For the sake of this comparison, we are not going to include the Kicker 4" KM speakers. Rockford Fosgate does not make a 4" marine speaker. If you are looking for 4" marine speakers, the Kicker ones are probably the best available.

First, we are going to compare the power handing of all three speakers. The power handling is important because it helps give you an idea of how loud and how clear the speakers will play. The more power you can give your speakers, the louder they will get, the cleaner they will sound, and the better they will sound when turned up and playing loud. For the sake of this comparison, they are all virtually the same. Can you hear the difference in 25 watts? Probably not. The volume knob can adjust any perceived difference in volume.

The Kicker KM604 speakers are only available in a white sport-style grille. The grille of the speakers is molded into the speaker for a one-piece design versus a separate grille. The Kicker KM65 speakers come with separate grilles and both the charcoal and white grilles are included with the speakers. With most marine speakers, you select your grille color when you order. With the Kicker, KM65 marine speakers, selecting your grille color is not needed. There is one part number, you get both colors, and you can decide which color grille looks best when you are installing your speakers.

The Rockford Fosgate M0, M1, and M2 speakers come in an open-style, sport grille. They are both available in black or white. Many marine speakers use a charcoal or titanium grille instead of a true black. But, Rockford's marine speakers come with true, black grilles. The Rockford Fosgate M2 speakers come with removable stainless steel, mesh grilles. This overlay matched the previous, Punch marine speakers and is a nice finish that is not necessarily an open style grille, but it looks more aggressive than the closed, horizontal lines on most classic style marine speaker grilles.

The speaker's efficiency rating gives you a standard baseline to tell you how loud that speaker will play. The higher the SPL, or efficiency rating, the louder that the speaker will play, given the same amount of actual power. We measure this value in dB at 1W/1m. The actual speaker output is controlled by the volume, which can be adjusted up or down. Still, it is a good baseline to tell you how efficient the speakers are and how "loud" they play, assuming the other variables are held constant. It is important to keep in mind that every 3dB, the volume doubles. Does .5dB matter? Probably not. If it is 3dB louder, will you notice a difference? Yes, assuming everything else stays the same.

Tweeters are very important when it comes to the sound profile of your speakers. There are three different types of tweeters for marine speakers, soft-dome (silk), hard dome, and horns. Neither Kicker nor Rockford makes a horn tweeter in a 6.5" coaxial speaker, so we can ignore that for this comparison.

The Rockford Fosgate M0 speakers come with a .50" tweeter, and theM1 and M2 speakers come with 1" tweeters. The 6.5" M0 and M1 speakers have an LCP (Liquid Crystal Polymer) dome tweeter, which is a fancy name for hard plastic. This material is going to be bright, crisp, and loud. It isn't going to have the harshness of an aluminum dome tweeter. Yet, it is less expensive than a titanium dome tweeter. The 6.5" M2 speakers have a laminated PXNX tweeter. Rockford Fosgate is not very forthcoming with regards to what PXNX is, but we have spoken with their product development manager, who has explained to us that PXNX is, "Stuff, that isn't really a hard dome tweeter, but it isn't a silk-dome tweeter either." The PXNX tweeter is super loud and also delivers better sound quality than a titanium dome tweeter. The 91.8dB sensitivity rating reflects the volume output and efficiency of the PXNX tweeter. This rating is much higher than most 6.5" speakers.

The Kicker KM604 comes with a .50" PEI dome tweeter, and the KM65 comes with a .75" titanium dome tweeter. The PEI dome tweeter is very common in car speakers and is considered a hard dome tweeter. The titanium dome tweeter in the KM65 is made from metal and, as you would expect, is also a hard dome tweeter. Titanium is popular because of its strength, the lack of density, and it doesn't rust. Also, titanium is often preferred over aluminum because it gives you the bright output you expect from a metal tweeter but without the harshness that can come with aluminum dome tweeters.

In comparing the PEI dome tweeter on the KM604 and the LCP tweeter on the M0, the LCP is going to have higher stiffness to weight ratio than LCP. In a marine environment, the stiffer tweeter is going to play brighter, crisper, and with more clarity than a PEI dome tweeter. In comparing the M1 to the KM65, you are trading the smaller titanium dome tweeter for a larger LCP tweeter.

Your speakers must match up well with your power source. If you are powering your speakers directly off of your radio, we recommend either the KM604 or the M0-65. If your amplifier is putting out 50+ watts per channel, you should have enough power both the KM65 and the M1-65. Music is dynamic, so is the power output of your amplifier as the speaker cone moves. Can you hear the difference in 25 watts, outside, on your boat? Probably not. Can you hear the difference in 50 watts? Yes. If you have an amplifier that is putting out less than 50 watts RMS, you can use the KM65, or you could select between the KM604 and the M0s. If you have a high power amplifier, remember that you can always turn the gain down. But, if you don't have enough power and your gain is maxed out, you can't turn it up any higher.

All of the speakers included in this comparison are available with LEDs.

The Kicker KM604 speakers are available with blue LEDs. You do not have the option the change colors, you get blue LEDs, or you get no LEDs. The Kicker KM65 speakers come with RGB LEDs located behind the tweeter that illuminate the cone by shining backward onto the speaker. To power the LEDs on the Kicker speakers, you can wire them to 7 different static colors or us the KMLC to choose between 19 colors and 20 different modes. For wiring on the Kicker marine speakers, you can use marine-grade, RGB speaker wire or use your own wiring. The RGB LEDs use 1 power for power (black) and you ground either red, blue, or green, to illuminate in those colors, all 3 to light up white, or combinations for purple, yellow, or orange. If you use an LED controller, you will want to wire all 4 terminals on the LEDs.

The Rockford Fosgate 6.5" M1 and M2 marine speakers come with RGB LEDs and use Rockford's Color Optix system. With this, Amphenol and Deutsche connectors are used to provide a plug and play solution for both the speaker wire and the RGB LEDs. The speaker connection uses a waterproof plug. For the RGB LEDs, instead of using RGB speaker wire and cutting and splicing, instead you purchase the PMX-RGB LED controller and the Rockford Fosgate Color Optix cables. Plug one end into the RGB LED controller and plug the other end into the speaker. It is designed to be quick and hassle free. All of the tedious tasks involved with small AWG wiring like cutting, splicing, soldering, terminating, are not needed.

If you are powering your speakers off of your radio and comparing the KM604 and the M0, they are so similar. If you want LED lights, go with the 45KM604WL because they have blue LEDs and the Rockford ones do not. If you want black speakers, go with Rockford because Kicker doesn't make the KM604 in black. If you don't care about LEDs and you want white speakers, I would go with the Kicker KM604 because they are less expensive. If you are using an amplifier, I would step up to the KM65 or the M1-65.

When it comes the the KM65 vs. the Rockford Fosgate M1, it is a very similar scenario. The Kicker KM65 without the LEDs offers the best value if you don't want or care for the LED lights becuase you aren't paying for something you won't use. If you want LED lights, it will depend on how much power you have. If you have 35-45W RMS, the Kicker will be a better option than the Rockford Fosgate M1. If you have 75-100 watts of RMS power from your amplifier, the Rockford Fosgate M1 will be a better option. At the same time, if you have 100 watts RMS from your amplifier, step up to the Rockford Fosgate M2-65 and get ready to smile. If you have 50-75 watts RMS from your amplifier, we recommend the Rockford Fosgate M1. Assuming you want RGB LEDs, the difference is the Color Optix RGB LEDs. Wiring the LED's for the controller is not fun. You are dealing with very small wire, trying to make solid connections, or using a solder gun. I will take the plug and play aspect of the Rockford M1 Color Optix speakers, save an hour or two of installation, and relax without a headache, while listening to my favorite songs play from my new speakers, with an ice-cold beer in my hand.

If you need 6.5" speakers and you want volume and you want clarity, the Rockford M2-65 is going to outshine anything Kicker currently offers. You are going to be able to give the M2-65 significantly more power than the M1-65 or the KM65, and the M2s are super efficient with the PXNX tweeter.

First, we are going to compare the power handing of all three speakers. The power handling is important because it helps give you an idea of how loud and how clear the speakers will play. The more power you can give your speakers, the louder they will get, the cleaner they will sound, and the better they will sound when turned up and playing loud. For the sake of this comparison, they are all virtually the same. Can you hear the difference in 25 watts? Not likely and any difference in volume could be achieved with the volume knob at most listening levels.

The Kicker KM84L includes both charcoal and white grilles. You do not have to select a grille color when purchasing their 8" speakers.

The Rockford Fosgate M1 8" speakers come in white or black sport grilles. Both the M2-8 and the M2-8H come with the same style black and white sport grilles as the M1, but the M2 speakers also include the stainless steel mesh overlays that give you the traditional, Rockford Fosgate marine look. The stainless mesh is more

The speaker's efficiency rating gives you a standard baseline to tell you how loud that speaker will play. The higher the SPL, or efficiency rating, the louder that the speaker will play, given the same amount of actual power. This value is measured in dB at 1W/1m. This is somewhat subjective because you can always turn the volume up or down, but it is a good baseline to tell you how efficient the speakers are and how "loud" they play, assuming the other variables are held constant. It is important to keep in mind that every 3dB, the volume doubles. Does .5dB matter? Probably not. If it is 3dB louder, will you notice a difference? Yes, assuming everything else stays the same.

Tweeters are very important when it comes to the sound profile of your speakers. There are three different types of tweeters for marine speakers, soft-dome (silk), hard dome, and horns. Neither Rockford Fosgate nor Kicker make 8" speakers with soft-dome tweeters.

The 8" M1 speakers have a 1.00" LCP (Liquid Crystal Polymer) dome tweeter, which is a fancy name for hard plastic. This material is going to be bright, crisp, and loud. It isn't going to have the harshness of an aluminum dome tweeter. Yet, it is less expensive than a titanium dome tweeter. The 8" M2 speakers have a laminated PXNX tweeter. Rockford Fosgate is not very forthcoming with regards to what PXNX is, but we have spoken with their product development manager, who has explained to us that PXNX is, "Stuff, that isn't really a hard dome tweeter, but it isn't a silk-dome tweeter either." The PXNX tweeter is super loud and also delivers better sound quality than a titanium dome tweeter. The horn tweeters are designed to play insanely loud. These are the same style tweeters that are used in pro audio systems like the ones used in night clubs, stadiums, concert halls etc. Horn tweeters are just insanely loud.

The KM84L speakers come with a 1.00" titanium dome tweeter. As you would expect with a metal (titanium), it is a hard dome tweeter. Titanium is popular because of it's strength, the lack of density, and it doesn't rust. It is light, but also stiff. In addition, titanium is often preferred over aluminum because it gives you the bright output you expect from a metal tweeter but without the harshness that is often the complaint with aluminum dome tweeters.

In comparing LCP to the titanium dome tweeter on the M1-8 and the KM84L, it is a toss up. Most would give the edge to the titanium dome tweeter because titanium tweeters are just loud and on a boat, loud is good. It isn't a Kicker vs Rockford comparison, but the Wet Sounds REVO 8 speakers come with a 1" titanium tweeter just like the KM84L, but the REVO 8 speakers cost over $100 more.

Your speakers must match up well with your power source. For this reason, we do not recommend powering 8" speakers directly off of your radio. If your amplifier is putting out 50+ watts per channel, you should have enough power for the M1-8 and the KM84L. Music is dynamic, so is the power output of your amplifier as the speaker cone moves. Can you hear the difference in 25 watts, outside, on your boat? Probably not. Can you hear the difference in 50 watts? Yes. If you have an amplifier that is putting out less than 50 watts RMS, I would go with the Kicker KM84L because they are less expensive. If you have a higher power amplifier, remember that you can always turn the gain down. But if you don't have enough power and your gain is maxed out, you can't turn it up any higher.

All of the speakers included in this comparison come standard with RGB LEDs. The Kicker use traditional wiring for both the speaker wires and the LEDs. The Rockford Fosgate 8" marine speakers use their Color Optix system. With this, Amphenol and Deutsche connectors are used to provide a plug and play solution for both the speaker wire and the RGB LEDs. The speaker connection uses a waterproof plug. For the RGB LEDs, instead of using RGB speaker wire and cutting and splicing, instead you purchase the PMX-RGB LED controller and the Rockford Fosgate Color Optix cables. Plug one end into the RGB LED controller and plug the other end into the speaker. It is designed to be quick and hassle free. All of the tedious tasks involved with small AWG wiring like cutting, splicing, soldering, terminating, are not needed.

If you are deciding between the KM84L and the M1-8, the KM84L is a better value. Virtually all of the performance aspects are the same, but the Kicker 8" speakers cost less. The Kicker 8" KM84L might be the single best value among ALL marine speakers. You get an 8" speaker, with a 1" titanium tweeter, than handles 150 watts RMS, with RGB LEDs, for $225.

If you want maximum volume and clarity, the M2-8 is a better speaker than both the KM84L and the M1-8. The PXNX tweeter is amazing. It is loud, crisp, clear, and perfect for the noisy environment yet clean enough that it still sounds good if you are docked, floating, or anchored. But, the M2- is nearly twice the price of the KM84L. If you want to be the loudest guy on the water, the Rockford M2-8H is the way to go. The horn tweeters are super aggressive and super loud. Many people might even say that the horn tweeters are too loud, other's absolutely love them. If you have the money and you want to be that guy with the loudest system out there, and you want everyone else to hear your music, there is not other option but to go with the M2-8H.