Customer Reviews

MB Quart Premium PVI216 6.5-Inch 2-Way Component/Convertible Coaxial Speakers

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I am ABSOLUTELY thrilled I purchased them. They were professionally installed to my factory NAV stereo system. They produce "live-studio" quality sound with clear separation between notes and a powerful response. You will hear all of the instruments. It impressed the pros to ask me where to get them. And, they told me about the top-grade materials/workmanship used in manufacturing. There's zero distortion when I crank-up the volume (3/4 max) before my ears bleed. I will need a remote and some serious distance to go to max volume. I am not an audiophile but I have paid the money for (Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, Nakamichi, Bose, B&O, etc.) stereo equipment. It's truly high-end audio-quality sound without spending all that money.

Like others, I heard the cautious "don't buy MB Quart because" they were bought by Maxxsonics and are (1). No longer a German company (2). The quality is not good. But FIRST, No one that said this to me ever heard or installed them. SECOND, Maxxsonics is an American (California) company and if I am going to take a chance on quality then why not American? THIRD, the speakers are still manufactured in Germany. FOURTH, the Premium-Series is 3 levels above their "factory-installed" speaker replacement recommendation.

Lastly, I called Maxxsonics because I got a lot of conflicting installation advice. Also, I needed one extra measurement that I could not find anywhere else. Not only did they answer the phone but they quickly pulled the speaker out of the box to get the information I needed. We talked about configurations and sorted thru all the stuff I was told. They knew I was buying the speakers from someone else and they sent a follow-up email afterwards. That translates to excellent customer service.

Here's my setup: a Jeep Liberty (2002-2006) with factory-installed NAV stereo system. The factory amps found in the front doors were connected to the MBs. The speaker openings are larger than 6.5 inches so adaptive brackets were used. The tweeters fit perfectly. Forget what anyone says - you do not have to buy shallow-mount speakers for the rear doors. The factory-speakers we pulled out were full-sized. The MB crossovers have 4 settings (0, -1, -3 and -5). I chose zero because I usually set treble at +2. To test the speakers I burned a cd with songs that had lots of transitions, deep-deep bass lows and really-high end notes. The MBs played it like I was sitting in front of a live band. There's no other stereo equipment in my car. Anybody can spend $5k and get great sound - but do it for less than $500.

I think one reviewer said it best " BUY THEM."

From the minute I opened the box and felt the weight of the magnets - running my thumbs along the rubber-reinforced polypropylene cones - I knew I'd found what I was looking for.

Finding flaws in audio samples is a sickness I've been plagued with since MP3 outpaced CDA. When I dropped these bad boys in my 99 Civic, I was just about cured.

One note: because the factory grills/mounting spot in my Civic was a bit narrow, I had to cut into it to mount them. But amazing sound comes at a price.

Pros:
Solid materials, ingenious construction and the clearest sound I've heard in a car yet. I can't turn my head unit high enough to distort these babies.

Cons:
I gotta divert extra balance wattage to these BC my rear deck Pioneers would totally blow pushing what the Quarts can handle.
Highs are quite bright. Tune the tweeters down a few DB with the x-overs if you don't have a full system (amp+subs)

Bought two sets of these for Xmas to replace the factory Bose speakers in my Maxima. Had them professionally installed and holy hell are these speakers incredible. The wide sphere technology in the tweeters disperses the highs at such a larger radius than your normal dome tweeters that it literally fills the car with sound. Usually your ears can pinpoint where the highs are coming from but these literally envelope you. It's hard to stop grinning like an idiot while driving. I had the tweeters installed in the doors based on some of the other reviews I've read on here. The highs are VERY crisp and VERY bright, but can get a bit shrill at higher volumes.I actually had to turn the treble down! I put on "The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd and the detail and richness was unbelievable! It literally made the hairs stand up on my arms.

One of the reasons I bought these components was their sensitivity is greater than a lot of the speakers I researched. The wider the sensitivity range,the lower and higher frequencies, or sound, can be produced. Hence you"re able to hear more of how the artist originally created the song. For rock and jazz it makes a huge difference. To test the bass I put on Hov's The Blueprint 3 and it was studio quality sound. The midrange produces bass that hits low, clean and tight. Can't replace a subwoofer of course but it's close. The crossovers are aluminum cased and very solidly constructed.

One thing i did want to mention was that I have a Clarion CX609 receiver instead of the factory Bose system. Since it has a nine band equalizer, my review may be a little biased since I have more flexibility to tune the speakers. When I first got the MB quarts installed, it took me about a half hour of adjusting to get the sound I wanted. Regardless of tuning however, these components still sound 1000 times better than the Bose.

The guys who did my install were extremely impressed. Like many people in the audio industry, they thought MB Quart made sub par products after being bought my Maxxonics. It completely changed their perception, as well as mine. I'm so glad I bought these. For the price offered on Amazon, it may as well be stealing for what you get. I've never been more excited to drive! I'm buying two sets for my brothers truck as a graduation gift. MB Quart has brought aural bliss to my ears and a smile to my face! What a fantastic set of components!!

As with all Amazon purchases, this went like silk.

I installed four PVI 216's along with an Alpline PDX-5 and originally with a JL Cleansweep. I had been fighting with my sound system, retuning over and over. Then I switched out the Cleansweep for an Alpine PXE H660. I still couldn't get the sound I wanted. I rewired the car, replacing the speaker wire and moving the crossovers to a more accessible location. Still not happy, I applied even more Dynamat, and relocated the tweeters- again and then again.

Then I heard some Polk DB's, then some Morels (I know it's not fair), then some JL's. All in different cars of course, but none in vehicles where the installation was as complete or professional as mine, not in terms of deadening, positioning, or amplification. All these other stereos sounded better. The real blow was the Polk DB's, powered directly from an old Alpine head unit- I mean really!

As a replacement for factory drivers, sure they are better but what isn't? I wanted to be happy with the speakers but after months of fighting them I realized they are what they are, low end speakers. I still have a pair of MB Quart 6x9 from the German days and those things were astonishing. I was so hung up on my previous experience that I couldn't get my brain around the fact that these aren't that good.

For clarity and detail they are not all that great. They suck any sense of space out of even the best recordings. Any complex sounds are lost in a jumble of sharp harmonics. Try listening to The Killers Mr. Brightside on these abominations and you'll get the picture. The drivers simply cannot resolve the dissonant tones, guitars and cymbals mashed together producing a hissing mess. They do better with simple cleaner signals, something electronic. Human voices sound fake. They might do well at reproducing the sound of a cazoo, mostly I think because everyone's expectations would start very low, but I don't know as I don't own any cazoo music.

If you think you are getting a 500 dollar pair of speakers for 120 bucks, think again.

UPDATE:
Since the review, I had one woofer cease to function- no it was not overdriven and I'm not a kid or an idiot and pushing 50 years old I have never blown a speaker in my life. In removing it from the door I saw an astounding layer of rust on the contacts with the speaker wires attached. This is O2 free copper wire and the speakers never got wet (unless there was a phantom spray from the bottom of the door in and upward direction, mysteriously leaving no trace on anything). Cleaning the contact points on the failed unit didn't bring it back to life, nor did bypassing the contact point. The failed woofer was mounted in a rear door, so it was operating at a lower level than the front units. I checked the others, this rust was present on all four woofers. The speakers have been in for five months..

I live in Florida so high humidity is a given. Perhaps if you live in AZ or UT, someplace dry enough that living creatures become accidentally mummified, this wouldn't happen. I have never seen anything like it.

I contacted MAxsonics and was sent a form to send in with the defective unit, which they would in turn evaluate and either send me a replacement or not. Considering the now unbelievable poor quality of these speakers and in light of the fact that I would be getting another MB Quart speaker, I concluded that the result was not worth the shipping charge one way, much less two.

MB Quart is dead. It's offensive that the name is still being applied to whatever that garbage is that is being shipped with the name. It's like Daewoo buys BMW and ships out Yugos. My advice is to just stay away. MB Quart is dead, I wish Maxsonics would let it rest in peace. If someone offered you a roll in the hay with Marilyn Monroe, you might consider it for the nanosecond it took to remember she's dead, not just a little dead, way dead. You would be well advised to use the same thought process with MB Quart, because the Maxsonics version of MB Quart is to MB Quart as Miss Meth Mouth is to Marilyn Monroe.

Congratulations to Maxsonics for suckering me, no hard feelings, and keep whoever's nephew it is that does your website on the job, it matches the quality of the product to perfection.

The fake Quarts, forever to live in my memory as Pints, are gone and I have discovered Morel. Sweet clear music is back in my car and I have a new favorite brand. My install is finally complete.

I just spent my day off work installing these MB Quart components in my 04 Crossfire, and WOW are these a great upgrade from the factory Infinity speakers. The Crossfire comes from the factory with quite a good Infinity based stereo system. Many people go with replacing the factory speakers with Infinity Kappas because they match the factory amp's 2ohm rating, plus they are very efficient at 93db. While great speakers, I have always found Infinitys to be too bright with vocals having a very slight "hissy" edge to them so I decided to try something different. I don't have a lot to spend, and after reading many reviews I ordered the MB Quart 6.5" Premium components. I mounted the speakers in the factory locations which is the lower front door panel for the woofer/midrange, and the upper front door panel for the tweeters. The crossovers for these speakers are huge and come with a dial on the top for dialing back on the tweeter's power. I found a spot to zip tie the crossovers to the door frame behind the door panel right behind a small removable panel made for accessing the factory speaker plugs. This allows me to adjust the crossover without taking the door panels apart, just pop the small access panel, twist the knob and snap the panel in place.

Well you ask, how do they sound?? Let me warn you, those tweeter can not only cut your head in half, I think they could cut through solid steel, they are VERY powerful! The Crossfire has a small cabin so the stereo doesn't have to work too hard to product high sound levels. With the crossover set to 0, and my head unit treble set to 0 the tweeters WAY overpower the rest of the system. I tried dialing back the crossovers first to -1db, then to -3db, and finally the highest "cut" setting -5db and they were still too powerful. I dialed the head until's treble back to -3 and that's where I found a nice balance. With the tweeters under control I took a fist full of CDs and sat in the car for nearly an hour and listened to a variety of music. Boy, I'll tell you, once you get these speakers dialed in they sound fantastic. The soundstage now extends out beyond the doors and has excellent depth - very open sounding. Some sounds seem to come from right in the center of my head and others were several feet infront of me. I was hearing things in the music I'd never heard before. String instuments sounded like they were right infront of me and sounded VERY real. Electronic music was incredible and in many CDs the voices were very clear. Some music with female vocals had a slight sharp edge to them while others were very life-like. I guess it depends on how the music was recorded. Keep in mind my factory head unit has limited sound controls, just a BASS and TREBLE adjustment so if your stereo has greater control over the sound, I expect you'll get even more from these speakers. I already have a new headunit on order that has a 6 chanel equalizer as well as adjustment to the internal cross overs as to where the overlap so I have high hopes that it will bring out even more from the MB Quarts. I'm happy enough with these speakers that I went back into the house and grabbed more CDs to listen to and they all sounded great. FYI, my factory system includes rear "subs" which are suplimented with an Infinity Basslink powered sub in the rear compartment for the real-lows.

My advice to you is to play with the tweeter placement before finally mounting them. They come with a couple of different mounting systems. One is an angled mount and I'd try mounting them so that they face angled foward or up, not angled back toward you as this will help control their output. Get them placed right and dialed in and you'll have awesome sound with incredible highs. Mount them wrong and push too much treble and you'll have blood running out your ears ;) I like them and am glad I purchased them.

I've always been a fan of MB Quart ever since I got a pair of 6.5 Discus Coaxils for the rear deck of my 01 Hyundai Elantra about 6 years. Even to this day they sound great. But when I heard they got acquired by Maxxsonics I too thought the quality would go down. Strange enough, I heard mixed comments since the take over. I've READ mostly good reviews about them but HEARD they were bad. I'm not the type that will judge something without at least trying it out first so since the price was right I decided to give these a chance. From what I can see and hear MB Quart hasn't loss much of anything.
I'm pushing all 4 MBQ speakers with a Pioneer GM-D9500F rated at 75x4 Pioneer Gmd9500f Class D 4 Ch 800w Amp Stage 4and they sound great. The highs are on the bright side but sound clear without being too sharp plus they bring out all the music high notes nicely. I heard stuff I didn't hear before. But the tweeters can get harsh at higher volumes so I compensate using my Kenwood's EQKenwood KDC-HD942U USB/AAC/WMA/MP3 CD Receiver with Built-In HD Radio. The speakers really shine when playing anything with a lot of highs and vocals but can handle pretty much anything well. Overall, I think these are great. Me giving these 4 instead of 5 stars is only because I can't give it 4.5 stars.

When you buy top of the line speakers you expect good things but these are simply great! The speakers are build very well, you can tell that they engineered them in every aspect. These speakers where designed with options in mind, if you want to use them in a Coax configuration you can, it's simple to unscrew the center cone and screw the tweeter stand in it's place, the wires for the tweeter pass though the center of the speaker cone and out the other side. The Crossover is build like a tank, it's heavy and very solid. The internal components are very big, and it has a feeling of being over build. To magnets on the speaker are small but very powerful! The magnets on the tweeters are as big as the tweeter itself and will fly out of your hand if you get them to close to anything metal!

The sound from the tweeters is very good, its not like dome tweeters at all. when listening to music the sound from the tweeters spreads out around you so you have a feeling of not knowing where it comes from. The speakers sound amazingly clear and precise at any volume.

When looking for a new component for my car, a couple of my friends told me not to go with MB QUART. They said that they aren't as good as they were and that I should go with a different brand. Well I have always been a fan of MB QUART and took my chances. I'd have to say I'm glad I bought these components, no regerets what so ever. These speakers are loud and CLEAN, just what I'd expect form them.

DO NOT BUY THESE SPEAKERS. Apparently the amazing discount is because there was a manufacturing defect with the voice-coil which will cause the speakers to blow far before you reach the max level of the specs. They were unloaded to 'discount jungle' at a cheap rate which is passed on to you. 'discount jungle' is not an authorized seller of maxxsonics/mb quart products and they will not honor the 2 year warranty as stated on the box. the 'discount jungle' warranty is not valid after they have been hooked up, so there is nothing one can do except take the loss. 'maxxsonics/mb quart' did not even try to deny this. THESE SPEAKERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN TRASH. Now, my MB QUARTS ARE TRASH.

Like others I was aware that Maxxsonics acquired MB Quart so I was a little wary of just how this might change the product. First off let me say that I have been an MB Quart owner in the past, my first set was a pair of 5.25" Reference Series don't remember the model number but I remember paying over $400 for a pair in 1997. A few years later I went with an upgrade after my car was broken into put an alarm in, added a amp and went with the PSD 216 6.5" component set (about $500 as I recall). I thought the 5.25" were great but after installing the PSD 216's I was truly amazed. Same clear highs but awsome bass so deep that I didn't need a subwoofer. I'm talking hard hitting bass, nice and tight. All that off a 25 Watt per channel RF Punch amp. Anyway, back then the only better speakers that MB Quart made was the Q series which they no longer offer. The Q series was crazy priced at over $1k and the only ones I knew that used them were the guys who compete at stereo competitions. Even there I found plenty of cars using the PSD or P series components. Anyway, the reason I mentioned all this is that the PVI 216 is nicer than my old PSD 216's. The PVI crossovers has more adjustablity down to -5db and there is even a polypropolene cap in there too. By the way, if you decide to set up the Co-axle tweeter mounting method there is a little trick I'd like to share. You have to carefully slide off the red/pink plastic connecter covers on the tweeters in order for them to slide through the opening on the pillar tower. Just hold the metal part of the connector with a pliers and patiently push to slide them off. I saved them and reinstalled them after I fished the wires down voice coil tunnel. I takes a few extra minutes but that way you won't have to cut the tweeter wires off there if you don't want too. Okay so I got off subject a little but the speakers are fantastic and I'm very picky about my audio gear. By the way not sure why the Ref series is selling here for $5 more since it is the next line down from Premium. The top of the line is now the Premium as there no longer is a Q series that I know of, then the Reference Series, Discus Series and the entry level Formula Series. Finally those that claim the MB is not the same as in the past are perhaps those who have had the ultra expensive Q series which I understand was the ultimate speaker series. I can't imagine anything nicer than these PVI's they are truly awsome you won't be dissappointed.