Morel Supremo 6 Two-way Components

A truly high end set of six inch component car speakers, Supremo can be configured with five, six or nine inch woofers and offers a specification for the crossover point which is very wide. This enables different slopes and frequency settings to be used in installation and is due to the very low resonant frequency of the Supremo Piccolo tweeter driver at 800Hz. An Accuflex soft dome, it has been designed as the descendant of the original large-plate Supremo tweeter, which was much harder to install. The Supremo woofer uses a hybrid Ferrite and Neodymium magnet. Its coil is ‘under-hung’ which means it is better able to stay deep in the magnetic field of the magnet assembly at all times a Morel design feature. It is a large three inch diameter coil, so the speaker can handle large power and have better snap and attack dynamics and transient response.
Supplied for initial test with a set of passive crossovers from the Elate range, Supremo sets are largely intended for active installation on powered crossovers and a separate amplifier channel for each loudspeaker driver. However, you can also buy the Supremo passive crossovers which are priced at £250
– Power Handling 200w RMS
– Efficiency 1w/1m 89dB
– Frequency Response 25Hz to 25kHz
– Recommended Crossover Point >1.4kHz to <5kHz
– Recommended Crossover Slope 6-12/18-24dB per Octave
– Tweeter Driver is 67mm (2.63in) in Diameter Voice Coil Diameter 28mm (1.1in).
– Woofer Driver is 165mm (6.5in) in Diameter Voice Coil Diameter 75mm (3in).
– Hexatech Aluminium voice coil wire for less gaps in the coil’s cross section
– Neodymium Double Flat Pancake Design Magnet Assembly for Tweeter
– Rear Vented Linear Dynamic Hybrid (Ferrite & Neodymium) Magnet Assembly for Woofer
– Supremo Piccolo Tweeter Mounting Depth 32mm
– Supremo SW Woofer Mounting Depth 61mm
– Engineered to be used as an active system
– May be used with Elate passive crossover
– Supremo Passive Crossover also available
Review by Adam Rayner
These speakers are based on solid engineering principles from some of the acknowledged best speaker driver designers in the world. Where some makers are brilliant at say midbass drivers or woofers, some are really good at tweeters. You might be surprised to know that the level of specialisation between these kinds of drivers is so high that sometimes home hifi speakers are assemblages of other engineers’ work. The Acoustic Energy speakers I used to build as production manager were based on an incredible bass driver and a tweeter designed by Monitor Audio’s design star. However, Morel are bloody brilliant at designing both awesome high frequency drivers but also some wickedly taut, snappy and power capable midbass drivers. This makes them rare and special people. This set was not played to its utter best ability on the set up I had a top end deck and quality ‘known good’ amplifier – but was able to sing such that you could tell the inherent excellence of the product.
Which is just as well, as they have a hard-to-be-humble model name of Supremo. They are Morel’s best effort. The tweeters can be turned down in small steps by some six dB by the passives we had them supplied with but the tweeter has such a monster envelope of frequencies it’ll play, that you can cross them over way down deeper than most will even think of playing without blowing up. This takes the crucial crossover point right out of the only bit our ears are really good at the midband and makes it easier work for the midwoofers.
The midwoofers have stupendous great coils on their back, clever part-Ferrite and part-Neodymium magnets and are designed so the coil is always as well gripped as possible. When a voice coil is mostly out of the gap in the magnet, it cannot be acted upon as strongly by the BL or Gauss or ‘shove’ of the magnet which is what makes it go in and out. Thus, the under-hung design, plus the great width of the coil, along with the use of faceted hex wire, means more metal is in that magnet assembly’s round gap and the force and power handling can be the greater.
And great it is, for these speakers can take some huge power. Making their relatively normal rather than huge efficiency an irrelevancy. Take a big lovely amplifier (or two) and a really clean active and you may just not need woofers with this set as they ate and digested even Bass CD material. And jazz and dance and DVDs from the Bass Mekanik and even a 24Bit CD of John Williams conducting Star Wars’ music with full orchestra.
Everything from the silly to the extremely audiophillic serious sounded just lovely. The Piccolo tweeters are blisteringly fast and sweet. No ting or breathy overtone will fail to impress. The woofers were just amazing. Huge air movement with real grip and a ridiculous deep lower frequency extension for the size. These speakers are horribly expensive but if you have the wedge and just want to know that you are buying absolutely top quality speaker engineering with world class sound, these will please. I think I have a set of components to use as a reference now, but I will still check out their performance with the �250 passives. That should be interesting. Watch this space.
Overall 9.2
Sound Quality 10
Build Quality 10
Power Handling 10
Efficiency 8
Value For Money 8