I'm a car stereo neophyte. In my old car I had a pair of amp driven Cerwin Vega 5002s in the front that I absolutely LOVED. They had the best highs as far as my ears were concerned. People often commented how nice my system sounded... and these were a relatively cheap pair of speakers we're talkin.
In my new car I got about two years ago, I had a buddy of mine who's in the A/V industry and who's heavily into this stuff hook me up with a new system (on a limited budget). He got me basically at cost a Phoneix Gold Octane-R 8.0:4 amp, PG Octane-R 69s for the back, and PG Octane-R 6.5s for the front. (Plus a woofer box with two 12s... WAY more than I wanted or needed).
I had wanted to put another pair of Cerwins in the front but he told me the Phoenix Gold's would blow them away. He even held the two different speakers up side by side, and the Phoneix Gold just looked much bigger, heavier, more substantial, and just like a much nicer item.
Well, it's been almost a year now and I still don't like my new and "improved" system as much as the old one. The Phoenix Golds are "nice" and I guess very clear-sounding, but they're kinda dull, too.... I guess you can say they're warm but lacking great high or low end. It could be just the different cars project different soundstages. Or even more likely I'm thinking it could be the tweeters-- I'm pretty sure the Vega is a metallic tweeter and the Phoenix Gold is silk... if that's the case then I guess I just prefer the sound of the metallic.
Anyway, long story short-- I'm gonna put some Vegas back in the front, and I guess I just wanted to know if this made sense to anyone or if I'm just a complete idiot who doesn't know good stuff when they hear it.
When it comes to components it a matter of personal taste really. If you liked the Vegas, then put them back in. Basically every brand of component speaker has its OWN sound. Some people like the nuetral sound of Dynaudios, others like myself want something a tad more "in your face", like the Focal Utopias. So yeah your probably right, if you like the others they probably did sound better to you.