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.
Setup
Supplying the amplified signal to the Morel Integra Ovation XO 6 point source, I wired up an Alpine CDA-9857 head unit directly to a TRU Technology C-7 amplifier (conservatively rated at 125 watts x 4). The driving channels were level-matched within 0.05 volts of each other. At no time was any processing used during the listening test.
I bolted the appropriate baffles loaded with the 6.5-inch drivers to my well-damped 2.25 cubic feet test enclosures and broke in the speakers for 48 hours before finalizing my setup with some brief listening to determine the best position for the speaker cabinets. Since the tweeters are part of the speakers as with a coaxial design, setup was relatively simple. I ended up with the speakers close to on-axis with the center point of my listening position and the crossover level setting for the tweeters set to -3dB.
Listening
Jazz
Leny Andrade "Maiden Voyage"Leny Andrade hails from Brazil, so you can sense the infusion of samba in her music. Her song, "Maiden Voyage," offers an inviting soundstage that's filled with the standard jazz instruments-a piano, bass, and drums. From the start I felt the closeness of the band and the expansiveness of the soundstage through the XO 6's. Still, there was a good bit of layering going on, and each instrument was stable and defined. Andrade's voice was out front and was so realistic that I pictured her moving her body about while she bops through sections.