# Sead CA18RNX-->Morel MDT-12



## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

*Seas CA18RNX-->Morel MDT-12*

Here’s my subjective review on the Morel MDT-12 and Seas CA18RNX combo. I’m breaking a cardinal law of mine by giving a review before a full week of listening but hell, they came in last Friday, one day won’t hurt. I’ll be away this weekend and stacked with meetings Monday and Tuesday. I know a few are looking at the tweet so I hope my comments will help those in need.

A little background about the install and myself is required IMHO to give this a fair review. The system install can be found here: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2140
I listen to ALL types of music with the exception of Newer country, Christian, Elevator Music, and Show Tunes. My main concentrations are Rock (old and new), a little Hip-hop, Techno, and Indie rock. I also listen to a lot of Comedy via XM radio. My background is as a performance audio engineer both FOH and Monitors. I also do studio engineering as a mastering engineer and a recording OP for performances involving classical, modern, and conventional Jazz. I work at a Music School as an electrical/recording engineer so I have access to an infinite amount of performance recordings for evaluation.

That being said here we go. 

I can’t say much about the Seas mid/woofs, they simply do their job and do it well. They are uncolored for the most part and any annoyances I found were to due the effects of the car. They extend nicely in both directions, make a nice amount of low end and are quite detailed. They do lack a little snap and speed but they sound GREAT. Mechanically they are quite nice. I am a little spooked about having the magnetic gap constantly exposed to the elements of a car door. I have installed a shield over the speaker to ease my mind a tad. I also feel that the cone could be a bit stiffer but in a conical drive sense they are probably stiff enough. I am concerned that after constantly being beaten with low end the edges may weaken causing strange breakup modes. They are DEEP drivers and were quite a squeeze to get in the door of a Compact Car. They went in and I have room for excursion. They take the power nicely down to around 60Hz free air, after that they will bottom out. Power supplied is 70W into 4 Ohm, so call it 35W if you want. They play from around 60Hz to 2K now, this is an estimate I would have to get out some test gear to get an exact number, and I will do this.

I have more to say about the tweet! I chose the Morel because it was the smallest cutout 1” I could find. I knew I wanted to use the sail panel and have a close to stock appearance. I have used Morel tweets in a car in the past (MDT30’s in a kick panel of a Eldorado) I was happy with those so despite ill-advice I decided to give it a go. They were cheap, why not? I can always make the hole in the sail panel larger, they are a pain to make smaller. I also have a spare set of sails. I have used Morel tweets in a professional setting both in stage and studio monitors. I trusted their sound for the most part. I had no idea how the cheapies would sound. I started with a 2K cross point wired out of phase from the Seas (12 dB/Oct crossover) and they almost tore my head off! From the cross point to about 6.3K they were VERY forward and reminded me of working with a JBL 2” throat horn! They also lacked high end sparkle, it was not gone it just was not as forward as the lower frequencies. I turned them down a bit and added some tippy top with my Awful 7 band EQ built into the head unit. This really seemed to help and I was AMAZED how well they mated with the Seas. At times when dealing with the bite I had to turn drivers OFF to find out which one was bugging me! I drove that for a couple days and was still concerned with the midrange bite. I hate drastic Eqing but went for it with the Chainsaw EQ. I Put in more tippy top to be removed yesterday, brought the XO point up to 2.5K, and dropped 2.5K on the EQ 3dB. The drivers are now under-lapped between 2K and 2.5K. Now I’m happy, the soundstage is much wider than the car and sits at top-of-dash level. Again the transition between the drivers is seamless; the freqs produced from the Seas seem elevated to dash height also, what I wanted!

I was goofing around with the door opened and found a lack of 2.5K. I shut the door and it came back with a vengeance. I then placed my thumb NEAR the rim of the sail panel and 2.5K+ became irregular again. I am now convinced that early reflections of the dash were causing (still are, but EQ’d) my upper mid problems. EQ solved the problem; in fact the dash reflection may be HELPING the imaging by redirecting it more at me. I could really use a nice parametric EQ or a DCX2496. I feel that it would make the system quite classy! As of now it’s the best sounding system I have owned in a car, it’s certainly not the loudest, But, I knew that was going to happen. I trust that it will do 20-20K at levels in excess that I will ever monitor at.

So speaking of monitoring. This rig sounds like a set of studio monitors with an attitude, a lot like my Urei 809’s. What I like about the rig will upset a lot of people. I can hear things in MY recordings I have never heard before, including things I knew were there and think I should have covered up better in retrospect  I can also hear things in big-industry recordings too that the engineer may not have heard. Coughs outside the vocal booth, crackles in guitar cables, punch in/out clicks, noise floor increases from track doubling, things like that. To some people this gets in the way of the music, in day to day life I feel we need a little blur to the music to enjoy the message. The rig is also quite sensitive to engineering practices, I have met many of the engineers and musicians behind the music we listen to, practically ALL of the live engineers from venue recordings. I know their styles and hearing them on this rig reminds me of THEM and makes me miss the active industry even more. Again this will bug some people. 

Lately I have been getting into some older ‘80’s “hair music” Simply because it’s not about killing, hating, or anything like that. It’s about partying and having fun, loving, and losing. Just a good message and fun. Well, I found out after not listening to these CD’s in a while that they are not fun to actually “listen” to. I find myself saying “What the f- was that coke-machine engineer thinking !?) Could they possibly get the hi-hat ANY louder! My band is now covering a bunch of “80’s hair” and I’m finding my live 2 track pub recordings more pleasurable sounding, although I have gear they simply did not have back then available to me and everyone else.

So that may have been the most wishy-wahsy review to date. I tried to paint a picture of how I felt. I can summarize by telling you that if you have some EQ and enjoy listening to your music under a microscope then this is the thing for you. The rig will not lie. If you want EVERYTHING to sound good regardless to engineering quality then you may want to run far, far away. It’s quite accurate, it will bite you when it wants you to be bitten, it’s also quite laid back when it wants to be. It’s VERY dependent on the recording. 

If you don’t like the idea of hearing the spit in your favorite singers mouth or hearing mis-aligned pedals creak on a half-mil$ Stienway then you may want to go with a system with “Softer” attributes. No amount of EQ will tastefully lose the detail, only make it stronger.

Chad


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## Wildcat_Fan (Jun 8, 2005)

Wow! Great review!

Now that you have heard both, how would you compare the MDT-12 with the MDT-30? Is there much difference?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Tough to say, I think the 30 is smoother but they are in completely different locations in the car and in different cars 

I remember the 30 well outside the car and I have 1 spare 12 so I can try it out soon.

Chad


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## npdang (Jul 29, 2005)

Awesome review! We definitely more like it around here.


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Very good review I will say,from ur ears to the internet,nicely done.


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## 300Z (Mar 20, 2005)

Great review Chad... good to hear it from some1 who actually works in the music industry...  Man i miss my good old days working with Pro Audio big time... so much fun...


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