Hertz Hi Energy HCX690

A three way design with a superbly rare and special tweeter device. There isn’t really a proper term for this sort of Mylar tweeter but it isn’t like normal ones. In the past they have been made by all sorts of people in a  rectangular shape and ended up being called ‘Ribbons’. But this is round and in fact Electro-Repulsive-Membrane might be more accurate a term. The point is, it has a very high upper frequency extension as a result all they way up to a bat-like thirty thousand cycles. The other tweeter is a fabric dome type made from Tetolon fibre based fabric. Google Tetolon and all you get is Hertz and Audison speakers coming up, with reference to tweeters. The chassis is pressed steel like most but is finished in a handsome slightly textured crackle finish.
The top surround is a dual roll which means that in cross section it looks like a low fat ‘M’ and thus allows some further excursion than a simple single roll of similar size. I have never seen this on a six by nine either.
– Pressed Steel chassis with textured finish
– Basket and motor are coupled and damped with epoxy glue
– Polypropylene Mica-injected cone with and Silicone armoured tinsel wires
– 25mm Tetolon ® dome tweeter with Neodymium magnet
– 25mm Mylar dome Neodymium magnet ribbon super tweeter
– Power handling 130w RMS, 260w peak
– Sensitivity 94dB (2.83V, 1m)
– Frequency Response: 37Hz to 30kHz
– Impedance 4 Ohms
– Mounting depth 85mm
– Lug connection terminals for spade-end speaker connectors
– Fixings, but no speaker cable included
– Steel mesh grilles
Review by Adam Rayner
The single most elaborately engineered speaker in the whole group and the price reflects the levels of smarts involved. The sound was fabulous, scoring a nine but in a different zone of excellence to say, the Alpine SPR-692s also tested.
A slightly more clinical voicing and a simply astonishingly high and effortless upper frequency extension. Little details and tings and whizzes and pings you never noticed before. Edges to strings, the rasp of a saxophone reed. All these become hearable.
Audio bling, they are in fact a little tiring to the ear if you run them hard right into your face. I know of a car with two sets of these in the front doors. They are used as front stage versus a wall of four fifteens in a small hatchback, now with no room left inside for shopping. The sheer level and detailed cut they produce is amazing and in the test rig they were hefty.
The bass is not the best or richest in the group but they seemed to thrive on being spanked harder than Madonna in her pervy period. And there are one or two others that were absurd in this department. But if again you play a lot of dance or any stuff that relies on little tingly sounds or else has some right potent squirty high freq synth lines and so forth, then these will be your bag.
Also potentially useful for bat research!
Proof of the hooligan pudding was their SPL reading on the AudioControl RTA device, which was a whopping 115.9dB on the windowsill behind the test rig. It had to be in the same place versus the speakers each time and that was the best way to do it.
Hertz is a relatively new name to the UK but one that has made its mark very rapidly and these speakers show the reason why.
Overall 8.6
Sound Quality 9
Build Quality 9
Power Handling 9
Efficiency 9
Value For Money 7