# Polk MM571 coax, Clarion APX4361 amp



## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

Hello all! Figgered I'd stop lurking and at least chime in to give greetings.

I just got a new Speed3 GT in June, and have been upgrading the god-awful bose system a little bit at a time for the past 2 or 3 months, as money allows. I've not had great luck with speakers for my front door yet, so I decided to get some Polk's, since the dB series I had in my previous car were pretty good.

Since the price was right, I chose to step up from the dB's and get the new MOMO's, more specifically the MM571's, since they would just drop in to the 6x8 cutouts on the door. My verdict on those is that they sound great, _most _of the time. They *really *bring the lower midrange forward, and it's totally overbearing on certain songs, to the point where it drowns out everything else from the woofers. Any song with deep male or female vocals sounds right bad with these.

On the flip side, the tweeters are always silky smooth and enjoyable. In fact, most of the times these speakers as a whole sound excellent, but when they are bad, they're really bad. The build quality is outstanding, and they are feather light, but still rigid. They are also very shallow, making mounting a breeze. Were it not for the overbearing midrange, I'd recommend these in a heartbeat for a good-sounding budget system. As it stands, I will likely buy Alpine SPX17-Pro's now, since I can get them for 280 shipped. Hopefully they will be the last pair I need to buy (this is an expensive hobby!)

I've read mixed opinions on baffles, here and everywhere else. For me, they are a godsend. Granted, my doors aren't deadened or sealed (yet), but before I got baffles I had to HP the fronts at around 150Hz because any speakers I had in the door would pop horribly. I got the XTC shallow 5x7 baffles and put them behind the Polk's, and I honestly cannot tell any loss or change in sound quality from the speakers. The best part is that I've lowered the HP frequency to around 100Hz and they don't pop at all, even at the highest volume my system can put out cleanly. Another plus is that Mazda3 doors apparently don't keep water out very well (seeing that my speakers were wet when I pulled them to install the baffles), so this will keep them dry.

I'm driving my fronts (and sub) with a Clarion APX4361 amp. There is precious little subjective info available on this creature, so I figured I'd throw in my twopence. *Pluses:* Sounds good, doesn't run very hot, very flexible with input voltages and gain settings, lots of tuning options, high power (90x4 @ 4Ω), can be had for as little as 200 bucks. *Minuses:* Bass Boost only works for front channels  (pointless if you run a sub on CH3+4 unless you reverse inputs and outputs), no preamp outputs for feeding another amp, only 12dB/octave slope. If I could do it over again I'd probably spend another 100 or so and get a JL Slash or Alpine PDX, but I'm still pretty satisfied with this one.

I know, I know... Nice wall of text for my first post. 

P.S.- if my sig is offensive to anyone (just injecting crude humor), please PM me and I'll change it. No offense intended on my part. :blush:


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## billg1230 (Jul 17, 2009)

I had the Polk/MOMO MM571's myself. They lasted two weeks in my F-350. Tweeters I thought were horrific. Spitty and sibilant. These 5x7's were a complete waste of money.
It seems that Polk and Infinity specifically have decent stuff for home use but their autosound products are better used as paperweights and door stops.
I keep finding trying to save a buck just yields frustration and poor results.


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## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

Yeah, I've now spent more than if I had just gone balls-to-the-walls in the first place. It's an easy trap to fall into, spending more for the sake of trying to spend less.

I'm disappointed because the dB's I had in the old car made me really happy for 3 years.


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## mefisto002 (Jan 17, 2009)

nice review


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## Indiansprings (Dec 2, 2009)

I was looking at these too.


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## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

I'm going to withdraw my judgment of the Polk MM571's for now. The problem I have been having is actually the plastic inner door that Mazda carved the speaker mounts out of. This piece is causing the horrible resonant distortion, not the speakers. You cannot imagine the heartbreak felt when I put in the SPX17 woofers and heard them sound just as crappy in the low midrange.

I've ordered some Damplifier Pro for the inner door. When I have the doors treated I am gonna leave the Polk's in at first so that I can give them a fair review.

I snagged a JL 300/4 off Craigslist for 200 bucks a week ago, and do I ever wish I had bought that at first! The balanced differential inputs allow me to run it straight from my bose HU without GLI's, and to my ears the stereo separation is a bit better. The "you can tell it's on" hiss is far lower as well. My opinion of the Clarion amp still stands for its price, but spending a little extra for the JL G- or Slash series would be a smarter move.


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## pruboy (Dec 15, 2009)

I was thinking about some of the momo's but have to figure out my locations first. I like them in my boat but mainly because they are durable. I see the db's for sale every where but have never heard any.


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## Topper (May 31, 2007)

were you able to solve the problem? did you get a chance to re-try the polks?


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## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

No, and sadly I probably won't ever get to review them properly. I'm giving them to my best friend as a birthday present, to go in his '02 Protege and replace the coaxials that car came with. I've got the sound deadening and what not, but until the weather gets warmer I can't install it. I'm hoping for one of those freak 70-degree winter days we sometimes get. But I'm running comps now and will just keep it that way. Even though mathematically 5x7's and 6.5's would seem to have almost the same surface area, the 6.5's really do handle bass frequencies better. Maybe down the road I might try the Polk MM6501 comps, but I want to give these Alpines some time first.

I gotta get some MDF to make adapters and decouple the woofers from the doors though. I can at least get that done regardless of the weather.


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## WLDock (Sep 27, 2005)

kvndoom said:


> *Minuses:* Bass Boost only works for front channels  (pointless if you run a sub on CH3+4 unless you reverse inputs and outputs), no preamp outputs for feeding another amp, only 12dB/octave slope.


That seems VERY odd? You did have FRONT and REAR inputs correct? The SOURCE SELECT switch was on 4 CH? OUTPUT MODE SWITCHs on STEREO?




kvndoom said:


> I snagged a JL 300/4 off Craigslist for 200 bucks a week ago, and do I ever wish I had bought that at first! The balanced differential inputs allow me to run it straight from my bose HU without GLI's, and to my ears the stereo separation is a bit better. The "you can tell it's on" hiss is far lower as well. My opinion of the Clarion amp still stands for its price, but spending a little extra for the JL G- or Slash series would be a smarter move.


Makes one wonder how quiet really is a BOSE to Ground Loop Isolators(Transformers) to AMP setup vs. a BOSE to AMP system. I would take the latter myself. I am sure the noise and sound difference was not totally related to the amp...i.e...input and level adjustment. I am sure the Clarion would sound a bit better running direct from a standard OEM or aftermarket deck...I just don't see getting the "best" sound running throught GLI's. CLARION rates the APX4361 with a channel seperation of >=70dB. JL AUDIO rated the 300/4 with a channel seperation of >75dB. Very close but in your case I can see why running the JL makes sense over the Clarion.


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## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

Without the GLI's the Clarion had minimal noise, but the effect of the balanced bose outputs was still evident. If I took the balance fully to R8 or L8, I could still hear sound in the speaker I faded away from. Neither the Clarion with GLI's nor the JL exhibited this. I couldn't audibly tell any loss with the GLI's, but I know anything passive you put inline is going to attenuate the signal to some degree.

As far as the Bass Boost, this is out of the ARC KS300.4 manual, an amp which is very similar in design and function to the APX4361 (the APX manual does not state how the BB function works):

*This amp has adjustable bass boost. On the 4 channel KS300.4, the Input Source has 3 options. In "4CH." or "2CH." the Bass Boost will be directed to the front speakers. In "2CH.BB" the Bass Boost will be sent to all 4 channel (sic) equally.*

The same applies to the APX. Now I could just run it with channels 3&4 mirrored to 1&2's inputs, but I still lose out because 1) I can't fade front to rear and 2) it will bass boost the fronts too, even if I just wanted to boost the sub.

A workaround would be to simply run the sub low-pass off channels 1 and 2, and hi-pass the fronts off 3&4, obviously, if you're using this amp for that purpose.


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## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

Topper said:


> were you able to solve the problem? did you get a chance to re-try the polks?


After yesterday, I figured I'd revisit this and answer your questions.

I installed them yesterday on my best friend's 2002 Protege. I'm rightly pissed at Mazda, because there are a number of things in his base model '02 car (he always gets minimal options) that are better than in my top-of-the-line 2009 Mazda3. For one, his speakers mount directly to metal, and his doors don't have that godforsaken plastic liner that has caused me so much headache. Secondly, his door panels each have at least 5 screw mounting points, versus 2 for mine. I asked him if he had any door rattles after 7 years, and he said no. So the older doors are secured better. Lastly, the speaker wires in the doors were a slightly heavier gauge than what my car has stock. So yeah my car is better in a lot of ways, but my doors suck.

My gripes with Mazda aside, the speakers sounded great in his car. Even just running them off the head unit made so much difference in his car that he spent the rest of the day thanking me and telling his family how awesome his birthday/christmas present was. I was impressed too. Being mounted directly to sheet metal made a difference that I could appreciate. Obviously he didn't have a lot of power to push them, but they made good use of the stock deck's output. He spent a lot of time just sitting in his car yesterday, drooling over the extra detail he could suddenly hear in his tunes. We did front to rear fades to compare them with the stock speakers and there was no comparison, period. I still can't get over how silky those tweeters sound. For coaxials, they're not bad at all. For the price (100-130, per google shopping), they're a great deal.

Down the road, I intend to try a set of the 6.5 MOMO comps in my car, but that's going to be a while. I still have to get my doors finished and spend some quality time with this Alpine set.

Chris likes them enough that he's probably going to buy another pair and get me to install them in his F250 to replace the stockers.


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