Vibe QB69

A six by nine all right but it’s oblong! A more efficient filler of space, like edge-wound voice coil wire. The shape is said to increase cone area by 25%. The grille is a space frame design and looks very cool over the tidy chassis. The speaker is three-way with an off board 12dB per Octave passive crossover supplied for each channel. You can see a description video of the product in the video blog link
The passives’ three components of a single capacitor, one resistor and a coil with a Ferrite core are smaller than those used by either Pioneer, Alpine or Kenwood for their chassis-mounted systems. The Vibe ones are supplied in neat cases with cool Vibe branding on them. Their wire is not very thick though it’ll carry the power.
The woofer’s magnet is protected by a rubber boot of elaborate shape and is a big one. The voice coil is the same 60mm diameter as the Vibe Space subwoofer in twelve inch size. I gather it isn’t the same coil, though. Part of the need for this width is power handling but part is the morphology QB69 has a big old midrange driver in its guts (A 42mm Ally cone driver is mounted within the coil of the woofer) with enough space above it for a 19mm tweeter to be mounted literally concentrically with it, held above it on a frame. Interestingly enough, this is the only Titty tweeter in Vibe range. It looks busy and complicated and dead purposeful. This topmost tweeter driver also has a small degree of swivel. You can aim it forwards or backwards from axis.
– Pressed Steel chassis
– Absorbing Polypropylene bass cone (a softer more compliant material)
– Voice coil 60mm diameter which is the same as the Vibe Space 12 subwoofer
– Rubber boot to 40 Oz magnet
– 19mm Titanium dome tweeter
– 42mm Aluminium cone midrange driver
– Power handling 200w RMS, 600w peak
– Sensitivity 93dB (2.83V, 1m)
– Frequency Response: 30Hz to 25kHz
– Impedance 4 Ohms
– Mounting depth 100mm
– Separate sets of two screw down terminals for bass cone and mid/high assembly
– Paper fitting template, fixings and passive crossovers included
– Injection moulded skeleton-shapely grilles
Review by Adam Rayner
These speakers are utterly unique as far as I know. Lots of companies copied the Kicker square woofers and some even copied SAS Bazooka’s triangular ones, but no one has ever had the muscle to produce an all-new-tooled rectangular 6×9. Let alone ones with 12in sub motors on their bottoms. The same effect of filling the rounded bits with stuff applies to square cones as it does to edge wound or square cross-section voice coil wire. As cars are quadrilaterals with a wheel at each corner (mostly) our spaces are usually squarish. Either way, they claim 25% extra cone area for the size of driver.
And that makes them louder.
The guys at Vibe supplied me with a box that some might think makes the test a bit unfair. They had supplied a pair of the speakers for me to play with (see the video linked from the description) and instead of a simple pair of sealed boxes to emulate my Fusion Area 51 vintage test ovals boxes, Rob Gurney fashioned a common-volume ported box for both at once with a Gloriously Gorgeous„¢ Vibe port mouth with foam plug thingy in it between them. For these speakers are designed to work in more than one way and you can choose how.
Personally, in this world of every amplifier having some sort of crossover, I would run your headunit power only through the passives and send it off merely to the mid/high assemblies. Then run the two bass cones on one bass amplifier or a stereo one bridged and crossed over as nearly all models from all brands can, to make them actively driven like a ‘real’ woofer.
I drove them as stereo and with and without the plug fitted. On their own, sealed, I got a fairly class-trailing 111.1dB on the AudioControl. Then I pulled the pretty butt plug out and it all became clear to me. (Now there’s a quote to take out of context!) The reason the only Titanium tweeter in the Vibe range lives here above a really tough sounding Aluminium coned midband driver, with all it’s ‘harshness’ for the poncy audiophile, is that these bass drivers are absolute bastards.
The mad-genius legitimate sons of a designer allowed to do it his way. As individualistic as the fingerprint, they are just bonkers. Talk About ‘Ah, now I get it!’ The bloody things raised Cain. I got a maximum 119.4dB out of them with 118.5dB easily if I didn’t drive them too hard into difficulty.
A handling cock up by a weedy parcel bloke meant that despite the packaging, one corner of my mega box arrived with a bruise to the MDF which under this sort of loading is like eggshells really and needs ensconcing in foam inserts to travel safely rather than merely being given a waistcoat of cardboard and thin bubble wrap. This meant a slight leak at one corner of one driver that I could hear under big audio until I Gaffered it sealed again.
The SQ is not great, a Mitsubishi EVO has a hard ride, A Lamborghini Countach has a shite drag coefficient. The point is that although you have to choose them and cut your hole as an oblong in the first place, these speakers are capable of being boxed like ‘real’ woofers and you really could get away with using just these and your mates will ask what woofer you’re running. In fact, if you don’t box them, it’s really like trying to drive on bare rims. Yes, we’ve seen cars drive with no tyres left on Police Nutter Crash but like a car, they need woodwork like you need rubber.
All of which makes them a positive choice for Vibe fans as ideally, you have these, ported, boxed, and four Space fifteens.
Possibly the ultimate hooligan mad f***er six by nine and horribly deserving of a Talk Audio Recommended flag, despite their lack of decorum. (or maybe because of it!)
Overall 9.0
Sound Quality 7
Build Quality 9
Power Handling 10
Efficiency 9
Value For Money 10