not?

Don't laugh at me but would this be passable as an in boat amp? https://www.amazon.com/Rockford-Fosgate-R400-4D-Full-Range-4-Channel/dp/B004T0WFVE/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1500827746&sr=1-3&keywords=class+d+4+channel+amplifier

71-Z-qvdarL._SL1024_.jpg

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31 minutes ago, 95echelon said:

Thanks for that input. I spent a few hours in the driveway and on the water slowly increasing volume and adjusting the gain on my ARC to compensate. I am currently running the filter at about 80-90hz, but I am guessing I should increase that to lessen the load on the midbass. By the time I am beginning to distort I am well beyond comfortable listening.

Installing my 420 BT next weekend and switching the inboats to XS-650 then as well. I can do 4 or 8 xs-650's I don't know if I care about the speakers up front or not?

Don't laugh at me but would this be passable as an in boat amp? https://www.amazon.com/Rockford-Fosgate-R400-4D-Full-Range-4-Channel/dp/B004T0WFVE/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1500827746&sr=1-3&keywords=class+d+4+channel+amplifier

71-Z-qvdarL._SL1024_.jpg

Yes, a higher crossover point for a smallish 6.5" midbass is a good idea. The Kicker 6.5" midbass would likely contribute a little something at 90 Hz if it were in a pod the size of a Rev10. Otherwise expecting the midbass in a small pod to go that deep is like the muscle it takes to pump 32 lbs. of pressure into a regulation 8 lb. basketball. It's an inordinate amount of stress that is very counter productive. MLA should have a good HP crossover recommendation on these, as he has a great deal of experience with this product.

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Yep, with the given wattage available from the KS300.4 in 2 chnl mode, 90hz is a bit low. Id want to be about 150Hz range or even a little higher. 

Since the EQ with line driver is going in next week, id not spend much time tuning in the gain, It will have to be re-tuned after the EQ is in the mix. 

 

I see no issue with that in-boat amp. 

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14 hours ago, MLA said:

Yep, with the given wattage available from the KS300.4 in 2 chnl mode, 90hz is a bit low. Id want to be about 150Hz range or even a little higher. 

Since the EQ with line driver is going in next week, id not spend much time tuning in the gain, It will have to be re-tuned after the EQ is in the mix. 

 

I see no issue with that in-boat amp. 

Thanks again for all the help! I gotta be careful with these HLCD's though... I was tuning them at medium volume and had neighbors coming out of the woodwork because they though a band was at the sandbar across the way from me (I live in a peninsula). 

I think when I install this stuff I am also going to take the time to properly install the power supplies. Right now it's all the previous owners wiring (probably the marina) and it's 8GA cables daisy chained off of the amps (fused at least). I am thinking of moving to a 1/0 main cable with 4GA coming out of distribution blocks near the amps...

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Just now, MLA said:

Rockford is no Wet Sounds or JL, but they are a quality build. Ill take that quality of shear wattage any day. 

 

Cool. I really don't want to deal with a return so that works. I can always change it up next year. Anything unused goes to the pontoon etc.

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Ok so I am rewiring everything with 1/0 and adding my new rockford amp. I have 4 brand new XS-650's I am installing and I am debating on adding a third pair since I have another used pair from the old tower speakers. Could be under the rear seats for more in cabin sound (often blocked by folks sitting in the side seats) or in the bow which is typically kids only. The kids are beginning to get old enough to enjoy tunes though. However that is neither here nor there.

I am assuming I can wire in series for two pair of the speakers off the rockford and just wire the other pair normally and adjust the gains. The manual says the rockford is 2 ohm stable unless it is bridged.

I was thinking of doing the bow and rear cabin speakers in series (I think I mean parallel) and then the windshield speakers direct wire so I have individual control of the in cabin F/R gains... I could also just toss my old infinity speakers up front in series and have 6 xs-650's in cabin as well.

Now to fab a mount for my WS-420 BT.

Gonna be a wiry weekend. I can say that the new speakers are a visual update to my interior they really look great compared to the old sony speakers.

Edited by 95echelon
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  • 3 months later...

Just read this whole thread and lots of good info.  I'm in a similar situation as you were in.  I'm curious how everything is working out? I'm really considering the Kickers right now.

You have an Ilusion X tower correct?  Did you have any issues with the Kickers HLCD fitting in the stock pods?  If I'm reading the specs right they are 6 3/4" and not 6.5".  Seems like mounting options for the IX are limited.  I only have 1 pair of stock pods so I need another set for the for the Kicker setup. Cheapest I can find them is $150 a pair new.  There has to be a ton of used ones out there.  Anyone have an extra pair? 

Also what did you decide for the dash 6.5" speakers? 

Edited by Cazan
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The Kicker 8" speakers need a bit larger mounting hole than other brands so I wouldn't be surprised if the 6.5 need a larger hole too.  I had to grind a bit of aluminum to get mine to fit.

Polk MM651UM for the dash.  Great speakers.

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