The Bottom Line: The JBL P650c is a very good speaker. It sounds very good, has solid construction and can improve the sound of your stock audio dramatically. Check them out.
dkozin's Full Review: JBL Power P-650C Car Component System
Even though I have considered the Rockford Fosgate P162S component system for my Infiniti G35 (as a replacement for my stock front speakers), I did not buy it. I was underwhelmed by its performance. But the stock speakers of my Infiniti G35 were annoying me every day I used them. So I decided to get some decent speakers and went with JBL P650c Power Series component speakers (front) and JBL P652 2-way coaxial speakers (rear).
The Existing System
The stock speakers I had in my G35 sounded fuzzy and slightly muffled, lacked bass and midrange as well as upper treble. I am happy that I haven’t gotten the Bose sound system (a $900 option), which sounded even worse with over-accentuated upper bass and lower treble. In any case, the aftermarket speakers were bound to improve the situation.
The car features a 160-Watt OEM audio (by Clarion) and the existing speakers were components in front, 6.5-inch full range in the rear. The front components had no crossover and consisted of a 6.5-inch paper cone Panasonic 4-Ohm speaker with a paper whizzer cone and a tweeter. The wire came directly from the head unit to the full-range Panasonic and was connected in parallel to the tweeter, which also had a capacitor (I assume that acted as a high-pass filter).
There were several problems with the OEM setup: 1. Lack of crossover, even taking into account that the high-pass filter might have been decent, made 6.5-inch speakers try to reproduce full sound spectrum, including treble. 2. Construction of the woofers, e.g. paper cones, treated cloth surrounds, light magnets, etc. 3. Unknown quality of the tweeters. 4. My ears felt that I could do better if I replaced this setup with my current computer speakers (Yamaha YST50).
Once again, the sound was mediocre: muffled, lacked definition, had uneven frequency response, had poor instrument separation.
The JBL P650c System
The P650c is a component speaker system that consists of two 6.5-inch HCL (honeycomb laminate) woven fiberglass woofers with Nomex core and rubber surrounds, two edge-driven titanium tweeters and two separate crossovers.
The system came with good-looking speaker grilles and variety of mounting hardware, which I did not use.
The speakers feature solid construction. The woofers have heavy magnets and rigid cones, the crossovers are large as are the tweeters.
Some Specs
The speakers are rated to have frequency response of 45 Hz-23 kHz. The power handling (RMS) is 5-90 W with 270 W of peak power. The mounting depth (top) is 2.125 inches. The impedance is 4 Ohms and the sensitivity is 90dB.
They sell for $249, but I got them for $80 (don’t ask where, they are sold out).
Sound
All the numbers and technical jargon matter only as much as the sound they can produce. I do not play music super-loud and do not like super-accentuated bass or treble. I always use 0 setting for bass and treble adjustment on any good sound-reproducing equipment.
I have Athena F1 speakers and an Athena subwoofer at home driven by Panasonic digital receiver. Although I did not expect these JBL speakers (coupled with coaxial JBL P652 in rear) to rival my home setup (which is no high end, but very good sounding), I hoped that JBL speakers would improve the sound dramatically comparing to the accounting consideration-driven OEM setup.
The head unit was not replaced and there was no extra sound insulation installed. The speakers were installed in the stock locations and by the time I went to pick up my car I didn’t know what to expect. The tech who was going to install the speakers told me before that he doubts the sound will improve much.
He was very wrong. Even without burn-in (whether you believe in burn-in or not is your own decision), the speakers sounded very, very good. There is no comparison with the stock setup. The treble is quality is very good (the installer increased treble level on the head unit to +5 for some reason, so I had to dial it down back to zero), the dynamic range is excellent and the audible spectrum is much wider than stock.
The instrument separation is great. No longer you have to strain to try to hear different instruments in upper bass and lower midrange area. Cliché, but I have to say I can hear instruments that you would never know were in the recording, have you used the OEM setup.
I was lucky that the stock head unit is actually decent with flat frequency response and power reserves that I never use (I don’t generally blast music). Be aware, however, that if you have Bose setup, the sound is heavily equalized with bumps in some areas and valleys in others. I listened to Bose in the 2005-2006 G35s and it is crap.
But getting back to these JBLs. They are not without vices. Although bass might improve with burn-in, so far it does not seem to be reaching to 45 Hz as advertised. Maybe 80 Hz, but not 45. Might improve with burn-in and it does not bother me anyway.
Also, the frequency response is good, but not super-flat. There seem to be spikes and valleys, although certainly not nearly as bad as the stock unit or (even worse) Bose setup. The treble is slightly harsh and, at least on some material, can cause listner fatigue.
In any case, am very happy. I have to check out Mark Levinson in Lexus cars and maybe the new Studio On Wheels by Bose in the new Infiniti G35, but for $370 installed (these components were $250 installed), my G35's sound went from barely tolerable to very good.
I am glad that instead of paying $900 extra for mediocre Bose system (that sounds worse than standard one), I could spend $370 and get much better sound. The only regret I have is that I have not done this swap sooner. Well, you live, you learn.
Durability
As of 03/2009, the speakers have been durable. No issues so far at 1.5 years of use.
Bottom Line
The JBL P650c is a very good speaker. It sounds very good, has solid construction and can improve the sound of your stock audio dramatically. Check them out.
SquareTrade AP6.0 BRAND NEW Features:Component system includes two 6-1/2" woofers, 2 tweeters, and 2 crossovers Intermount III mounting system allows ...More at eBay
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