2-way active system, reviewed..

[gstokes]

Not sure how long it's been now but it is pure joy each and every time i find an excuse to drive the van so i can listen to the sound system, there is literally no comparison in the sound quality between the coaxials that once existed in the doors to the midrange drivers that replaced them and the separate tweeters that reside in both corners of the dash.

The sound is balanced with nothing overwhelming, just the right amount of bass, mids and highs to make you feel as though you are there at the concert. Turned all the way up to 35 it sounds just as clear as it does at level 18, just a whole bunch louder. With 75 watts rms x each of the 4 main channels i should have got tweeters that handle more than 50 watts rms, they are straining just a little to hold the excessive power and you can hear it in the music especially when it hits a peak but it's not enough to discolor the music.

The mids are only rated for 60 watts rms but they do a fine job of soaking up the excessive power, i would have to say that the CDT CL-5 midrange driver is an outstanding speaker that outshines the tweeter with little effort, a sound investment that's definitely worth the money.

If i did it over i would use an active crossover to split the frequencies for a pair of matching 2-channel amps just for the tweeters and mids then a mono amp by itself just for the subs, one big advantage in case of component failure would be just having to replace one of the low cost 2-channel amps vs having to repair or replace the costly 5-channel amplifier that runs the entire system..

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[csu87 10+ year member]

Active is where its at.

for your tweeters, back the gain down a tad on their channel so you don't get that distortion at high volumes

 

[gstokes]

Active is where its at.
for your tweeters, back the gain down a tad on their channel so you don't get that distortion at high volumes

I don't want to lose any volume so i will most likely replace the tweeters with something a bit more robust and/or sensitive, the tweeters have a sensitivity rating of 96db as compared to 90.6db for the mids but the mids still outshine the tweeters, the CL5 is just a superior driver and i have nothing but praise for it..

 

[csu87 10+ year member]

youd be surprised at how much volume you actually don't lose.

I currently only have 30-40 watts on my tweets and 4" mids and 8" mids and they sound great and get loud doing it. mess with the crossovers and settings on the amp until your mids don't overpower your tweets and your tweets don't distort and it will sound like a whole new system.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

I concur with @csu87; active setup doesn't need nearly as much power as a traditional passive setup. When I first went active, I couldn't get the tweeter to sound right because I had the gains a little too high, thinking that it wasn't loud enough but when I turned it up, it was distorting and stressing out. What I eventually did was put the gain for the tweeter to the very lowest where I couldn't go anymore and then match the mids according to that. Now the tweeters are more than loud enough. I actually had lower the signal for the tweeter just so it doesn't get too loud.. So I would say it's roughly 30-40w too, not even 50w..