Morel Integra Ovation XO 6
Unconventional Yet Stunning
MSRP: $599.95
Morel is to the mobile audio industry what Porsche is to the automotive market. It might seem like a bit of a stretch to compare these two brands, but when you look at the overall picture it's quite clear. Like Porsche, Morel has an expansive array of performance products to fit the needs of its customer, ranging from modestly priced to the extreme. Both companies also build products outside of the box, using less-than-conventional designs that yield stellar results. Yet regardless of price and design, both Porsche and Morel preserve signature traits in each of their products that make them stand out in their respected fields.
For this review, Morel sent a product that's certainly unconventional in mobile audio. The Integra Ovation XO 6 is what is referred to as a point source system. Although it could be viewed as a coaxial since each speaker consists of a tweeter and a woofer, and the similar attachment point of the tweeter placing it within the woofer's cone, point source speakers carry a fundamental difference. Whereas the tweeter in a coaxial speaker sits above the cone up on a standoff typically originating from the center of the woofer's voice coil, the tweeter in a point source speaker is recessed so that its diaphragm is aligned with the woofer cone, thereby creating a single point of origin for sound to be reproduced. This speaker alignment, along with a phase correct crossover, virtually eliminates time domain errors that are a byproduct of the speakers being offset from each other. In other words, the speakers perform as one transparent unit.
The Integra Ovation XO 6 is built on Morel's aluminum die-cast Uniflow basket used by many of the company's high-end components. Mechanical energy for the woofer is supplied by an internal hybrid motor structure employing a pair of neodymium magnets, used to motivate the oversized 2.1-inch aluminum Hexatech voice coil (honeycomb-shaped wire that reduces air gaps in the windings, thus increasing efficiency). The voice coil, via its aluminum former, attaches to a composite cellular fiber cone that's terminated at the edge by a high-loss rubber surround.
Seated within the leading edge of the woofer's voice coil former is the tweeter. It sports a 28mm (1.1-inch) Acuflex-coated soft dome and is powered by its own neodymium motor. Out front it employs a controlled dispersion cup surrounding the dome, which should help maintain phase linearity and control any negative interaction from the woofer cone (particularly while it plays lower frequencies).
There are separate terminals for both the woofer and tweeter integrated onto the rear of the cast-aluminum frame. This is because Morel supplies a pair of outboard 2-way crossovers (-6dB lowpass and -18dB highpass). Drawing from the company's signature alien design, the crossover housings are made of black injection-molded plastic with two removable windows on top. Inside, each red masked phenolic circuit board is stuffed with above average components, which include a pair of Mylar capacitors, inductors ranging from a decent size air-core to a smaller iron core unit, and a three-position tweeter level circuit featuring sandstone resistors. Connections are straightforward and are accomplished through a barrier terminal strip along the straight edge of the crossover case.
The manual offers only the basic necessities. Included within are a series of diagrams for mounting (which includes cutout dimensions), tweeter attenuation, and connections for both passive and active (bi-amp) setups. There's also an entire set of specifications, which provides some useless information, even for the expert installer. Beyond that no additional installation tips are provided.