Crystal clear and crisp sound; attractive cabinet; heavy, solid B&W stands

Not overly-powerful bass, but that is expected for a bookshelf speaker

I just purchased these to add to my new Rotel RSX-965 receiver, replacing some older Bose 901 Series VI speakers. Talk about night and day! The CDM1 NTs are so clear and smooth. I can hear sounds and instruments that I've never heard before. To sum it up, these are wonderful speakers and perfect for either 2 channel or 5 channel. I couldn't be happier with my choice.

Very precise and detailed. Nice separation and Soundstage

None

I replaced my DM 601 S2 rear speakers with the 1NT's. It was like Day and Night. These are incredible for a speaker this size. I liked them so much that I traded the rest of my DM series speakers for the new "NT" series. See my review under the CDM 9NT.

Similar Products Used:

B&W DM 601 S2

Cabinet

Binding post

Eventually, I have been changed some of my components, I would like to keep on comments on this bargain speaker.
Myryad CD player, Unchange, powered by XLO purple cord
Pre-Amp Passlab X2, powered by Harmonic Technology 11AC
Power-amp, Bryston 4Bst powered by Acoustic Zen Tsumani (ot as worth as 11AC).
CD to Pre thru HT truthlink single end, and pre to power thru HT truthlink XLR.
Biwired, treble thru XLO Ultra6 and Midbass thru HT Pro11.
Everychange on the component or wiring make improvements to the CDM1NT, I makes me believed that CDM1NT have really good potential. I found the most "valuable" change was added the audioprism iso-bearing between the speaker and the stand platform. I have vibrapod but....removed. I have Linn "SKEET" at the stand spikes, just not as great as isobearing only.
I believed CDM1NT can satisfy my ears for at least 5 years unless B&W release new model aroung USD900.
I dont want to talk too much on my analog source, pro-ject perspective, you cant get a CD player at USD800 better than it sound.
I agree that all my changes are based on the CDM1NT, in order to let it work better. Ridiculous?

Similar Products Used:

CDM1

Good soundstage, midrange clarity and sweet highs.

The price, bass (not really a weakness considering its size), a bit bright at times.

I got these as part of an upgrade to the CDM NT series from the 600 series. I use these as rear speakers in my HT setup. They do an excellent job for both music and HT.
My previous surround speakers were a pair of B&W 302s which I consider to be a better value considering what you get in comparison. Nevertheless, the CDM1 NTs are great speakers.
With a nice subwoofer these could serve as decent main speakers in a home theater system.

Similar Products Used:

B&W 603 S2, b&W CDM 7NT

Stereoperspective absolute the best ive ever heard from a stand-speaker.The nautilus tweeter spreads so much, that you cant hear were the speakers is placed,increddible!!And the price is absolutely for 5 stars!!

The bass is not one of the deebest in a loudspeaker of this size, but when you hear the rest of the range, you just seems to forget all about that.

These speakers is one of my best investments.nomatter what kind of music you put on the cd-player, it responds with a relaxing,open and wide sound. Of course their favorits are acoustic, blues etc. I think thats the kind of music they are made for. Ive tryed a lot of cables, but there is no doubt that the "Tara Labs" cable makes the speakers play compleks music a lot easier. It doesnt seem to mess up things in the music.I have absolutely nothing to critisise them for. My next projekt will be to upgrade my Amplifier and cd-player. For the cd-player my plans are to get a new "clock" from:WWW.LC-Audio.com.
If anybody have a tip to upgrade my old Luxman,(for instance a new volume-potentometre)please email me or write a rewiew about that. Thanks.

Similar Products Used:

Luxman L-550 Amplifier, Marantz cd 72, "Tara Labs Prime 500" speaker cable, Kimber signal cable.

I need to update the review I wrote below. These speakers mandate a break in period, that was the reason I was hearing harshness in the middle range. After running them through numerous hours of pink noise, and then several days more of music, the sharpness was gone. I noticed another reviewer noted they were harsh and returned them after two days of use. Big mistake. They are different speakers after
their break in period. Vocals are light and airy, horns are bright but easy on the ears, mid range is magic. The outboard EQ is back in the closet.

Detail, imaging

Workmanship

I loved these speakers the moment I heard them. I liked the predecessor SE's and expected these to sound about the same. However, I was surprised to find that they present so much more detail. Probably due to the new tweeter.

Overall, they are great.

Bass note: At loud and normal volumes (where you can still communicate with someone else in the room :-) the bass is fine. At low volume, I prefer to use my Velodyne sub. Gives 'em a little more space.

Also, I use these for home theater as well and have the matching center. The center is also superb. Very clear dialog.

Check this speaker out if you're looking for "bargain" audiophile quality and like lots of detail. Add the matching center if you're looking for home theater to go along with the super stereo sound.

Similar Products Used:

BW805, CDM1SE, Monitor Audio 5's, Paradigm Ref 20's

Big image, great looks

harsh top and mids

I went in to audition these with some other gear I was looking at{Primare D20 and A20}. Thinking they would sound realitively like my CDM1SE's, I gave them a listen, and boy, what a big surprise. Compaired to what I have, they were overly bright, especially in the mids to the point where vocals were very unnatural. Not pleasing at all. The next week, I brought in my CDM1SE's to audition the same rig, and even the dealer commented on how much better they sounded, especially in the mids. The Primare stuff just sang with them. So to my ears, way too bright. I'll second the last review. I must say that they were very open sounding, with a huge image, but......

Similar Products Used:

cdm1se,Mission Cyrus781

Great sounding bookshelf speaker! Looks and build are high quality.

IMHO none so far.

Being new to mid range Hi-fi(I guess these are mid range) I listened to several diferent brands of speakers.

First let me say I was surprised at the many different ways retailers set up their listening rooms. Most places I went to at least had listening rooms, instead of out in the middle of some large room surrounded by other stereos and tv's. The better places could switch from one speaker to the next with the flip of a switch. A couple places had to turn down the reciever and then move the wire from one speaker to another. It's very difficult to tell slight differences between speakers when your waiting 30 seconds after they turn one off to hear the other one come on. I would avoid these places!!

I listened to the paradigm's first and liked them until the salesman brought out a used pair of B&W's.(don't remember the model). There was NO comparison between them. The B&W's blew the paradigm's away. Much cleaner, crisp, warmer sound. This got me looking closer at B&W's.

I also listened to MK(salesman was too much of a slick willie) They sounded like something you hear in some 16 year old's ford pinto. Turn it way up and it's got to be good, right?? WRONG!!

Anyway, I was happy to find a B&W rep. right here in my town. I went and listened to several. I started with the 601 S2. Nice speaker, great reviews on this site. then I looked at the 602 S2's. These too sounded pretty good and had good reviews on this site. The dealer then had me listen to some CDM SE's. These I thought had a tighter, fuller sound then the 601's or 602's. I also like the looks of the cabinets better then just a rectangular box. B&W's have that somewhat funny looking tweeter on top. This is suppose to reduce sound defraction off the cabinet. They also have the kevlar mid's with a bullet shaped cone that they say gives better integration and dispersion. Whatever these do, I think it sounds great.

I can listen to a CD and when standing next to the speaker, you can pick out each individual instrument. There seems to be a lot of depth in the sound too. What I mean by that is I can hear each instrument but they don't seem to be coming from one point. Some seem to come from behind others but you can still hear all of them cleanly.

I must agreed with the second reviewer of these speakers when he said there was not much bass coming from these. To me that wasn't a problem as I was getting a surround system with a sub-woofer(B&W ASW-1000). Too me that was a plus, as I am routeing all the low's to the sub. If you don't have a sub you might want look at a more full range speaker.

Overall I am very happy with these speakers after listening to them for about 6-7 weeks. these speaker retail for $1,200 but because I bought all my speakers at once, the dealer knocked a couple hundred off. I still spent more then I planned but I think it's been worth it.

My system is:
Marantz SR-7000 receiver
Marantz CC-4000 OSE CD player
Toshiba SD-1200 DVD player
B&W CDM 1NT Fronts
B&W CDM CNT Center
B&W ASW 1000 Sub
B&W LM-1 surrounds

Similar Products Used:

paradigm mini monitor, NHT superone, B&W 602 S2

Small, shockingly beautiful, great 18lb metal stand, finest mids and highs in the price range, 3 wood colors to choose from

Needs a subwoofer

First off, I would like to say that I work for a B&W retail establishment. We have every B&W speaker (with the exception of the $40,000 Nautilus) on display at our store. It was my task (unfortunately, since it made me spend MORE money on stuff from our store) to break in the B&W CDM1-NT speaker. Right out of the box, I will tell you I was impressed. These speakers were gorgeous in Red Cherry. With no break in period, they were put up against the Nautilus 805's. They held their own in EVERY respect except bass response. The 805's went deeper. But other than that, you would have had to have been Houdini to tell them apart. Since the 805s are nearly TWICE the price of these speakers, I immediately bought a pair of the NTs. I cant say enough about how incredible my CDs sound. The DVD movies I expected to sound great (24bit). But I was astounded as to how good 16-bit CDs sound on the system. I cant encourage you enough to grab some CDs, run to a B&W dealer and listen to these speakers. Oh... bring the wife. She will LOVE how they look on the stands. You will have to fight HER not to buy them before you listen to them. I will outine my system so you have an idea of what I am playing them with to get this incredible result from the speakers....

CDM1-NT Red Cherry (front)
CDM CNT Red Cherry (center)
2 pairs B&W LM-1 Burgundy run parallel wired (rears)
Rotel RSP-976 Dolby Digital/dts Preamp
Rotel RB 985 MkII 5x105 THX Amp
Denon DVM 3700 DVD player
Escient Tunebase100
2 Sony 300 disc CD changers
Velodyne HGS-12 Subwoofer
Audioquest Audio & Video cables

Similar Products Used:

KEF, Jamo