Kicker DSC 670 Coaxial Speakers

Manufacturer: Stillwater Designs, OK, USA
Distributor: Celsus
Website: Kicker
Typical Selling price: £49.99
In A Nutshell
A high value for money set of speakers, with truly low profile and shallow mount characteristics, that allow for mounting in most any car of the right aperture. Nice and efficient, they will go loud on mere headunit power and sound crisp and deep. The tweeter can be a bit strident but that helps if they are buried in stock locations as they are intended for. An easy recommendation.

Overall 8.6
Sound Quality 8
Build Quality 8
Power 8
Efficiency 9
Value For Money 10

Recommended within Talk Stuff’s audio genre

Editor Review : Kicker DSC 670 Coaxial Speakers
Another minor confession. I got the price wrong by a fiver throughout my review process, which is why there are some slight jump-edits in the video! With sets of coaxes in the seven-strong group trial going up to £430, I am certain that at fifty quid less a penny (at least until Brexit and the Hurricanes hit our economy!) that these are still very much a ten for Value For Money.
Kicker are one of the most respected names in car audio. The big deal with car audio is that we cannot make huge cabinets, like home subwoofers. As car bass became a thing, we had some experts point out that Isobaric mounting or two speakers mounted such that they shared the job of pushing and shoving the air around, was a good thing. The ‘˜normal’ woofers were mounted face-to-face in what was called Clamshell. This allowed each woofer to take more than its rated power and the box they were both mounted into, then acted as if it was twice the size. In the days before the cartoon speaker on the end of the BoomZilla character’s arm became all too real, this clamshell array was the loudest thing around. It was what Iceman used in his Cortina.
But that meant a speaker with its bottom sticking out. Often the prettiest part of the speaker’s anatomy, you could also mount them one behind the other, facing the same way but that is rarer. It was how a Clarion car made 157dB at the CES in their demo one year!
The point is, that Kicker have been doing genuine Research and Development for many years and have made some truly iconic products, one of which is the legendary ‘˜Solobaric’. This is endemically copied technology but Kicker were the first. It meant a subwoofer that acted a lot like an isobaric pair in performance terms. It went louder and deeper than other subs, taking more power in the process.
That was years back. Since then, they have made square diaphragm woofers that get more cone area into our cars, called L7, as that looks a bit square in certain fonts. They need special wibbly ridged suspension elements at their corners. Indeed, this was a crucial part of the development of the square ‘˜cone’ that could move up and down without distorting the hell out of the sound.
So, even in the entry level, a few quid more than MTX can make a hooligan speaker for, maybe even a tiny bit more refined than the competition at roughly this low price, Kicker can make the DSC product. They work very well and even have a slice of bass in their guts, fresh out of the box.
But the keen performance for the price ratio, while so vital to sales, is just the side issue on this model, as the tweeter is one of those oh-wow-neodymium types. They can be tiny and still rock and that’s the point with these. Not only are the main cones mounted in a shallow chassis and have a very low mounting depth, but also these little skinny neodymium tweeters do not stick out at ALL above the surface of the chassis.
Thus, with little fuss, these are a good performer for the money but also will fit into most cars. US car audio equipment often fell foul of this for our cars, with huge magnets on their behinds, that meant the windows would not work in a Fiat! The DSC 670 from Stillwater Designs’ Kicker brand is a bit of a tour de force of filtered-down technology.
That means that for the money, you are getting the benefits of the R&D from the Solobaric series as well as the surround technology of L7, informing the ridged foam top roll suspension to the main cones of DSC670. For very little cash, you get a specialist unit, a WORLD away and superior to anything in the caravan-and-camping too stores that sell car speakers from just one maker.
Have a look at the video and once again, I sliced out the erroneous price comments, as the VFM is still an easy-peasy ten.


Specifications
Speaker System: 2-way coaxial
Tweeter: 13mm Balanced PEI Dome, Neodymium magnet
Woofer: Polypropylene cone with Polyester Foam surround
Woofer Mounting Depth: 47mm
Rated Input Power: 60W
Peak Input Power: 240W
Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m
Frequency Response: 40Hz to 20,000Hz