Kicker SS65.2

A two-way component speaker system with separate tweeter units, midbass drivers and passive crossovers. Complete with a mounting kit to fit the tweeters in more than one application and screws and fixings. This is a convertible set and the well engineered grille system is supplied with parts to enable pole-coaxial mounting of the tweeter units by removing the back cover to allow a cable to pass through the magnet for the tweeter.
The set comes in a durable black plastic attache case and has a group-leading amount of high quality 16 gauge speaker cable included. This is no stop-gap product but rather a proper collection of three sets of cut cables with crimp butt connectors also supplied to allow you to tailor them to length and connect tweeters. The passives are round and uniquely in the group do not go through the hole the speakers will mount in! I had to remove the front baffles of my interchangeable baffle boxes and fit them that way. Then I found one channel did not work and so spent an embarrassingly long time (I shall NOT admit just how long) before working out that the culprit was one of the crossovers. When not connected to the passive the input wire could make a driver sound. (Use a tweeter at very low power just to see if there is music in the wire or if you are open-circuit. It’s easier than trying to use a meter.) Once connected to the passive it was silent even when connected at the input terminals. Anyway, I found a passive that used the same Zobel style network (the Orion’s) and did the listening with that. The differences in the passives could affect the sound but this is somewhat less than the influence of the sound of the drivers themselves.
The ad-hoc efficiency test was of course done using the all-Kicker channel.
– Power Handling 100w RMS
– Sensitivity 87dB 1w/1M
– Passband 40Hz to 22kHz
– Tweeter diameter 30mm
– Tweeter Mounting Depth 29mm
– Midbass Mounting Depth 71mm
– Cone: ‘TriTech’ Rohacell hexagonal composite
– Tweeter: DuPont Tetron soft dome with Ferrofluid cooling
– Crossover slope & point: 24dB per octave HPF & 12dB per octave LPF @ 2.8kHz (Zobel)
– Chassis: die cast Aluminium
– Complete with: heavy duty plastic moulded attach� case, thick wire, coax/compo conversion kits, frame grilles. Allen key and R-tool to fit HFs.
– Convertible coaxial/component design
Review by Adam Rayner
In due course, we’ll get another Kicker crossover in and mount the set up again to properly score the SQ. Meanwhile, irrelevant as it might be to any end user of course, this was the most twiddly for me to fit. What with removing the test boxes’ baffles to get the huge discoidal passives inside and the odd way they connect up.
You get to choose whether to mount them as the original coaxially-mounted-components style (Kicker were the very first to do this as far as I know, with a baby’s fist sized tweeter called D20 that they used to hang in front of 6x9s. They were awesome!) or as components with a bit of custom work.
Fact is, the awkwardly shaped passives are gorgeous, competition feature-worthy items and their casings are a design echo of the neatly embellished boot that sits friction-fitted to the backs of the mids’ magnets. The boots are pulled off if you want to mount the tweeters on the swoopy curvy frame-style grille mounts. I opted to use the SS65.2 convertible speakers as components in the same style as the rest of the group and so fitted the phase plugs to the midbass drivers. The case they come in has a mass of different injection moulded plastic bits for the multifarious mounting options you can choose from, even including a special rotary wrench for fitting the tweeter housing.
Even with a passive from a merely similar set the sound had great imaging and staging and was one of the sets that did achieve some of the precious not-sounding-like-it-came-from-the-box effect that home hifi reviewers get to rave on about so much. They certainly liked to be played loud and I reckon these will hit as hard as you want for as long as you want, it’s a bit of a Kicker flavour in my experience.
They do sacrifice some degree of purist hifi audiophilia for the way past hifi power they can achieve. I reckon they are an eight for sound in my horribly tough rating but will reserve final score on that one technicality until the box of passive widgets has been replaced and the set tried with all Kicker parts. It’d be less than justice to do owt else. And with the joy of fluidity of our publishing medium, I can update this when it’s been pursued.
Meanwhile , these are a heck of a package and I can see buyers wanting it to get hold of a Kicker branded piece of last-forever show-going luggage to go with their kicking components! Good Speakers.
Eventual Edit!
First, an apology for the time this has taken! I’ve since had a good old listen in the mind-bendingly loud Kicker Hummer, which is installed with these and as obtaining a new crossover and setting up a whole reproduction of the review circumstances would have been no more valid all this time later than simply checking the product out in situ, it seems fairest to admit a decent eight for Sound Quality and to confirm that these are serious American Muscle speakers and worth it for the cash asked.
Kicker kick.
Overall 8.6
Sound Quality 8
Build Quality 9
Power Handling 10
Efficiency 8
Value For Money 8