Sundown Component Review SA-6.5CS

[HunterJohnson]

Here's my review on the new Sundown SA-6.5CS

I'm powering the doors active with Alpine F407 the mids are LP'd at 3800 and the tweeters are HP'd at 6000hz running off a pioneer 4300DVD.

After an hour of tweeking I am very happy with the results. I listened to the pair for about an hour at nearly max volume and have no listening fatigue (only about 60rms)

The sundown mids are very powerful and play cleanly pretty low around 80 hz. There is alot of bass for not being sealed in the door and pretty much freeaired. These speakers allowed me to listen to old music over again because of how smooth the sound was and how my newly tuned system sound. I started to timealign it (cheating) by using the pioneer sonic setting an moving it over 3 to the left side. It separated the vocals and instruments just enough to make me really indulge in the music but of course there is still plenty of room to sound even better.

Tomorrow I will continue to tune and I will most likely add a single 12" sealed or my sundown 8" ported off my Alpine MRV T757

We'll it's been a while since I wrote this review on my build thread and I wanted to update my review and also post it on SMD

I continued tuning it and settled with HPF at 80hz on HU and LP'd at 3850 on the mids and gain all the way down on the tweeters HP'd around 5500 if I remember correctly.

Also added the SA-8 tuned 33.5 ported and off the MRV T757 crossed over at 80hz

The sound is a solid 8/10 from the speakers, the mids sound great, are powerful and sound even better in my ported fiberglassed kick pops. I am impressed by the sundown mids, but unfortunately not by the tweeters. The tweeters look and sound very generic like any other silk dome tweeter. I ended up sticking with my rockford tweeters instead of switching them out. Also the crossover looks cheap, but don't let that fool you with the ability to adjust the mid +/- 3db and the tweeter as well.

Overall I rate the sundown components 7/10 mostly because the mid sounds fantastic and a decent cross over, but lost points for price and a generic tweeter. I'd say 200 dollars is a tad over priced for the set as I can purchase Pioneer TS-D1720C 6.75 D Series Components for under half price of the sundowns.

Thanks for reading my extremely long review

[sundownz]

We've considered offering a metal or other hard material tweeter as an option ; there will be two groups on the tweeter -- those who like it and those who don't. To me it's the ideal sound in a lower cost unit ; super smooth and flat response and non-fatiguing -- but this is not what everyone wants. I am taking away from the review that you prefer a hard dome ?

The tweeter housing is an open tool unit -- as it's very compact and offers a swivel feature. I looked into tooling a metal housing, which would have no sound benefit but would look cool, but we'd also lose the swivel feature. The internals of the tweeter vary from many other units in the same housing ; we've tested several for it -- with many variations of an acoustic lens, ferrofluid or not, rear dampening materials, etc. What we settled on was no lens, heavy damping, and ferrofluid in the gap. As with woofer baskets being pretty universal the same goes for tweeter housings -- but we appreciate the feedback on it.

Also I've started a tooling on a bit nicer crossover housing; the housing was also an open tool unit that fit the parts we wanted -- the new housing will offer a bit more flexibility (and be compatible with other future component sets) and will show up later in the year -- thanks for the feedback

PS: Did you try running the tweeters closer to the mid LPF frequency ? We have them at 3.8khz in the passive with decent overlap.

Edited February 5, 2013 by sundownz

[HunterJohnson]

We've considered offering a metal or other hard material tweeter as an option ; there will be two groups on the tweeter -- those who like it and those who don't. To me it's the ideal sound in a lower cost unit ; super smooth and flat response and non-fatiguing -- but this is not what everyone wants. I am taking away from the review that you prefer a hard dome ?

The tweeter housing is an open tool unit -- as it's very compact and offers a swivel feature. I looked into tooling a metal housing, which would have no sound benefit but would look cool, but we'd also lose the swivel feature. The internals of the tweeter vary from many other units in the same housing ; we've tested several for it -- with many variations of an acoustic lens, ferrofluid or not, rear dampening materials, etc. What we settled on was no lens, heavy damping, and ferrofluid in the gap. As with woofer baskets being pretty universal the same goes for tweeter housings -- but we appreciate the feedback on it.

Also I've started a tooling on a bit nicer crossover housing; the housing was also an open tool unit that fit the parts we wanted -- the new housing will offer a bit more flexibility (and be compatible with other future component sets) and will show up later in the year -- thanks for the feedback

PS: Did you try running the tweeters closer to the mid LPF frequency ? We have them at 3.8khz in the passive with decent overlap.

Jacob, thanks for getting back to me,

I prefer a silk soft dome tweeter like the one you have in your product. I just felt the tweeter housing made it very generic and looked exactly like my hifonics zues 6.5 components.

I don't mind much how the crossovers look bc they work great with the extra option. But that would be even better to have tooled a little nicer as the housing again is pretty generic.

The reason I have my tweeters at 6.5k is because I'm using my hifonics tweeters and they are high on the doors and they sounded the smoothest at 6.5k with minimal gain.

I think I expected more from the tweeter personally because the mid is fantastic and I would have liked to see a little more tooling with the tweeter or just something that made the tweeter stand out like the mid does sound quality wise and overall appearance.

I did test the whole set as well on the cross over and it does sound decent but of course running them active sounds even better but the highs I feel are still missing something, too bland for me.

Can't wait to hear your reference series, my dealer in SoCal has them ordered alrdy!! Might convince me to buy them lol

Edited February 5, 2013 by HunterJohnson

[sundownz]

I am re-tooling the external housing of the tweeters with our logos in them to spice it up a bit -- so that may help with feeling less "generic" to customers. That will show up along with the revised housing later in the year.

I am also pretty anxious for the reference set ; and I am also developing an "X" level set (details not public yet).

[HunterJohnson]

I am re-tooling the external housing of the tweeters with our logos in them to spice it up a bit -- so that may help with feeling less "generic" to customers. That will show up along with the revised housing later in the year.

I am also pretty anxious for the reference set ; and I am also developing an "X" level set (details not public yet).

Damnit Jacob, can I atleast enjoy these speakers for 6 months before I have to spend more money on your new set!!

Btw I really want that prototype X 15. SA-8v1 is fantastic for sq, but I'm still lacking that BUMP

[ToNasty]

Haha I.just Installed my set.this.morning. I love them but.i need more tweeter.