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I probably should have mentioned when I suggested a modeling program, to model them in your airspace and not look at the "recommended" enclosure alignments for this reason. The physics are the same, so it will "model" the low end response in any alignment accurately but the programs suggested alignments will be biased to ported as sandt point out.

So the package arrived at the shop and I could barely restrain my excitement. I had been reading a lot about the Hertz Mille set and found a brand new set for a real steal. The MLK165 set uses the ML165 mid driver, the ML28 tweeter, and the MLCX 20 crossover, which is amazingly HUGE! The mid is really a piece of art, very well constructed with an oddly shaped “V-cone” for better off axis dispersion. The tweeter comes with 2 “chambers” which seem to act as aperiodic membranes, altering FS from 1200Hz with the small to 920Hz with the large chamber. Hertz recommends the large chamber for best sound, and I agree that lowering FS is beneficial here as well, so I went with the large chamber. Unfortunately, almost none of the tweeter mounts will work with the large chamber, aside from flush mounting it, so don’t count on using this with a surface mount or with the angled tweeter pods that come with the unit… this design flaw is terribly disheartening I must say, but it didn’t affect my install, so… The Crossover is really obnoxiously HUGE, but pretty nicely featured. They use “easy jumpers”, which are pretty large, nicely handled couplers that are easier to use then most tiny jumpers we see in crossovers. They also allow for bi-amping the system, or running a single amp if you so choose. Click here to view the MLK165 PDF file. HU source is a Pioneer Premier FH-P800BT. Front stage amplifier is a Butler Tube Driver Blue 475 which is bridged for 2X200@4ohms, properly set up with an O-scope for no clipping. The front stage is crossed at 80Hz. The substage consists of a Cadence ZRS6000D which is ~650@2ohms, and 2 Adire Koda 10” subs in a midsized (1.2 per sub) sealed arrangement, also crossed at 80Hz and run in reverse polarity. The mids are in the stock location in the lower front of the doors, decoupled from the sheet metal, spaced out with MDF, in a well damped door in an IB alignment. The tweets are well angled in the kicks, with a desired soundstage in the center of the windshield. Some modification was made on the kicks to change the angle, as the silks are more directional then the aluminum tweets they replaced. At the start of the testing I had the EQ dead flat; as this worked best for me with the CDT PSS-0626i set I removed from the system. In playing with this set I realized that I could not leave it flat as the bottom ½ octave or so seemed weak, so I boosted the mids at 125Hz, and reset the amplifier to compensate. I found that the substage being crossed at 80 and the mids crossed at the same point gave me a slightly artificial boost at 80, and the system remained relatively flat thanks to the mid’s rolloff, albeit slightly exaggerated at 80Hz, which livened up kick drums nicely. The crossovers of this set allow for tweeter attenuation, but I opted to leave the crossover set at 0dB. I also elected to use the HFC or “high frequency contour” option in the crossovers which compensates for speaker distance issues relative to the driver in the car, and it seemed to open the soundstage up on the driver’s side, where a silk dome might seem closed off in most other cases. Overall the set has a nice sound to it. The mid seems rather forward in the midrange, and is weak on the bottom end, which surprised me. I like my mid to be fairly fat down low and I really like a low crossover point, which I was not able to achieve with this set. In looking at the specs it appeared like it might be a bit soft on the bottom compared to the ES-06, yet I expected it to be punchier, more aggressive. Needless to say I was surprised and disappointed at the bottom end, I expected it to be a little fuller, but I was pleased that it was punchier, although not as much as I expected, and it still remains easy on the ears. It is not overly aggressive or fatiguing, and yet well defined. A really happy medium, which I cannot say is a function of the driver, or the tubes that drive it. Even though it is a bit heavy in the midrange, the vocals seem very natural, and instrumentation is very clean and nicely detailed. Female vocals are very real, and open. The crossover point is seamless, as expected from such a high end set. Though the crossover is so huge as to render it nearly impossible to hide, it is extremely well featured, and well designed, crossing at 2.5kHz. The tweeters are a soft dome 1 1/8 inch compact design, with apeariodic chambers for the rear of the unit. According to Hertz, these are an open backed design that allows is to use various aperiodic modules to attach to the rear and alter the resonant frequency, and thus the behavior of the tweeter. While I did not play with the various modules, sticking with the largest module with the lowest overall system FS of 920Hz, I can guess it is a cool feature. The tweeters are delicate, yet pretty well detailed. Far and away one of the finer compacts I have heard. Unlike many soft domes this tweeter is energetic, and although the dispersion is more narrow then my old DRT26A aluminum domes, it is still pretty broad for a soft dome. They are very open and airy, lively and not fatiguing in any way. The soundstage and image are pretty strong. While I have managed a better stage width in the car it is arguably more a function of the dome material then the driver’s incompetence. As I stated before, metal domes do offer better dispersion which I attribute to a broader soundstage. These definitely offer an extremely broad stage for soft domes. Image depth is impressive, with very realistic placement of musicians in test CDs and live acoustic performances… I love live acoustic sets as they tend to offer fixed placement of the musicians and a very real soundstage. Musically these are pretty decent for most tastes. I did find some older midrange heavy 80’s metal to be a bit fatiguing though, due to the forward midrange I mentioned earlier. Female vocals are beautiful with this set, Sarah McLachlan and Norah Jones sound amazing. Norah’s breathless voice rings through very real and clear just floating in the center of the soundstage. Sarah’s amazing voice seems to fill the stage, and the differences between her grand piano, and Norah’s smaller piano are evidenced by this set. The grand just feels far more tonal and heavy then the smaller piano… you can almost feel the resonance of the large panels of the grand in the car. I love to use Dave Matthews for complex riffs and the huge array of instrumentation he likes to use. His nasal voice rings through as irritating as ever, and maybe a tad more nasal then I am used to. The background musicians really take off, and the lively midrange propels them to the forefront. Strings really ring true, with a nice and realistic decay, where some high strings that may get annoying with lively midranges seem to stay laid back and controlled, not what I might expect in listening to old school metal. I liked the way that Alice in Chains’ Unplugged album uses a kickdrum that is blocked by a plastic panel so as not to overpower the band, really seems like something is in the way of the kick. The placement of the musicians, which I know very well as I like to watch their Unplugged DVD, is extremely accurate, not overly separated like some sets that make it feel almost artificial, yet realistic enough in their placement that you know where they are sitting. You can tell Scottie Olsen is sitting right behind Mike Inez. I did a lot of other listening, but wanted to keep this segment brief… or at least as brief as my rambling can get, anyways . To summarize, I like the set well enough, but it does suffer some shortcomings that I would not expect from a set costing a cool grand. I really expect a set this high end to have better bottom end. With 6MM of XMAX and a fairly low FS, this set should be solid to cross at 65hz, but it just starts to struggle at 80Hz. But with that weakness comes a great midrange, with some interesting qualities, a solid crossover that is well featured, well thought out, simple to adjust and set up with great jumpers, and a very, very nice tweeter. While the only audible complaint I have is the lack of deep down guttural midbass, the set does suffer some physical shortcomings as well. While it includes several tweeter mount options, you can’t use the best aperiodic module on any of them… rending the vast array of options completely useless if SQ is your focus. Also, the crossover… Guys, I can’t tell you enough how obnoxiously large this thing is. If I had a thousand bucks to drop on a set, I think I would pass this set up for a few others. For what I paid for it, it is pretty decent, although in a similar price range I have owned better… But the midrange is intoxicating and the tweeter is very, very nice. If you have an opportunity to listen to the set, I suggest it. With all my complaining, it really does have some very strong audible qualities that have to be heard to be believed… oh yeah, and the mid is just absolutely a sexy unit, a real piece of art. Mid in door: Comp set: Tweets and aperiodic membrane: Crossover topless: Mid from the front: Mid from behind: Tweeter:

I was looking at you sig, and now I have to ask, are you using the extended range drivers for midrange and top end? I thought I saw a build in your car that was using TypeR comps before... maybe it was someone else, and if so I apologize I am still trying to get to know people here. But I remember the trunk build and the attention to detail, and I could have sworn you had a comp set in there. I looked through your gallery and there were so many pics, I got lost in them I'll need to revisit your page and see the car again. Take a look at this chart. If you look on the bottom of the chart you will see descriptions of the sound qualities of the various frequency ranges listed there. By using these descriptors, perhaps you can find the frequency ranges you are looking to accentuate and perhaps play with your EQ a bit and see if that is the range and the result you are looking for.

There are a couple things I would like to point out here... First, any modeling program is going to force a midbass driver into a ported application, based on the higher Fs which boosts EBP. Please bear in mind that EBP (efficiency bandwidth product) is simply Fs/Qes. The majority of the modeling programs are looking to achieve a very flat FR and the lowest F3 possible. So take that with a grain of salt. Why? Because you don't really need to worry about the low F3. First, this is a midbass driver, so an F3 of 30Hz is going to be unnecessary. Second, cabin gains in the car will help fatten up anything around 100Hz or less (I know I will get an argument from someone saying 80Hz, and vehicle specific, or whatever... I am just making a quick generalization here), so you don't necessarily want to see a flat anechoic response curve that low, or you will have to skinny up the bottom end via EQ if you are looking for a flat response. Second, I suggest you not focus on a single crossover slope. Different vehicles with different driver combination will respond differently to various slopes. While we like to use steep crossover slopes on tweeters, and midranges, we don't necessarily want to use them on midbass drivers. Why? Well, the lower we extend in the frequency range the more air the driver has to move in order to maintain linear output. Tweeters have very small diaphragms, and too much extension can cause distortions, and can be mechanically dangerous to the driver (if you would like to see a ring radiator I have one torn apart, and I may even have a silk dome torn down, just let me know and I will get a few shots for you.). So rather then demand them to go beyond their physical limitations we elect to cross them sharply. The same can be said with midrange drivers, and I don't mean extended range midrange/midbass drivers, I mean 3 or 4 inch midrange. We don't want to start seeing them overextend themselves and fall apart (audibly I mean), but where we want to cross a tweeter at say a 24 octave slope, we would be more comfortable crossing the midrange at 18 or even 12db slopes. Keep in mind, the frequency range per octave is very broad when we get into higher frequencies, where they get much smaller at lower frequency ranges... for example a 1 octave slope from a 60Hz crossover point is only 30Hz, where a 1 octave slope from a 5000Hz crossover point is 2500Hz, which is 1 reason why we are more comfortable using a more gradual slope when we cross lower and lower. With a midbass driver, it should be pretty capable of getting down low without much breakup, and our slopes are significantly more steep, just based on how narrow an octave becomes at such low frequencies. So don't go worrying so much about your bottom end slope with regards to the crossover point in the car. It is really something you should just play with until you find what works best. I think the reason you pushed the Auras is because they are pretty sterile. They just don't seem to deliver quite as loud as a distorted driver. I like to remind people that the very limits of our hearing are the places where music becomes emotion, not sound. This is why a linear, undistorted subwoofer (as well as midwoofers) sounds so sterile, because it is more of a feeling then an audible perception. So you shouldn't try to hear the music, in as much as you should try to gather the emotion of it... That is what sound quality is all about.

With the old 88 cube enclosure roughly with a 28Hz tuning. I never got the max SPL with the old box the low note caused several screens to blow out. I suspect it would have been couple more tenths. I'll never know what would have been unless I reverse the volume reduction mods. After reducing from 88 cubes to 63 cubes, with roughly 33Hz tuning. No longer breaking screens. It does 159 roughly from 30-43Hz. Not clamped it, thats going to be next week when I can spend more time on it. Thats the current baseline. Lots of work is planned, when I get time All tests were done dB drag sealed up. No RPMs were used just the van on Idle. Thanks.

Installation Installation was pretty straight forward. A few trials and tribulations along the way, however; The manual does not list a cut-out diameter for either the mid or tweeter. It's easily enough measured, but really....just list in the manual for pete sake.The female connectors that were supposed to be used for the mid are the wrong size. They are too small. The pair that is supposed to be for the positive only fit the negative, and the pair that is supposed to be for the negative doesn't fit either of them. Looking at other pictures, I think they use different sized terminals for different speaker sets and these terminals would fit some of those other sets....just not these.The little blue ridge just in front of the terminals on the crossover is a hair taller than the bottom of the terminals themselves. In order to get the spade connectors to seat correctly in the crossover terminals, I had to bend the connector just past the crimped section at a 30 - 45 degree angle. Not a big deal, just one of those common sense attention to detail things.The angle mounts that I used for the tweeter snap onto the rear of the tweeter housing. It takes a little skill to accomplish this, and I don't have that skill. I probably spent 10 minutes trying to get the first mount snapped into place, the second one only took a couple minutes but I think that was just dumb luck. I mounted the mids in my stock speaker location at the lower front portion of my doors and started out with tweeters on the A-pillars, but I am just not a fan of A-pillar tweeters in a 2-way setup, so they were relocated down to the kickpanel area. Now, understand this type of setup is not entirely fair to the speaker as performance is then subjected to effects of the environment. The environment will introduce anomalies into the response and the like. But, since this is car audio, my initial goal was to see what type of performance the average user could expect with a normal car installation. So I'm not listening just to the speakers, I'm listening to the speakers in this particular installation in my automobile. I figured if worse came to worse and results were substandard, I could always fab up some enclosures and try them in the house (although that has it's own set of problems, not least of which is finding time to listen to them when the kids aren't running through the house screaming like psycho's). But first, I wanted to hear what the average user in an average installation would hear and go from there. The only processing used is a highpass filter at 63hz with a -24db/oct slope, and time alignment due to the mounting locations. No equalization or other filters were applied. With the tweeters in the kickpanels I left the tweeter attentuation at 0db. They are connected to an available 600w RMS per channel (yeah, you read that right Listening Impressions I've spent about half of my listening time with the subwoofer off and the other half with the subwoofer integrated into the system. I started out my listening with a repertoire of "sound quality" discs (those doughnut shaped things we all used to use, in case you don't remember). I started with my IASCA disc, then went on to Michael Jackson (RIP), Eagles, Eric Clapton, Yanni Live (don't laugh) and a few other assorted tracks. From there I moved on to my daily music selection of mainly rock; bands such as Slipknot, TOOL, APC, Mushroomhead, Audioslave, NIN, Disturbed and the like. Here is a brief outline of my subjective comments on some of the albums/tracks: IASCA disc I listened to several tracks on this album, which were all chosen to be on the disc due to their high quality of recording. The tracks are mainly instrumental-type tracks with a wide range of instruments used. All of the instruments sounded natural and "as they should" with little to no coloration from the speakers themselves. There was good separation in sound of the instruments, all could be heard clearly and distinctly with no smearing or masking of tones or sounds. Great presence in the midrange and treble. Michael Jackson On Billie Jean, the midbass was strong and full. Michael's vocals came through very clean and accurate. Again, great tonality in the music. Listening to Bad, which I've probably listened a few dozen times in my car, I heard a digital beat (I guess you would call it?) in the background that I honestly had never noticed before. I'm not sure if it's because I had never listened as critically to it before, or if these speakers simply revealed it better. On Want to Be Starting Something, the drum beats at the beginning of the track were tight and strong. Listening to Smooth Criminal I notice the tonality was off just a bit in Micheal's vocals, but this very well could be an effect induced by the environment. Overall, great tonality, great dynamics, great separation of tones and instruments, very lively reproduction. Eagles Listening to Hotel California, very good detail. The wood block at the beginning of the song was very natural sounding. Hearing the fingers slide down the string of the guitar in the right channel at the beginning of the song was easily identifiable. The guitar at the left side sounded like there was just a little bit of exaggeration/emphasis, but again I can't eliminate the effects of the installation as being the cause. Yanni Live Wide variety of instruments used on this CD, everything from harps to upright bass. The upright bass in track #10 was the most accurate reproduction I've had of that song in my car yet. I could hear the bow sliding across the strings. The highs were very precise and defined, horn and string instruments sounded very accurate. Again, very good separation and definition of the instruments when there were multiple instruments being played at once. Very dynamic reproduction. A Perfect Circle I listened to Over (last track on Mer De Noms) for the xylophone. Great tonality and the decay was excellent. The speakers did not cut off the resonances early and did not blend them into a continuous tone; there was a well defined "ring" after each strike. On rock music such as Slipknot, the speakers were very listenable. the music is harsh by nature, but on some systems it comes through so harsh that it's almost ear splitting. On these it came through just as it should; harsh as intended but not so harsh that you couldn't stand it. Overall these speakers are wonderfully detailed. Tonally they are very good and just allow the music to come through. They don't impart their own coloration to the music. All of the instruments are very natural sounding. The midrange is very clean. Midbass is full and robust and as good as you can expect from a driver of this displacement capabilities. Treble is not shrill and harsh or light and airy, just detailed, crisp and natural sounding. Transient response, both attack and decay, was very well behaved and accurate. They are very dynamic and lively as well. Speakers this size usually fare pretty well at normal listening levels but fall apart at high levels. Amazingly, these speakers maintained their composure throughout the entire range of listening levels. Great linearity in their ability to sound just as fantastic at both lower listening levels as well as higher listening levels. And trust me, with 600w available per side there was no shortage of power. I pushed the speakers to the edge of tolerability and they did not back down and retained their composure. Ofcourse, nothing in life is perfect, and I don't want to make it sound as though these speakers are. One minor problem I did have is that 0db for the tweeter setting seemed a bit too hot and -3db seemed a bit too mellow. I left it at 0db but would have preferred something in between. Also, as I noted above there were a few spots in the music where I felt there was just a hint of over-emphasis or shift in tonality, but I can't entirely blame the speakers as it very well could simply be a response issue related to the installation. Lastly, a few tracks seemed to lack just a tad bit of sparkle on the upper end. But given a choice between overly harsh and a little subdued, I'll choose the latter any day of the week. Conclusion So really, how do I feel about these speakers? Well, I'll put it this way. I had originally purchased the Bravox with the sole intent of reviewing them and then selling them with the hopes of atleast recouping my costs. After the past 2 days, my stereo may have just had an unexpected change of plans. The kickpanels I was working on are only half built and were originally intended to house some midbass to go with my horns......they may soon be the new home of this 6.5" component set instead. For the past 2 days I have been taking every excuse I could find to have to drive somewhere, anywhere. And I find myself driving slower as well....I want to get one more song in before I arrive home. If I have enjoyed the speakers this much in a pretty average install with no tuning, I can only imagine how great they'll sound in an optimized and well tuned install. They don't do everything perfect, but they do it all well enough and without glaring deficiencies that they are an amazingly easy set of speakers to enjoy. These speakers just performed great no matter what I threw at them with music selection or output levels. If you are in the market for a mid priced component set, I would definitely suggest you give the CS60CF set serious consideration.

Well Right i dont have any pictures But this is from the Manual and you can get a pretty good idea from it

I know Sundown has very good quality woofers, even for this entry level sub: those cooling channels and 400w RMS rating are more then i would expect for a entry level sub even from sundown. They look really "clean" with the satin black finish, i also like that sundown offers 15 inch versions of the entry level sub, because most companies offer 10 or 12 inch subs as entry lvl.

Lots of smack coming from someone with nothing to show! I'm not allowed to have an opinion? Honestly? It's an Eclipse, for a teenage guy. It fits perfectly. Still ricey, though Oem lip kit, some suspension, and some low offset wheels would make that eclipse look amazing. If this is gonna be a show car, OP should know what's in and whats out in the import world. You can have your opinion but until you can show that you can do better or have something better then .... This is a father son project with a lot of hard work and hours put into a project that will last a lifetime. We all could only wish we could have an oppurtunity like this! Posted these on here before Btw, who cares what kind of project it is.. am i not entitled to have an opinion on the car? I think he went the wrong direction with it.. Everyone is gonna have an opinion..it's no different than folks who get bashed for using kicker and other mainstream brands. On a brighter note, OP gets props for doing this with his son wish my dad was into cars like that

well since i don't want him knowing that i am here quite yet, i want to surprise him with all my new found knowledge, i will tell you, but in private message only, if that ok(i know it sounds childish but i'm sick of being treated like i know nothing) and he just got on of the fi 12 inch btl(i think thats it name) i am sorry if it wrong anyway and he got a new amp by sa2-2000d(thats what the box says) and it was heavy You are awesome. why am i so awesome? Not very many wives, girlfriends, mistresses, etc would go this far to learn something that interests their husband. I just think that you taking initiative to learn all this is really cool.

yeah id definetly would go with a bl, i currently own a FI Q 15 1500 WRMS AND ITS LOUD BUT NOT LOUD ENOUGH. i mean my car vibrates and it makes my hair vibrate a lil, but when i put some young jeezy or something with some good high peak bass on it. You can hear the subs tapping the voice coil wires, so i turn them down. They are definetly great for SQ but if you want loud bass that will flex your carthe Q'S are not that good. but if you want loud with car flex that will make you feel the bass punch you in the chest go with the bl. just get some good front speakers and you will be good.