AVaddict's Full Review: Sony XS-S690CX Coaxial Car Speaker
The Sony XS-S690CX : Fisson Mailed!
A little Background
Maybe this review should have been called, “The Sony XS-S690CX : Another Appalling Car Audio Product from Sony” or even “The Sony XS-S690CX : When Good Speakers Go Bad!” except that the latter implies that they were good at one point, making that choice a little ironic….dontcha think? I have never been tight lipped about my love of Sony’s wide array of consumer products. I an established ES/XBR buyer, I currently own over 20 Sony products, most of which are fairly high dollar, and I see no end to my rampant Sony based consumerism. Are you lost yet? It’s OK, lemme splain. There was a time when Sony made a reliable, well mfr’d car audio product and the ES line meant something. That was a solid decade ago. I have never been a fan of their car audio speakers, but that wasn’t to say they were bad, they just weren’t very good. My how times have changed, you’d be better off with a pair of $30 Blaus than these atrocities.
The Product
These are base line offering in a 6”x9” configuration. There were matched with a pair of Sony XS-S160CX and run off a JVC headunit that although a few years old seemed like a solid little performer and actually had a fair amount of sound shaping options available. There was no sub in this application and no external amps, everything was run off the headunit. The speakers feature a fairly basic stamped steel frame and ferrite motor. Nothing really remarkable to report about the spider, leads, or other construction aspects, go pick up and look at a Kraco or Boss speaker, same only different. This is not to say you have to have massive cast aluminum baskets to get reasonable sound, of course you don’t, I’m simply pointing out there is nothing unique about these units.
The cones are just poly, with a paper mid (hmmm) and a poly film tweeter. Sony calls the woofer HOP, Highly Oriented Polyolefin, but bottom line is it is just a poly cone, there is no multi step process like there is with CCMDs, or MB Quarts evaps. The surround is butyl, but Sony is calling it “stroke stabilizer” presumably because of the little Kicker-esque ribs along the edge. Again, bottom line, it’s rubber, end of story. Some of the test tracks included selections from Barry Manilow, Celine Dion, Tom Jones, and some more dynamic music I used to set everything including Disturbed, WASP, older VH, and Winger….no that last part wasn’t a joke, I found Kip Wingers first disc under a Prelude manual in my garage and thought why not.
Install and Performance
Performance may not be the right word to use, but let’s talk about install first. These went into a late 90s Camry. Front doors are a breeze and the rear deck would have been a breeze, but the sheet metal was stamped for 5x7/6x8 units. This is bizarre to me, 626s are like that too, and if one didn’t know better, 94/7 Accords come off that way too. In all cases there is more than enough room such that the original stamping could have been for 6x9s without the use of spacers of any kind. Not too big a deal, 10 minutes with some formica and all was good. I would have bottom mounted and saved myself the time, but space was paramount in the trunk so, 1.8” really did matter that much. For the most part, the only other issue was the R&R on the paneling and soldering the pigtails. Beyond that, this was a straightforward 1hr install.
Lets knock this out now, all the wiring is correct, the speakers are all in phase, the headunit works fine, and there is no ground hum or FM buzz, these speakers really are that terrible. The client was massively pleased, to the point of calling his wife and turning up some Manilow (ah yes, that will surely prove his point of improved fidelity, lets hope he doesn’t read this) while he was still in the driveway. This is one of those golden examples where if the customer is happy, so is everybody, but I wouldn’t wish these units on my worst enemy…..unless they were jamming some Englebert, but seriously. At low volumes things like NPR sound passable with a fair amount of warmish base (and arrogance) to male spoken voice. At low volume some classical music comes off quiet nicely and at low volume classic rock is even ok, but don’t touch that dial, no really, don’t.
These speakers swing between massively bass heavy to massively mid heavy in no time flat, all the while the tweet screeching in the background. Now granted, we are talking about running off the head, but this is an aftermarket headunit and that is always an improvement over stock, even for the most lowly decks. I cut back on bass, changed the boost point, got rid of it, used no bass and just the low loudness setting. Wow, it was just different flavors of suck rather than getting closer a less aggressive sound. There are those that might say, “well, break them in for a few weeks”, no, lol, that’s not the problem here and these don’t even approach the range where such methods would be understood as worthwhile.
The transition between low, mid, and high is not really a transition, they step on each others toes like two uncomfortable 12 yr olds at their first cotillion. This leads to a couple of things, huge spikes as well as drops at numerous frequencies. I couldn’t tell you its 283Hz or 1kHz or 13kHz, I’m not making that accurate an assessment, but its obvious to my ears. The previous issues mentioned are outside the bigger issue to my ears, the tweeters are massively fatiguing at anything more than very modest volume levels. Cutting back on treble doesn’t help this, it is across the entire range the tweet is capable of and never goes away. Screechy may be misleading, its more a piecing, but constant. I noticed while listening to female voice material on NPR, it was especially prevalent on her Ts and Ps, but not cause she was popping that bad, it was a combination of the tweets, the station strength and a wee bit of static. None the less, I couldn’t see rockin out to these for more than 30-40 minutes, my ears just could take the piecing the high end is offering. For short durations with some music they perform reasonable well. Of all things wankish that came out the 80s heavy metal big hair era, WASP actually played back fairly well and with the exception of Eruption, Eddie Van Halen was making a fair go of things. Im not sure I’d wanna hear what the would do to something more along the lines of electronica, jeez, I don’t even think a little Fatboy would be wise.
Final Thoughts
It was suggested to me as I was talking about this with a friend previous to actually sitting down and writing it, that things would be different with components amps and I have to flatly disagree. The problems these speakers display in spades are integral to their design, not where the power comes from. I never pushed these to the point of distortion, there was really very little reason to, the client wasn’t going to go there and when I did push them, the sound was undesirable enough to go no further. I rarely trash a product like this (even though I have mentioned a few very minor decent aspects of these speakers), but I see little or no redeeming value in these. They are an upgrade from most stock speakers, but that is it. I would strongly suggest looking to Polk or Pioneer if you need a very low level factory replacement. These are simply not worth the $30-$50 they are getting right now.
Sony Xplod 6 x 9 3-Way Speaker - XSS690CX/ 6 x 9 HOP Woofer Cone/ Stroke Stabilizer Surround/ 2-9/16 Cone Midrange/ 320W Peak Power (80W RMS)More at Abt Electronics
Stroke Stabilizer Surround 6 x 9 HOP Woofer Cone for bass response 2-9/16 cone midrange Film tweeter for high frequencies Magnet Material - Ferrite/Fe...More at Amazon
Give your car some serious sound with Xpld CX Series speakers. You'll experience sonic performance thanks to the polyetherimide (PEI) dome tweeter and...More at Sony Style
X is for Xplod, and that's exactly what Sony is doing on the car audio scene with their new '05 line of Xplod car speakers. Sony dares you to pour on ...More at eBay
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.