I ran across them at Sound Domain.com and from the specs and the reviews they seem pretty impressive. Woven carbon fiber cones and such plus DVC. I remember Coustic from my high school days and for the money they had a pretty good line of amplifiers. The only negative I can see right now is the retina burning yellow frames.

 

Yellow?? Any pics??

 

I'll give you the scoup (and I work for Sounddomain and actually was responsible for bringing those in).

Unfortunately, Coustic has been kind of the red headed stepchild at Mitek. People know what MTX stands for, know what Xtant stands for and both are pretty well position and marketed.

Coustic isn't. They decided to make a high end sub (one that would probably fit well in the MTX or even Xtant line, in fact those subs (look at the image blowups) are in fact better than the Xtant A or Z series and above the MTX 4500 and MTX 5500 series (cast basket, big magnet, carbon fiber cone).

Now, Coustic ran into the same problem Hyundai had at first trying to market the XG350. Did people want to pay that much for a loaded Hyundai when they could get a similar Honda (maybe with a 4 banger instead of a six, and cloth instead of "leather seating surfaces"?

In a word, I would say those subs are something I would use in my own car, and at the price they are at (which is a pretty aggressive price because they are no longer made) they are one of the better deals as far as bang for the buck subs.

If you don't believe me, take a look at what that kind of money buys you in the regular Rockford, Infinity, JBL or MTX lines. Stamped basket, less power handling, plastic cones, etc.

I'm baffled as to why those subs didn't do better, I guess people don't think of Coustic as being a high end company.

Juan

 

I was just curious if anyone else here was using them so I could get some opinions on them before I bought them. I actually purchased the LAST two pack that was listed on the website and was hoping I hadn't screwed up. Thanks for the info on them,I received them Wednesday afternoon and can't wait to get them installed this weekend.

 

i sell the full mitek line, xtant, coustic, streetwires, mtx, dcm on occasion, etc.

the coustic subs are great for the money, very sturdy, pretty close as far as output capability to the MTX thunder 8000, for about half the price.

i have seen two coustics in a ported box hit 148.8 on the dash, and do so every weekend for a long time.

overall, i like them alot for the money, however i think that they look goofy with the yellow/carbon fiber, but they rarely blow, even when severely over powered.


adam

 

I agree with you fully ONEBAD. I worked as an installer for a company just east of st.louis and we carried the hole mitek line as well. I was sponsored by X-tant and used the Hexagon 12's. If i would of had to buy any it would have been the Coustic sub. Definantly good boom for the buck. I still use my Coustic 600se and its a champ too!

 

I put them in yesterday and WOW! These hit much harder and produce deeper bass than the JL Audio 10 W 0 tens they are replacing in the same enclosure. I plan to buy another one for my Cherokee.

 

Unfortunately those three things are more or less pointless (a lot closer to completely pointless) when it comes to output or SQ. It's just marketing. The physics don't back it up.
Bigger magnet? As long as the bobbin (Voice coil) stays in the magnetic field through out it's travel (Xmax) it doesn't matter, for output level or quality.
Carbon fiber cone? Yes, cone rigidity is important, but not the end all be all at all. Carbon fiber is used because it's flashy and "cool" (marketing gimmick).
Cast basket? I read a tech. paper by (If i remember right) Martin (they make high-end electrostatic Hybrid home speakers) that came to the conclusion that as long as it wasn't a VARY thin stamped basket there was no advantage other then making the speaker heavier, which for them was a plus (remember they make home tower speaker, the extra weigh made the speaker less likely to be tipped over). They did the test using the SAME cone/VC/Suspension/magnet/and enclosure, just constructing the speaker with the different baskets. The cheapest, thinnest, stamped basket was the only one that had problems, and they were small. A WELL made stamped steal basket is fine in most cases and cast offers NO improvement. Now note that I said a WELL made one.
Sorry but car audio market is made up of two extremes. The hard core physics centered around high output high quality audio reproduction, and the other is marketing gimmicks centered around selling stuff often at the sacrifice of quality. The trick is educating your self and find the middle ground for good quality you can afford.

 

Now I should add that this doesn't mean that a speaker with these things is bad. Quite the contrary. A lot of high end manufactures use this stuff to. If they didn't know one would buy there stuff. I just doesn't need these things to be a great driver.

 

Well, here is my take on it.

While yes, by themselves these features don't really by themselves add up to a whole bunch, the underlying philosophy guiding the design does.

Whoever designed some of the other speakers mentioned was given a pretty limited budget (stamped baskets, plastic cones). The guys who designed the Coustic CF's were given a larger budget as evidenced by some of the parts they purchased.

Sure there is alot of marketing involved, but those particular speakers were designed with some nicer bits and pieces and attention to detail than some of the others I mentioned in the Mitek line.

The sad thing is very few people could look past the Coustic name, the yellow paint and/or the carbon fiber cone.

I spoke with some of the guys in tranducer engineering at Mitek and from a performance level they are at near the 5500, 6000 or even 8000 series in performance at the 4000 or 4500 price level.

These are not a marketing ploy (a la Mustang II with the King Cobra graphics package) but a sleeper that nobody really appreciated.

Juan

 

Mongoose, good to hear they working out great for you. I'm curious about the enclosure specifications for two if you used the same box. What where the numbers?

OldOneEye, I didn't mean to say they where bad subs, from the replys it sound like there pretty good, and great for the price. Just that someone new could have read the other post as 'these three things are what make it a good sub'.

Was this in response to my bringing up Martin or one of the other brands? I just ask because I don't recall what they said about the cone or budget. Was just wondering if you read the same paper? I can't seem to find it on-line now, maybe I printed it.....

 

I have no idea as to the specifics of the enclosure such as air space,resonant frequency and such. It pretty much consists of using the lower half of the rear cargo well and sealing it up plus reinforcing it with fiberglass and birch strips. The wood of choice is birch for the top and reinforcements. It's pretty much just one chamber with the two drivers. A friend of mine used to run a stereo shop back in the mid 90s and came up with the idea while doing an install on a 4th gen Camaro. The customer didn't want to sacfifice the entire well and would only allow him to use the lower half plus he insisted on having 2 10s. He did the install for him assuming it would sound bad and was quite suprised at how good it turned out. He has since done this setup on several 3rd and 4th gen F bodies. I'm was thinking of having him enlarge the enclosure but after the results I'm very much satisfied with the results.