I recently got my pair of Arians in a trade I did with Mark. I'll keep my review short and sweet. They're replacing my well used pair of Souls I've been running for around three years now. Still going strong btw just a little character from being in a door for so long.
Build quality is excellent. They'll fit in a 6.5" cutout with little or no enlarging needed. They have a big ass so watch out for magnet clearance. I ALMOST had to trim a plastic piece inside my doors to make them fit. It was that tight. I've heard touching the cone of these things is a big sin so I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof during install. 16 screws total into .5" cutting board all by hand and willing to lose a finger before putting a hole in the driver.
I did a quick dail-in last night and these things are really revealing and low distortion. I don't know what it is about these drivers but even being off axis in the doors beaming isn't an issue. I'm running them from 100-5000. Imaging is rediculous and vocals are more real than I've ever heard them in my own vehicle. Staging is still on the dash with minimal rainbow effect. Maybe I can fix that along with a couple other staging issues with more tuning. I got it 80% of the way there in 30 mins. Now I need to spend the next few weeks getting them the rest of the way there. The Arians are drivers that sound better and better the higher you lowpass them. No need for a dedicated midrange if you can install them and/or tune them to stage high and deep. Actually, just using them as a midbass is a waste in my opinion. Midrange is where they shine at. There's no noticable breakup node and like said above they simply don't have any noticable beaming crossed at 5khz. I'm not going to go into detail how they reproduce the music. They just plain sound "real". To get to the level of the Arian you'll have to spend big money on Audio Technology or Dyn Esotar. Transparency at its best.
Build quality is excellent. They'll fit in a 6.5" cutout with little or no enlarging needed. They have a big ass so watch out for magnet clearance. I ALMOST had to trim a plastic piece inside my doors to make them fit. It was that tight. I've heard touching the cone of these things is a big sin so I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof during install. 16 screws total into .5" cutting board all by hand and willing to lose a finger before putting a hole in the driver.
I did a quick dail-in last night and these things are really revealing and low distortion. I don't know what it is about these drivers but even being off axis in the doors beaming isn't an issue. I'm running them from 100-5000. Imaging is rediculous and vocals are more real than I've ever heard them in my own vehicle. Staging is still on the dash with minimal rainbow effect. Maybe I can fix that along with a couple other staging issues with more tuning. I got it 80% of the way there in 30 mins. Now I need to spend the next few weeks getting them the rest of the way there. The Arians are drivers that sound better and better the higher you lowpass them. No need for a dedicated midrange if you can install them and/or tune them to stage high and deep. Actually, just using them as a midbass is a waste in my opinion. Midrange is where they shine at. There's no noticable breakup node and like said above they simply don't have any noticable beaming crossed at 5khz. I'm not going to go into detail how they reproduce the music. They just plain sound "real". To get to the level of the Arian you'll have to spend big money on Audio Technology or Dyn Esotar. Transparency at its best.