Kicker CSC67 6.75in Coaxial Speakers

Manufacturer: Stillwater Designs, OK, USA
Distributor: Celsus
Website:link
Typical Selling price: £69.99
In A Nutshell
An affordable speaker, with more basso profundo in its guts than it seems to have any right to do! All but identical to its smaller brother the DSC series, these CSC 67 speakers have the same cool shallow mount, nil-protrusion tweeter and high efficiency for headunit power and drop-in replacement speaker use as the cheaper ones. But for a tenner a side, you get a MUCH beefier coil to drive the thud. The clever suspension is filtered-down technology from Solobaric sub woofers of legendary reputation, so it works! Great all round speaker that will take some real watts.
Overall 8.8
Sound Quality 8.5
Build Quality 8
Power 8.5
Efficiency 9
Value For Money 10

Recommended within Talk Stuff’s audio genre
Editor Review : Kicker CSC67 6.75in (165mm) Coaxial Speakers
Stillwater Designs’ Kicker website says, ‘The CS Series delivers remarkable performance and ultra-clean bass, utilizing a heavy-duty motor/magnet structure featuring EVC„¢ (Extended Voice Coil) technology not found in stock speakers. They use polypropylene cones with tough, ribbed, UV-treated surrounds for precise linear excursion and reliability.’.
So what does that mean for your seventy-odd UK quids? These are what’s called ‘˜Drop-In Replacements’. That is why their edges have more holes in than a Swiss cheese. Because different car makers each tend to use their very own spacings for loudspeaker mounting. The only real reason for this was to make things difficult for other companies wishing to sell speaker upgrades into the OEM positions. Somewhat pointless, most speakers designed as drop-in replacements, have at least four sets of mounting hole positions.
Now here is where it gets a little interesting, since these CSC loudspeakers look at all but completely identical to the DSC loudspeakers also from Kicker. In fact, if you hold their specification sheets against each other you will find identical specifications for what look like identical transducers. The tweeter is the exact same Neodymium balanced dome PEI or polyether imide, just a one half inch or 13 mm design. The frame is exactly the same. The magnet looks identical. So what do you get for next 20 quid?
Well if you look carefully at the specifications you will find that the RMS or continuous power rating is 100 W for the CSC67, whereas it was only 60 W for the DSC67. The efficiency at 90 dB is identical to the cheaper product, as this is often a result of the tweeter output which is the same. However, I suspect a slight improvement in efficiency in this loudspeaker because the impedance clearly shows as the thick end of one Ohm LESS than the DSC. What that means is a lower resistance and thus greater current flow. On paper it should go a lot louder.
And it does! The stuff at the top quoted from the USA website, (the new UK one is brilliant by the way) is where our answer lies. For the engineering in the guts of the biggest magnet is beefier. More voice coil, more Hench, more bass! Whereas the £20 cheaper loudspeaker will work great on head unit power, it is the purchase you would make if you were running a sub woofer as well. However, if you do not own a subwoofer in the system, spending £20 more on these will get you at least three times the bass weight from the same cones because of their better power handling and coil assemblies.
Even after all these years reviewing, I still take an utter delight in hearing things on familiar tracks that I had never made out before. A old CD of the Brits 2014, and even though these compilation CDs are assembled fast and with less quality than actual album recordings, the resolution on this disc, coupled with the excellent bass control of the Kicker CSC 67 meant that I heard a bass wobble in the notes running underneath Lorde in her track Royals. I was beyond impressed and relieved that telling these speakers apart was so straightforward.

An affordable speaker still, yet priced just that notch up from the Kicker entry-level, such that you get better weight and mass to the bass, which is still well controlled and at least as good as would have been coming from a £100+ set of speakers only a few years back, such is the technology development here. I enjoyed these although for me, I find my ageing ears a little less keen on the stridency of a PEI tweeter, especially a little half inch that has to do a bit more effort to be heard than a one incher. I might keep auditoning, were it me in the shop..but that is more about me than the speakers. Hugely recommended for the money, an easy upgrade fro crap OEM to a more startlingly clear output, as after all, I was listening unencumberd by loavtion, on axis, whereas in a car, these will always be in stock locations, so playing at your knees, thus making the tweeter need that urgency to get through.
Specifications
Speaker System: 2-way coaxial
Tweeter: Neodymium magnet, balanced PEI dome
Woofer: Polypropylene, polyester foam surround
Woofer Mounting Depth: 47mm
Rated Input Power: 100W
Peak Input Power: 300W
Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m
Frequency Response: 40Hz to 20,000Hz
DC Resistance 3.3 Ohm