Are components "better" than coaxial?

No and yes. In the MB Quart line, the coaxials are made of the same components and have the same sound characteristics as the component speakers. From that point of view, they're no better. However, with component speakers, you have more options for speaker placement, so from that point of view they are better.

OK, I have to ask. What is SPL? And you did spell it correctly!!!

Of cuorse I spellt it corrictly. Donch yu think I cin spell gud or somethin?

SPL refers to one of the four aspects of IASCA stereo competitions.

There is installation in which your system judged on the quality of the installation work -- were the proper sized cables used to carry the load, is everything neat, wires hidden from view, is it a custom install (neon-lit motorized amplifier racks and gold plated everything on display) or a stock install with everything hidden, etc.

Next there is Sound Quality. Does your system reproduce the tracks on the official IASCA competition disk the way it is supposed to in terms of imaging, staging, linearity, tonal accuracy, spectral balance, etc.

Next there is RTA, or Real Time Analysis in which a pink noise track is played into a microphone located where the driver's head would normally be positioned and the system is evaluated in 1/3 octave intervals from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz to make sure that no two adjacent 1/3 octave samples differ by more than three decibels.

Finally, there's the crowd pleaser: SPL, or Sound Pressure Level in which contestants try and blow up their stuff by getting the maximum possible decibels or sound pressure, using one of the designated IASCA tracks. My installer has gone off the deep end in this aspect, having built up his own truck to the point where he has reached in excess of 169 decibels (enough to be fatal to anybody unfortunate enough to be inside the truck at maximum volume) by running 40,000 watts into sixteen 15" subwoofers.

I am the current Alaska SPL champion for two years running now, and it is hilarious, because I am the only one who competes in my cone area class (160 square inches maximum) and my single 10" subwoofer only puts out about 112 decibels maximum. I knock 'em dead in sound quality, however...

So, are you all fired up now, ready to go enter an IASCA contest?

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"