Very rough review of Vifa PL mids

I got them just for shits. Hey, $18, why the heck not? First off, they are built like tanks. Cast aluminum baskets, and they are BIG! Look to be as big as Koda 6 mids, and im sure that cast basket may make it a lil heavier. Seem to be built fairly well. Well, i took out my MB Quart PSD-216 mids and dropped the PL's in, and its in stock door location. I'm using an alpine MRV-f450 biamped so delivering a hair above 50wrms per mid. So im underpowering them a fair amount. They are rated at 100wrms. I started by setting the gains, didn't put much time into that, as i really didn't care. I crossed them down to about 70hz for starters. I did most of my listening with the 2002 Iasca test cd. Didn't listen very long at 70hz, got bored. So, crossed them down to 50hz. Strong, but hell, why not turn the crossover off. I mean, the damn mid is built like a sub, so to hell with it, crossover off. This mid is strong! Midbass has plenty of kick to it, and low extension. I didn't miss my sub at all during the SQ portion of my listening. Decided to turn the sub back on to see how well they blended with the sub. I was very impressed with how they pulled my bass forward. Listening didn't go very far on the first day. On the next day, i got my new HU. Alpine 9813, and immediately i ditched my passive crossovers and went 3-way active from the HU. By doing this, i had much more control over my entire setup, and this made a huge difference when playing with these mids. I was able to try diff crossover points between mid and tweet, and of course the mid and sub. Tried a few different slopes, finally decided to cross sub at 63hz with a 18db/octave slope and let the mids go uncrossed on the low side, and 2500 on the high side (i was advised that they weren't very good above 2200 or so, though i didn't notice that) also with a 18db/octave slope.. I've never been so impressed with any speaker in my car. I set my gains a lil better, and decided to just beat the crap out of these mids, well, as best i could with half their rated rms handling. I went to the end of the iasca cd (spl tracks), turned my sub off, and i let em have it. My first thought was, i thought i turned my sub off..... :unsure: These things pumped out some pretty heavy bass! Im talkin, rear view mirror, door panels, and everything was rattling. To relieve the rattle and get a true feel for the bass output, i had to brace myself between the door panels. These things were putting out clean bass down in the sub frequencies, and they never bottomed out, but did show a lil stress when i really pushed the volume. Now, for my final test, i played the sweep at the end of the cd which it seems started below 20hz. they never bottomed. Took it like a champ.

In a nut shell, these speakers are worth well above even the list price IMO. They hit hard and low well into sub frequencies, and do it without even breaking a sweat.

 

Seth i'll have to stop back by there and see what you think after me setting the gains better and doing some much better setting up. I need to get some baffles in my doors, and some much needed deadening. The jury is still out on them though. I'm not sure how i feel about them compared to the quarts, as i have been very unhappy with my setup overall for the past few months. I was lost after i got rid of my 7894, and i took the quarts out before i got the 9813 (i'll make you eat your words about my "POS HU" CHUMP). In the next couple days im gonna construct some baffles and drop the quarts back in there. You made a few good points in your post. Hopefully soon i'll be able to report back and let you guys know for sure which set i like best.

Also i must add, with the way Seth likes his music, and the way i like mine, im finding it a bit hard to compare the PL's with the koda's. Me and him are far off with how we like our music to be presented.