I was hesitant about mail ordering speakers I had never heard, but I am thoroughly impressed with the sound. The dialogue clarity is amazing. I've heard sounds in movies that I've never heard before. The scene in the Postman with the rockets going off sounded outstanding. It made the system shine. I have these paired with a Yamaha RV1105 and a Toshiba SD2109 DVD Player. I would highly recommend Onecall. I called on a Wednesday and they were delivered on Friday.

I submitted a review many weeks ago but it disappeared into never, never land.Anyway I had purchased a set of Polks 5400's at Circuit City but could not stand listening to female voices on it. Saw the positive comments on the Compact Theatre One from OneCall and decided to take a chance on the Compact Theatre Two.

They sound great. Returned the Polk 5400's to Circuit City. Can't imagine doing any better for the money then the Compact Theatre Two at OneCall.

The Story...I recently did some research on a new speaker system and I quickly found out on the net about the Energy Take 5 system. I found an authorized dealer in my area and gave the speakers a listen. I was pretty impressed with the tiny footprint and the big sound...but for music listening the Take 5 system fell pretty short...the sound was tinny/bright. I then listened to the next step up, the Energy xl-15,C and the 10" sub. I liked this system setup alot more and anyone thinking of an Energy system should consider stepping up to this configuration. The xl-15s sounded much better with music, even though the speakers are sort of ugly looking. Anyway, I jumped back on the net and did some more research and I eventually came across the Atlantic Technology (AT) Compact Theater series at Onecall (www.onecall.com). I found the following site an extremely good resource for anyone researching mailorder vendors (http://www.visi.com/~nau/mailorder/). I have not contributed to that site, yet, but the Onecall folks I talked with were helpful and patient...enough said.

The Product...
I have an odd, fat "L" shaped room (living room and dining room open together) and I was concerned the AT dipoles would not work well. I have to have all my speakers on stands due to the room configuration. The AT dipoles are great. I was using some old tower speakers for the surround..so I do not have much to compare them against. I did not have a subwoofer before, so the AT 12" sub was a welcome addition. To tell the truth, I do not know if it is better than the Energy 10"...but it seems comparable. Listening to The Empire Strikes Back, I could slightly feel the meteor hitting Hoth...without setting the sub at some distorted level. The AT center channel did a significantly better job than my Cambridge Soundworks (CS) Center Channel+. One the other hand, for regular stereo...I still liked my CS Ensemble, I have owned for years, more than the AT left and right speakers.

I would consider the AT Compact Theater Two slightly better than the Energy configuration I listened to overall because it included the dipole speakers, looked better and sounded just as good in my not-so-perfect listening environment for less money. I give it four stars because it still did not beat my CS Ensemble in regular stereo (but comparing apples to apples, the ensemble alone costs half as much as the whole AT setup). I am sure there is better out there, but most likely for a ton more money.