Rockford Fosgate is a true legend in the car audio industry, and the R1675X2 Prime speakers have gained quite a positive reputation in the highly competitive aftermarket for replacement car stereo speakers.
Inexpensive, and with a very musical and accurate sound, these Rockford Fosgate Prime speakers are often cited as one of the very best choices available today to replace factory-installed car or truck stereo speakers, and an almost unbelievable value.
But are they really as good as their hype? Let’s find out, in this in-depth buyer’s guide and review for the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers.
Features and Specifications of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speaker
- 6¾ Inch 2-Way Car Audio Speaker
- Nominal Impedance: 4 Ohms
- Frequency Response: 52 Hz to 20 KHz
- Sensitivity: 91 dB
- Power Handling: 45 Watts RMS :: 90 Watts Peak
- Silk Dome Flush Mounted Tweeter
- Integrated High-Pass Tweeter Crossover
- Vacuum Polypropylene Cone Woofer with Rubber Surround
- Stamped Steel Basket
Pros & Cons of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speaker
| ✅ Pros | ❌ Cons |
|---|---|
| Smooth, detailed and musical sound quality | At this price, None |
| Sound great with any kind of music | |
| Excellent material quality and reliability | |
| Very high sensitivity – play loud with little volume | |
| Very accurate bass response and sweet, extended highs | |
| Dramatic improvement from any factory standard speakers |
Sound Quality of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speaker
The Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speakers are quite inexpensive, and offer even people on a tight budget an opportunity to upgrade from their factory installed speakers. But for so little money, how good can the Rockford Fosgate Prime speakers really sound?
Happily, the answer is Fantastic! The first thing you notice with the Prime speakers is the amazing clarity. Voices are eerily present, expressive and accurate, and there is an enormous amount of detail in not just voices but instruments too. We never once had the feeling – as we so often do with speakers in this price range – that we were missing a lot of what was on the original recording.
And surprisingly, just as you hear with much higher end speakers, the clarity and detail does not come with any harshness or edge. Indeed, the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers have a wonderfully sweet and musical sound, very listenable even at higher volumes and over a long time – almost dark, and yet fully transparent.
They also do something that, in our experience, very few car audio speakers at any price do well at all – image. The kind of stereo imaging you can get from good home stereo speakers, where the voices and instruments are positioned exactly where they should be in a three dimensional space, solidly and accurately, is very much evident here.
This, in combination with the clarity and sweet musicality, makes these a very satisfying speaker, and a good choice for lots of different kinds of music. Perhaps not raw enough for death metal, or with the kind of over-amped bass thump that serves rap and hip-hop so well, they work beautifully with classic and hard rock, acoustic and singer-songwriter music, jazz and classical, electronica, ambient and synthesized musics of all types.
In fact, playing EDM or other forms of electronic music with the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers helps clarify and qualify a couple of criticisms one sees about this speaker. First, the deep bass on these Rockford speakers is not pushed up or falsely equalized to be stronger than it really is. People say the deep bass is weak or insufficient, but our listening made us realize that – especially for a speaker this size and this price – the 6.75 inch Primes have remarkably deep bass, but bass that is natural and smooth, not boosted. This is so different that the vast majority of speakers in this class that it may sound bass-light, but it is really bass-correct, and more in line with fine high fidelity speakers in this regard.
The other criticism we’ve seen has to do with power handling, and this one we honestly just don’t get. Well, maybe it’s just down to people looking at Rockford Fosgate’s honest and conservative printed specifications and comparing them to the over-stated specs that come from other manufacturers, and understandably thinking that the Primes can’t handle enough power.
But the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers are, for one thing, extremely sensitive speakers, meaning that they play very loudly with very little power. This also means that the peak power rating of 90 watts should (and, in our experience, does) play far more loudly than you should ever want or need. There is a strange phenomenon which happens with smooth, open and low-distortion speakers like these, and with similarly fine audio equipment, that when music is playing louder it doesn’t sound as loud as it would over more harsh or distorted gear. And yet that undistorted high volume is much more satisfying and, again, engaging. And, believe us, it still seems plenty loud!
In fact, if I wanted to end the review of my own listening experience of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime car stereo speakers with a single word, it would be just that – engaging. A budget speaker that offers an enormous upgrade from not just factory speakers but perhaps any other car speaker in its price range, and which left me feeling, over and over, so totally engaged with the music – a quality usually reserved for the upper strata of hi-fi gear, and far more than I would have expected, even from a legendary company like Rockford Fosgate.
Power Handling of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speaker
Again, this seems to be an area of some concern in reviews of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers, especially among customers – many of who, apparently, didn’t actually purchase them, but were perhaps put off just by those printed specifications.
But in our listening tests we were never able to push these wonderful speakers to full volume. As sensitive as they are, it was just too loud. We were also never able to push them to the point that they sounded harsh or broke up or we worried about damaging them. They always behaved, and gave us rich, clear, full-range sound at any volume.
Fantastic Crossovers
Rockford Fosgate seems quite proud of their integrated high-pass tweeter crossovers, so much so that we thought they should receive special notice here. But to be honest with you we never actually did notice these crossovers.
And, as you may be hi-fi savvy enough to know already, that is the best thing we could possibly say about them. There is no notch, spike or distortion where the music moves from woofer to tweeter, and the crossovers never called attention to themselves or created any bumps or other noise.
The entire frequency range has a similarly sweet and musical sound – a quality that lends to the overall feeling of accuracy and engagement.
Safe and Dependable
In addition to being built with very high quality materials, like true silk dome tweeters, polypropylene woofers and oversized magnets, which are resistant not only to heavy use but also all kinds of atmospheric conditions, Rockford Fosgate Prime speakers also include specially designed grills which look great and keep the speaker cones safe and protected.
Inexpensive and Easy to Install
Considering how much we loved these speakers, and looking at our very positive review, we think we should mention again that the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers really are very inexpensive – almost unbelievably so, in fact (and at the time of this article’s writing our Amazon link leads to an even more amazing special promotion price).
And while we didn’t install our tested speakers ourselves, by every account they are a breeze to put in, and an easy project for even a beginning DIYer. The 6.75 inch size will fit perfectly into almost any new and older vehicle’s doors or back deck, and even fit perfectly into 6.5 inch mounts with no modifications.
What do Others Say about the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime Speaker?
Press reviews
The consensus in the press seems to be that the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speaker has beautiful sound, clear, pleasing and accurate, and that these inexpensive speakers were more like expensive audiophile speakers and less like their often boomy, stridently bright competition. Often mentioned was the level of detail the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2s offer, the tonal accuracy and the strong and solid stereo imaging, and especially for the price.
Professional review sites and the audio press, who should be (and, thankfully, usually are) less swayed by printed specifications, did not express any concerns or criticism of the Rockford Prime speakers having too little bass, and indeed often praised the natural levels of bass and how it integrates and balances with midrange and higher frequencies. Relatedly, like us, many reviewers were impressed by the dynamic energy and the ability to play loud with no harshness.
User reviews
The main thing you see from verified customer reviews of the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers is how much better they sound than factory speakers, how happy and satisfied people are with their purchase and, from a couple of customers, how much more often they actually listen to their car or truck stereo since installing them.
Here you do see some concern about power handling, and about deep bass, but if we filter out reviews that are not from actual and verified purchasers we hardly see these concerns at all, and on the contrary there is much more about how loud and clear the Primes play, and how the bass response is deeper and much more accurate (clear, detailed, etc.) than the factory speakers they replaced.
Final Thoughts – is the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime a good speaker?
Rockford Fosgate has been making car audio speakers and electronics for almost fifty years now, and is definitely one of the most beloved and respected companies in operation today. And we are so happy to find, and to pass on to you, that the Rockford Fosgate R1675X2 Prime speakers are not only great speakers, but good enough to bear the company’s proud name.
Indeed, considering the very low price, the overall excellent sound quality – amazingly accurate, sweet and engaging – and the quality of materials and construction, the R16775X2 Prime speakers should not only help maintain the already highly positive Rockford Fosgate reputation, they should even improve it.
They will also improve the sound of your, or anybody’s, car stereo, and are one of the best values we have found. Highly recommended!