hey, has any one heard a pair of clarion scm400 4 ways?any comments welcome. cheers

Yeah, the clarion rep has them in his VZ SV6, quite nice for the dough

yea kool,im thinkin of picking a pair up from work.....down side is alot of work to mount them in my doors...all in the fun tho

A cardinal rule of car audio is "More is NOT always better".

One great sub, for instance, can vastly out-perform 2, 3, even 4 dirt-cheap subs.

you'll find the abosolute BEST of the best speakers usually use only 2 speakers, a midbass woofer and a tweeter. One of each. There *Are* Three-way sets, that use three seperate speakers, but they arent *too* common, are expensive, and are hard to set up properly in-car.

The reason brands like pioneer, clarion etc DO make "4 way" speakers, which have up to 4, 5, even 6 speakers in-one, is to target people who don't know any better, and think more is better.
The point is, If you'll notice, their higher priced gear, uses only 2 speakers.

check it out at
http://www.pioneeraus.com.au/car_entertain...kers/index.html

The lower-range gear, (ts-a) uses heaps of speakers in one. The best stuff (ts-c) uses only two, seperate speakers.

The fact is, if you have 6 speakers, for $300, that means each speaker is costing only $50. More cheap speakers doesn't equal quality sound.

Anyway, i havent heard those clarions, and i think they are a bit dated. But the chances are, they wont sound too great compared to what you could get for a little bit extra.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say a simple 2-way component set, for a similair or even lesser price, would sound much better. Remember, most of how great your system sounds is how well its installed, and trying to install and angle 4 speakers, on each side, correctly, will be near on impossible. cheaply, at least.

And when your referring to hearing something, its spelt heard.

thank you for your input liquidity,i am only seein what is out there,seems i see this set of speakers sitting on the top shelf every day i thought i might do a little bit of research.what are your thoughts on the clarion HX range?

Are those their "flagship" models? they are probably quite nice.

While clarion make "good" speakers, i believe theres better out there for the money. From more "specialised" car-audio manufactures, eg, focal, boston acoustics, DD, etc etc.

Then again, Car audio is all about what you like. Audition as many speakers as you can around your budget, including what might be available to you second-hand, and pick the one you like the best ;P

The problem is, its fairly easy to make an "okay" speaker. But up to a certain price point (say, $700), you have to sacrifice something.

Wether thats visual appeal, raw power handling, tweeter detail, midbass "punch"...etc etc.....Hence, auditioning speakers.
Pick the one that has the best balance, for you.

The big brand names, from my knowledge, tend to offer slightly less value for money, in that your paying a premium for the "name".
Some speakers, such as pioneers, tend to be a bit biased towards low punch and high piercing treble, without great performance in between, which suits those into dance/rnb/pop who want "totally phat looking 4-way speakers dude". But you might prefer them over other brands you listen to.

It all depends on personal taste, budget, favourite music styles, and how fussy your ears are.

When I last listened to Clarions 'flagship' gear, I found the tweeters harsh, but without any accuracy which the harsh/sharp focal/MBQ types have. Could have been the tuning though.

Their old speakers (purple cone, real x-overs, under $300) were an awesome set for the times and money, with a very natural sound.

yea ill have a listen to the high end pioneers and clarions at work on thurs,im pritty sure we have some of the HX series speakers mounted in the sound bord.

Why are you limiting yourself to only Clarion or Pioneer?

How much are you looking to spend on a set of splits, and what is your overall system setup?


George
Adelaide Pro Sound

im not limiting myself,im open to DD etc but as thos products are at my fingertips and iv never really considerd clarion before so im interested as to what they are like.and because these speakers are already mounted in the sound bord at work its really easy to demo them.im looking to spend around $350 - $400 on some splits.but if you can justify it i will spend more.at the morning iv got a kenwood KDC-x7529 HU and response 5 inch coax in the front,response 6x9s in the back.4 8 inch el cheapo tornado subs in the boot,i want to finish the boot install off before i buy some new splits.i am happy with the sound from the response speakers at the moment.altho the midbass is abit lacking.

so watt is the sound that u are looking for, and watt type of music do you listen to. DD are nice but the tweeters is a bit overbearing, Focals are a bit the same, Rainbow profi kicks have huge midbass, the pioneer splits i have heard are quite punchy down low but do lack a bit of clarity (IMO)

I have a set of the SCM400's sitting in the hallway but they are going into a friends mini project so totally unsure how they sound

i like my heights smooth and detailed,i dont like harsh tweeters very much.i love the tweets in the arron ATS 5s (home theatre stuff).i like my midbass tight and punchy.i mainly listen to R n B and hip hop but do also listen to some rock,house music,a little of every thing really.

well definitely try the rainbows, possibly focal depending on how much midbass u like, otherwise possibly dynaudio's

Sounds like you'd also suit a soft-domed tweeter, no metal domes. I believe the focals are metal-domed tweets, hence their "bright" reputation, so maybe scratch them off the list

You should note, soft-domed tweeters tend to suit an install where they are firing directly at you.
Hard-domes tend to like being a little "off-axis", and hence suit installations down in the kickpanels where a direct firing at you may not be possible.

yea i was leaning towards the clarion SRS1752HX splits,seems they have pure silk tweeters.i still have to demo them as i have no idea what they sound like tho.can you recomend me some diff models of focal and dynaudio's so i can do some homework on them. cheers.

As said, i'm not great at matching models to budgets yet.

The dynaudio's are a very smooth, very natural speaker, but dont go particularly loud apparently. Keep in midn that while a dyn wont sound fantastic on an in-store demo board, they apparently really shine when in the car.

I believe Dyns will be out of you budget unless you can find them secondhand.

For Focal you would probably look at the 165V'2. But as was said before, the tweeter might not be too you liking. If you decide on the V2's though PM me, I have a set that you could probably have really cheap.

In terms of smooth (but still very detailed) tweeters, you cant go past morels. I have Hybrid Ovation6's and they will set you back about $500, but they have plenty of cheaper options.

I think The rainbows would be the pick for you though. I have heard the Profi Kicks and they have amazing midbass and every thing else is sweet too. The are way too much for you, but you could look at the SLC kicks, which you will get for about $450. Talk to adelaide car audio shop on here about the rainbows.

Perhaps shoot me a PM Jack88 and discuss some splits which are not at your fingertips but are also within your budget .


George
Adelaide Pro Sound

i had a quick listen to the 3 way model of the SCM400's today at work,they didn't sound all that great to me...altho i didn't really have time to get a proper listen.