I am in desperate need of some advice. I need components my budget is at $200-$250 and i am looking at 3 different choices FOCAL 165-VR, MB QUART PVI216, or ALPINE SPX-17REF These are all around 75 watt rms power handling.... I am open to suggestions if you have any

 

I would go with the Alpines.

A word of warning about the Focals, make sure they don't require a larger than normal mounting hole, unless you want to customize your stock mounting location. I purchased an entry level set of CDT components and it would have been more trouble than it was worth to install them behind the stock speaker grills in my 1997 Civic.

 

idk why so many people think alpine makes good speakers.....
Focal, Morel, Rainbow, Diamond are all far superior.

I like my polk components a lot and many people who listen to them do as well. tweeter is very smooth.

Rainbow makes GREAT stuff just hard to find.

Morel is known as a higher end company thats not well known to people who think alpines are good. check them out.

comps are more preference than ANYTHING else... and then u need to install and tune them correctly if u dont... u might as well put some surroundsound speakers from ur cheap sony 5.1 set-up and putting them in your cup holders.

 

I only recommended Alpines because of the ease of fit, nothing more. Many of the Euro designed speakers, although they say 6.5", are measured on a metric basis and will require more modification that I am willing to put up with to utilize the stock grills.

Also, I am hard pressed to tell the difference between a $700 set of components and a $300 set of components while driving on the interstate. Sitting there parked, I can tell a difference, but while trying to overcome 70 to 90 decibels of road noise, those expensive components don't sound as nice.

Then again, I am running a hybrid setup with an Alpine Type R 6.5 and a CDT TW-25 tweeter. The TW-25 just sounds cleaner than the Type R tweeter whereas the Apine woofers actually sound better than the CDT. Had the CDT woofers blown me away, I may have modded the door grills to make them fit.

Components are the only way to go in our Civics because coaxials have poor tweeter placement in the bottom of the doors.

 

when u run a pair of 700 comps... ur going to deaden your car so u DO notice the diffrence on the road lol. my car is pretty damn quiet with just dyamating my doors with a few layers.
get a pair fo 5.25" comps if u want them to fit easier... and then just use some spacers.... easy fix.

 

my car is deadened (except floor and roof that will come when i run my 1/0 awg for my sub and 4 channel amp) 1kw rms to a 15 without deadening is insane

 

I feel your pain on the 1/0 thing! I ran 1/0 in both my cars because every time I don't, I always end up wishing I had! It really sucks to pull out a perfectly good 4 gauge cable because you told yourself that you wouldn't ever need to upgrade... Either that, or you end up like my 2000 F150 when I had it.... Three runs of 4 gauge wire for all three amps.

 

The best choice out of those is definitely the Focals. They are extremely well balanced and have a very smooth response curve. The only thing to worry about here is the tweeter size bacause its a 1 3/4 in tweeter compared to a stock 1 in. Its not going to fit in the stock location and you are gonna have to either alter the triangle mount piece or mount the tweeter somewhere else on the door.

The alpines are also a good choice and the tweeter is only a 1 in tweeter so they will mount much easier.

 

yeah my car does not have stock tweeters

 

Well, in that case I digress. Go with the Focals!

But on another topic, is anyone else here disappointed with the new MB Quart versus the old MB Quart? The older ones seemed to be constructed better as well as having a better sound quality. The new ones seem like someone bought their name and started mass producing them with less quality..... Kind of like Orion, Phoenix Gold, Soundstream, Hifonics, etc...