Loud and Clear......AND HUGE
Pros:
Loud, Crisp, Very Well Built, Carbon Fiber!, Long Warranty
Cons:
Massive basket and magnet
The Bottom Line:
Excellent speakers for those willing to put the time and money into a good amplified installation.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I bought these for my 1999 Pontiac Grand Am SE to replace a set of Alpine Type S 6x9s which replaced the stock 6x9s.
Installation:
Hard. Really hard. These things are HUGE and will not fit in most cars without modification to the mounting location. The basket is closed metal and much wider than usual. Most cheaper speakers have shallow baskets that are made of metal with many openings for air to cool them, but these are built more like tanks than speakers. To make them fit, I had to use pliers to bend the sheet metal in the mounting location inward to make more space for the baskets to fit through. They also came down so far into the trunk when compared to the previous ones that I had to move the trunk lid bars to make space for them to go in smoothly. If you choose these, be prepared to do a little custom work to make them fit. Also buy some Dynamat to make sure they mount on a flat surface. All the hardware necessary for installation is included, as well as grills.
Sound:
Excellent. Clear, crisp, and LOUD. They handle around 100watts RMS, but I am only giving them around 70 so that they don't drown out my front speakers completely.
Keep in mind when purchasing these that they like to have as much power as you can give them, so you MUST amplify them with a quality amplifier to get the best sound.
Also realize that these will drown out 4x6s and some cheaper 6.5s with similar power, so they are best suited for an installation where the front speakers are already very powerful.
The carbon fiber cones look cool and are also extremely rigid resulting in tighter and louder bass. So loud, in fact, that combined they produce bass that rivals some 10inch subwoofers!
Did I say that they're loud? When tuning the amplifier's power to them, I had to get out of the car because the sheer power that these are capable of around 70watts at high volumes was giving me a headache.
Even so, these are very refined speakers. With my old Alpine speakers, the bass made them work really hard to keep up. The excursion necessary to produce strong bass was ridiculous sometimes, but they sounded alright. These Polks barely break a sweat pumping out the low notes and are able to do so with far less excursion, resulting in less resonance and therefore less distortion, largely due to the extremely rigid cone.
The highs are incredible as well, crisp and clear without being harsh like Infinity speakers can be. The mids are also well defined without being muddy. Again, the cones' rigid nature help them avoid distortion and deliver crisp sound.
Appearance:
The carbon fiber cones give these speakers a high-tech look that you'll want to show off. This isn't surprising given that the Italian MOMO designers helped in styling them.
Support:
Polk offers a long 3 year parts AND LABOR warranty on these. LABOR!!! Almost no one covers electronics that way anymore. The website is also nice, with a forum if you have problems as well as some support articles and PDFs of the manuals.
Overall:
If you are willing to deal with some installation problems, these are worth every penny.
