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Introduction http://www.soundsolu...Components.html http://bravoxaudio.com/ Bravox is a newer name to SSA, being recently just added to the store a few months back, so some of you may be relatively unfamiliar with the brand. According to the website, Bravox is a Brazilian company that was founded in 1953. From everything I could find they perform the full range of services in house, from engineering and design to driver construction. In this day and age of same-product different-name electronics, it's nice to see a company that still completely designs and produces their own unique products. A few weeks back I purchased the Bravox CS60-CF component set, linked above, from the SSA store. At $445 I would consider these speakers to be in the middle of the price range.....more expensive than entry level products but not ultra-high end pricing either. The speakers arrived on my doorstep from the SSA store right at about a week after ordering, and as always the communication was great from the website and SSA staff. Equipment The CS60CF component set consists of 6.5" mids and 1" tweeters, and the packaging includes installation hardware, speaker wire and grills. The mids are true 6.5" drivers, measuring exactly 6.5" from edge to edge. They feature a carbon fiber cone, butyl rubber surround and a sturdy cast frame with venting under the spider, which is a nice feature to see on a midwoofer as it aids in voice coil cooling and provides an additional escape path for air. The mids also feature a phase plug, which can serve dual purposes; it can aid in extending and smoothing the high frequency response by reducing cancellation and, when constructed of a heat-conducting metal, they can improve the driver's heat dissipation capabilities. The phase plug is coated so I can't tell the exact material, but it does have the feel of being a solid metal. Terminals are gold plated spade and the tinsel leads are fairly thick for being a midwoofer. The mid does not have a pole vent, and it's worth noting it also does not have a gasket. I'm guessing the lack of gasket is because of the grill-mounting ring that is to be installed behind the speaker. It's also nice that the company provides T/S parameters for the midwoofer, as it's fairly rare for a company in car audio to provide those. With it's high Qts and moderate Vas it's apparent these 6.5" speakers were designed with the car environment in mind as results will be very close to optimal in a car door, which functions closely to an infinite baffle alignment. The tweeters are 1" silk domes with ferrofluid cooling. The housing is plastic and there is about 6" of lead wires attached for direct connection to the speaker wire rather than any type of terminal. The packaging includes angle mount and flush mount options. Crossovers are reasonably sized and feature blue polycarbonate plastic cases with venting on each side, a 0db and -3db switch and gold plated terminals. The manual states this component sets uses a 4th order acoustical crossover slope. Interesting to note their description of the crossover there. They state it's an acoustic slope, not an electric slope. The difference normally being the acoustic slope is the sum of the driver's response and the crossover, whereas an electric slope is the effect of the crossover only. The acoustic slope is actually a little more useful to know as it tells you what the response of the actual driver will be with the crossover, and not just what the crossover is doing to the signal. When most people are designing a passive crossover, they are aiming for a certain acoustic slope not a certain electrical slope. The electrical slope is essentially just a means to an end, not the end itself. The manual does not list a crossover frequency, but "LHP 3.5" is molded into the crossover. I'm wondering if maybe that means the low and high pass frequency is 3.5khz. The installation materials included with the set is just about everything you would need to install the speakers; speaker wire, eight screws, four butt connectors for the tweeters, twelve spade terminals for connecting wires to the crossovers, and four female terminals that are supposed to be for connecting to the midwoofer. The manual is semi-informative. The same manual is used for all but 1 of the component sets and gives a brief introduction to Bravox, some bullet points about the features of the products, T/S parameters for the different sets and a quick wiring tutorial. I would like to see it include a little more detail and possibly some suggestions on proper setup techniques and installation considerations for informational/educational purposes, but maybe that's just me. Pictures Who doesn't like pictures?

As a former Hifonics owner and user, I'll say to steer clear of them. They have more than their share of reliability issues. While most of the people who experience reliability issues are most likely running them outside of their design specifications, and I never had a functionality issue with mine either, the overall performance leaves a good deal to be desired. They do their job, but really only do it befitting their price range. I watched the ones I owned begin to distort the signal far before they reached full output on an o'scope, with or without a load. One of the biggest reasons I got rid of them as quickly as possible. There seems to be amps out there, similar in price, that are far more trustworthy performers. Since you ordered a dual 2 Q, that throws the Kicker out, the Audioque 1200 is the next best option. A lot of people are using the Audiopipe amps as well. They're price seems too good to be true to me, but they have a lot of users so without a bench test I'll wait for a chance to play with one myself before giving any opinions. I'll just toss out there that there are people selling amps all the time. You could find a great used SAZ-1000 or SAE-1200 or even a refurbished one. Used amps of all different brands and sizes are for sale all the time.

Certainly it's possible. But not everyone has the skill or desire to run an active setup. There are advantages and disadvantages to both active and passive. Active can provide worse results if not setup properly. The user has to determine which route best suits them based on their skill set, knowledge level and wants/needs. And really, going active isn't as cheap an option as it's made out to be after you factor in the cost of the necessary processing and additional amplifier channels, etc. With the added cost of processing, the additional channels required, and the drivers, an active setup would probably cost as much or more than the Bravox passive at full MSRP. But at these current blowout prices, even if someone were to buy them and toss the passives in the trash, they still only have $225 into all of the speakers and an average cost per driver of $56. That's pretty much in-line with the average active driver cost from the DIY market. Certainly it's possible to go cheaper, but results wouldn't be similar.

Stetsom Dealer.

Buy it from the SSA store.

http://www.biggreenegg.com/

You've got it wired wrong.

Someone please correct me if I did anything incorrectly, I just used the Sd values from the ssa homepage I'll make another for SA when I got a minute.