Pienstar

One of my Morel Maximo 6.5 mids started to develop a popping sound, so I decided to swap them out. I'm still using the Morel crossovers & tweeters from the set, and just swapped out the mids. Before I get into my choice, and impressions I have to rant a bit about what I uncovered when I removed my door panels.... I originally had my entire setup professionally installed a few months ago at a local shop that's been around for a long time. I've already had 1 issue where one of my rear coaxials started rattling around the door. Apparently it was just mounted like shat, so I fixed that a few weeks ago. Although I was pretty happy with the SQ of the Morel's overall, the front mids lacked any kind of solid midbass. I had specifically told the installer to at least dampen the speaker area and make sure it was sealed well. Well, to my surprise no dampening and gaps everywhere. Now at least I know why the mids didn't sound the way that they should have. I definitely plan to take a ride to this shop and call them out on their garbage install of the front mids. This time around I decided to install the new mids myself. I'm not a professional installer by any means, but I do have some car audio knowledge and thought I could definitely do a better job installing the new mids myself. I decided on a pair of NVX XSP65's. I've read that these might be the same speakers used in Arc Audio's black series which I think are originally made by SB Acoustics. As you can see in the pics, it's a pretty hefty mid especially when compared to the Morels. I had to use a dremel to open up the mounting bracket a little bit. Once the bracket was installed, I used some NVX dampening material to cover the bracket and door speaker area. Once I mounted the new mids, I also used a little extra dampening material around the edges of the speakers just to give it a nice seal. It's not too pretty looking, but figured it would help. After a few hours, I had both new mids installed and everything put back together. My initial impression was DAMN, that sounds good! They could probably still use some tuning, but the difference in sound is night and day. Vocals are very natural sounding, and the midbass is excellent. I'm feeding these about 90 watts rms, and I'm pretty sure they can take much more. I might eventually swap out the Morel crossovers and tweeters to NVX as well, but for now I'm very happy with the sound. I'll have to see if the tweeters will fit in the factory location, because supposedly the XSPTW model is huge. If anyone is looking to replace their front stage, I would highly recommend these mids from NVX!

GABAR

Don`t waste your time and breath going back to the shop to complain.

You now know they didn`t do what you requested and they didn`t do what they said they would do.

In the long run, they`re only hurting themselves because they`ve lost you as a customer and you proved to yourself that you did a better job.

Have a great day.

Pienstar

You're probably right that it's a waste of time. I'm amazed that they are still in business if this is the type of work that they do!

nineball

a little tip - instead of using more cld around the installed speaker use non-hardening model clay. it won't leave stuff on your speaker when you remove it

Pienstar

Cool, thanks for the tip! Hopefully these won't be coming out for a long time.....

_MacLeod_

That stuff is awesome for deadening door panels. It adds a boat load of mass and really cuts down on rattles and resonance. Be careful where you put it tho. It will melt in the 120 degrees it gets in your car during summer and it can melt onto your speaker if you don't place it carefully. Trust me, I know. Once it melts onto your speaker and then hardens again, your driver is pretty much ruined.

Pienstar

That's good to know. It gets pretty darn hot down here in central FL!

_MacLeod_

Same here in Georgia. I had the door panels in my old Accord layered with this stuff like 15 extra pounds of it. Needless to say, my doors did not vibrate or resonate at all. But once night going thru some test tones, I found that the right mid didn't play 80 Hz at all. I thought my beloved Polk Audio SR 6 had finally given up the ghost. Tearfully took the door panel off and found a large glob of red/green/yellow clay on the lower edge of the cone. Never could get it all off there. I keep it as a memento on my table in my garage to remind me to not be a moron again.

Pienstar

Ha, too funny. Those moments when you realize beloved equipment might be gone are hard to swallow. I had a close call with one of my rear surrounds in my home a few weeks ago.... Roof leak softened up the drywall, and one of my Miller & Kreisel tripole surrounds came flying off the wall! I wanted to cry when I first saw it, and my fiance is looking at me like "it's just a speaker" lol. Luckily the speaker wire was installed really well, and it caught the enclosure before it hit the floor. Surprisingly, the enclosure barely had a mark on it, and all 3 drivers were fine. I'm a dumbarse for mounting it to the drywall in the first place. I moved it over a few inches, and now it's mounted to the stud.