# SPX-17PRO Review



## John_Chricton (Apr 16, 2009)

I’m upgrading from a set of SPR-17S’s.

I had a big fear going into this install, the off-axis setup. I heard ring radiator tweeters sometimes lack when setup off-axis, which is what I’m stuck with for the moment. The set comes with little modules for the crossover to assist in changing the output for various speaker placements, which I took as hopeful as far as going off-axis. 

First impressions were actually not so good. I heard a lot of good things about the PRO tweeter, but it sounded almost identical to the R’s. Very loud, not too harsh, but nothing worth a rave. The mids didn’t sound too impressive either. I put every setting on my HU & PXA-H100 processor back to default and started from scratch. Settings were obviously geared for the Type-R's because with new settings, these things started to show why they cost twice as much. The tweeter was clearer/louder than the R counterpart, and more dispersed. The woofers I have HP’d at 80Hz and after a couple hours breaking in sound great.

After getting all my settings in temporary order I started giving the set a trail by fire of all the stuff that made the R’s lacking at high volume, which was mostly the midrange/midbass.
Started with heavy distortion, C/D-dropped guitar type stuff. The R was horrible in this regard. But instead of a nasty rumble that almost sounded harmful to the speaker the PRO’s output a clear, distinct guitar sound true to the recording. Occasionally I get a bit of vibration but some extra dynamat should solve that problem. Songs with a distinct drum beat sound good even without the aid of the sub. The R's damn near relied on the sub for it. Overall very happy with the new mids. They are both lighter and more shallow than the R woofers, but pack much more punch.

After tweaking them properly I actually liked the R tweeters, most of the time at least. Sibilance could get ridiculous though. And it can still be an issue on these, but some EQ tweaking gets it to a minimum. One of my favorite songs is loaded with it and could never really get loud on the R's, and here I can just about play it at max. The R's were actually pretty good at handling pop/techno, or anything that tends to be tweeter/sub reliant, and these do it even better. These types of songs I can turn up to max and into the painful ranges yet remain clear as day. My subwoofer becomes the weakest link at that point! 

Occasionally the driver side tweeter sounds like its having trouble keeping up, mostly with metal/rock music with female vocals, but at like an 80 degree axis from my ear I can’t blame it. Despite being happy with the setup now I’m going to toy around with the crossover modules and tweeter locations and see how it sounds on-axis sometime in the coming weeks. I’m not thrilled with the idea of having to snake wires in an already dynamatted door, but if the improvement is noticeable I’ll go for it. Although I'll more than likely just put the R tweeters in the B-pillars and fade them slightly so they don't compete with the PRO's, but just sort of pick up the slack.


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## eskateboarding7 (Mar 18, 2009)

How much power are you feeding the Pros? Glad to hear that they are satisfactory for metal.


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## John_Chricton (Apr 16, 2009)

150 on each side. I rarely take it to maximum, but songs that really require it because of a lower starting volume sound terrific when the amp is pushing everything it has.


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## tr0y_audi0 (Feb 13, 2007)

Mine are off axis aswell..
I have 300x2 (JL HD600/4)
My Deck/eq/crossover
Eclipse CD7200/ Arc Audio IDX/XEQ
the output in vol is Very large My max Vol is 20 of 80
that all I can stand before its to loud..

Midrange is great could use better midbass
its prolly my door pod some of the cone is being blocked by the OEM grill location, the tweeters are very nice but the L4 (4" full range)
blew them away.. hince the change
My stage is good, well centered, Left & Right are acepable
Depth is nice but could be better,

The SPX pro17 Mids
Tonality is good, output performance is Great!
they done seem to change the tone of the note at higher vol. witch happin with my RE's..
Like I noted before the midbass is the weak spot in my setup..
Over all I liked the SPX-17Pro's well till I heard Bob Morrows H.A.T. Truck 

Off axis tweeters in sail's

















Off Axis Mids


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## mvw2 (Oct 2, 2005)

The concept of "impress" generally requires the driver to do something "unique" and typically wrong. It's sort of like installing a tweeter with really sharp highs or a woofer with a lot of midbass punch. Initial impressions go "Wow!" but that fades quick once you realize those things really shouldn't be there. The best a driver can do is not stand out. It should simply do nothing wrong. It generally doesn't make for an impressive sound, but it makes for a correct sound. The impressing happens later when you start realizing all the subtleties that show through and start realizing how good a piece of hardware is really.

I have assumptions that you do listen to your audio relatively loudly. Realize the tweeter is crossed relatively low and not many tweeter really can keep clean at higher output levels without moving the x-over point higher. In a car setup and mainly an off-axis setup, you do want to keep the x-over low though. It helps prevent beaming issues. The trade off is volume capability. It's something you have to accept until you become willing to place the woofer more on-axis so beaming won't be an issue. I don't really recall how much adjustment is in the PRO x-over. I know it's a bit, but I'm not sure if there are options to raise or lower the x-over point of the tweeter and woofer. You have the option to raise the x-over to allow higher output capability, but then you'd have to come in and fix the beaming with EQing, mainly needing separate left and right EQs to do it correctly.


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## John_Chricton (Apr 16, 2009)

I get what your saying. Thankfully these didn't really create a "new" sound, which I understand often gets mistaken for "better", but just a more "real" sound. These things basically created proper sounding music where there was rattle/distortion/shrillness in the R's and created a more enveloping soundstage. It's not a punchier noise at certain frequencies or an EQ thing.

In fact, yesterday, I shut the EQ off. The more I tweaked it, the more I had to switch back and forth between songs of differing genres. No single setting was anywhere near perfect, but great thing is these PRO's sound terrific when absolutely FLAT. My R's sounded like **** flat, they couldn't handle the lower end at higher volumes. It's only been a day and I've only had a chance to test a couple of songs, but the flat setting is working far better between various genres than any single EQ setting I tried did. And for some reason the EQ was killing the volume and my amp was working way harder than it needed to be.


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