Car Audio Central - Ultimate Car Audio Forum and Community

I wanted to get some input on why everyone seems so down on the L&. I had a old set, like the original black ones, and they rocked in a tiny sealed box. I since went to some Hifonics square subs and they blew dog. So I bought a pair of the new silver L7's, last years model. They should be here UPS today actually, tracking says out for delivery.

But since today is my first day to the forums, i read "the good bad and ugle" and it basically says to avoid these. Why. My old set rocked, I know they arent focal, or IDMAX, but I loved my old ones, whats the big dissapointment about?

Please give me some input before I open the boxes.

The old ROUND Kicker subs were good. The new squares aren't very good. They do get loud simply due to cone area, but have a plethora of issues due to this design.

the new 06 squares are vastly improved over the previous versions however i still dont reccomend them because there are better subs for the price if you like squares look into the hifonics atlas squares there louder and sound about 4 times better than the l7. the brutuses are also very good however there not as loud as the l7 but sound much much better. and both of these woofers cost less than the l7

The kicker L7's are not very high on my list either.

I went through 6. A couple snapped the tinsel leads, the others fried v.c.'s. And i was only pushing 420 watts to each (rated at 600 a piece). Ran them in both sealed and ported enclosures.

I dont know what it is about them that makes them so unreliable, but they suck.

Maybe you will have better luck with them.

Bill: like squares look into the hifonics atlas squares

Gagnastiak:I since went to some Hifonics square subs and they blew dog

I don't think he wants to go back down that route???

In the right box you can make sound how ever you want them to, I'm sure you're geared towards SPL, and the new L7's don't look to bad in my opinion, Look at ampsearch his are rockin!!!

Two reasons for me. One is the failure rate, and the other is sound. They just don't sound good to me. Sure they get crazy loud, but I want SQ that can get loud.

didnt see that matt and i dont know what you did to them bro but there are about 10 of us on the team that run the hifonics squares and were putting over 4 times the rms on them and using them. dont blame the sub it most likely was your enclosure

If you dont have this years model L7's.... you have a good chance of failure with them. This years design was improved to prevent some of the failures. A buddy of mine has a single 15" in a box I made him and it does pretty good SPL wise.... but does not sound very good at all. If going loud is all you care about, you should be happy.

round solobarics were fine.
square subs have design issues.
limited excursion
cone flex
surround separation
tinsel lead slap and separation
cone fracturing
they get loud but don't sound that good or accurate at high output.
generally, you're better off with a nicer, round sub for the same price.
I also see an enormous amount of L5 nd L7 subs come back blown, within weeks or months of purchase

non round speakers are just a lousy design, for traditional magnetic transducers (not counting horns, ESLs, ribbons, etc)

Bwcad1 wrote:the new 06 squares are vastly improved over the previous versions however i still dont reccomend them because there are better subs for the price if you like squares look into the hifonics atlas squares there louder and sound about 4 times better than the l7. the brutuses are also very good however there not as loud as the l7 but sound much much better. and both of these woofers cost less than the l7

FYI on the atlas, If you look at the post I just replaced these with the L7's, the atlas were total junk, power hogs, and bad sound. I love Hifonics, or I did before I built a Hifonics system, I have systematically had failure on every piece of equipment from them.

I highly reccomend against the atlas subs, they also do not meet the ohm rating they state, my dual 4 ohm sub when wired to 2 ohm, would consistantly ohm at 1.4 ohms, when wiring 2 of these subs my load was well under 1 ohm, hence my loss of 2 BX1500's.