Hi!
I bought my 2 Boston CR8 speakers 3 months ago. I then connected them to a Rotel Stereo Integrated Amplifier RA-970BX. They had a powerful sound even at a low volume. I was impressed indeed untill two days ago when suddenly the speakers went dead with only a low squeky sound coming out. I tried to phone the dealer [Absolute Hi-Fi, South Africa] to report the problem and invoke my guarantee and they are not helpful at all instead they are ducking and diving. I am in fact commencing with the legal action in this regard.

I am not too sure if BostonAcoustic CR8 speakers are what you say they are or perhaps we in South Africa are sold rejects from America.

I can be contacted at this telephone number +27 011 803-4555 or +27 082 654-0503
from 29/12/98 to 04/01/99/

Regards

Kgabo Badimo

I just bought cr 8 yesterday, i am so impresed with the quality of boston, it has deep bass, and clear sound with affortable price. I am happy now hehehe :)

I bought my cr-8's about a year and a half ago and I have to say that I have been impressed. Being a musician I have some high expectations. At the time I felt that these were some of the best speakers you could buy for the price range. I listen to jazz mainly but a little of everything else too. These speakers responde great. The bass is extremely responsive for the size, and tweets are crisp yet not ear piercing. My only complain is that the imaging isn't exactly awesome. However, for the price it was still a great investment.

I have had a pair of older BA's that were great until a bledw them out. They were over 12 years old and sounded great until the end. I replaced them with the CR8's and found them to be amazing for the price! The have great clarity and imaging especially listening to Jazz. Great speakers!!

I bought the CR8s around 2 years ago, and have enjoyed their performance as a "first pair" of speakers. But, upon A/Bing them with (imagine this) the Boston Acoustics in my -CAR- I realized that they have a very..muddy midrange, I play bass in a band, and alot of the subtleties i enjoy in certain bass players' styles just simply vanished with the CR8s, and no amount of EQing would take care of it. At any rate, I think they were fine, and they were -great- for home theater. I'm upgrading to Infinity RS5s, we'll see what happens.. (considering I'm paying the same price I paid for the BAs!?!)

I've been eyeing the CR8s ever since they came out about 4 years ago. At the time, I could've gotten a great deal on the Boston Acoustics HD Series (the CR Series' predecessors) , but I was looking for something that was magnetically shielded and can handle high power.
Well, a year ago, a local dealer had a warehouse sale and I picked up a pair of brand-new-still-in-the-box NHT Superones for $250.00 (including tax). I've seen all the glowing reviews on the NHTs and I was sure I picked up a great bargain. And they were--sounded and looked good. Great imaging and very transparent-sounding. Until about 2 months ago.....I suddenly realized that the NHTs just wasn't satisfying by themselves; just not enough bass output and they sounded somewhat distant. I started looking for a bookshelf speaker with a little more lower end output and at least the same quality of mids and highs as the Superones. I tried the Paradigm Mini-Monitor--bass was boomy in my room, and the highs sounded kind of sterile. Tried the new Polk bookshelf speakers--too rolled-off on the highs. I was going to go with the new B&W 601 S2, but price was too high for me. So it was back to the Boston CR8s.....

I actually did an A/B comparison between the CR8s, the NHT Superones and the Energy eXL16. I was thinking that the Energy speakers would be an improvement over the Bostons, given their newer designs and metal tweeter, but they came up short against both the NHTs and the Bostons. One thing was very apparent, the NHTs are very neutral. And while the CR8s are not quite as neutral, they are more fun to listen to. The bass is tight and deep(for a small bookshelf speaker); you'll still need a subwoofer for home theater. The mids and the highs are very, VERY detailed and clear, although not as quite as smooth as the Superones. But there are compromises to EVERY speaker design.

I picked up the CR8s at $300.00/pair, and I feel they are well worth it. One nite I shined a flashlight into the port and noticed a die-cast metal(I think it's aluminum) heatsink behind the tweeter; very impressive looking. In fact, BA just(June 1, 1999) picked up a patent for that heatsink--check HOT NEWS on the Audio Review Home page. The injection-molded front and back panels look great. Very high quality workmanship. Also got great customer service from BA via e-mail.

I am planning to build a 5.1 home theater system(for my den) on a budget(trying to stay under $1000.00 for the whole thing), and the CR8s are a great start. If you can get these speakers at $300.00/pair or less, go for it!!

Around a month ago I was very interested in getting my home theater system up and running, I just didn't know where to begin. I have some friends who were telling me that i should start with buying a good set of speakers. I went to a local Hi-Fi Equipment store and was blown away by the prices, don't get me wrong if I could afford it i would have bought everything in the store. I believe that if you are a truly serious audiophile(which one day I hope to be)you have to sacrifice certain things for your sound(which almost always happens to be money, hey but that's life). Anyway, we went in the store and I was immediately drawn to these beautiful little gems, the sound coming out of them was wonderful. I think they have wonderful imaging despite what other reviewers said, but what really got me was they sounded good and didn't cost alot of money. I am currently in engineering school and hopefully in a couple of years i will be able to build a super-state of the art system with all the bells and whistles, but those of us trying to build a good sounding system on a budget, these little beauties are hard to beat.

overall sound reproduction and price

not suited for large rooms

For overall sound reproduction,you can't them.I have them tied to a Denon 3300 which seems to be a good combination.There are better speakers in this bookshelf catagory, but you would have to pay twice as much. They are an excellent choice at $320.

I had these speakers for a couple of weeks now, but have been auditioning them and others for a little bit over a month. I looked also at similarly priced (I got mine for $300 with some 60in stands thrown in) Kef's, Mission's, and Klipsch's. The Kef's were very similar, but warmer and less bright, but I like bright speakers and I like the cr8's imaging better. Mission's had worse high's and better lows, but I have a sub. And Klipsches had worse imaging and sounded harsher. Although the cr8's don't look that good (I got the black ones) especially with that metal grill, they sound great and that's all that mattered. I have them hooked up to a Pioneer VSX-D608 receiver and a Denon DCM-370 cd player with a M&K VX-7 MKII sub (although they sound great even w/out a sub, it makes them soooo much better). You can't go wrong with these

Very clean, bright; great presence

Base is solid but can't carry the low end well

An excellent bookshelf speaker for everything that I listen to (mostly jazz and classifical). Good presence at quite low volumes. The base end is not really there, but add a sub and you have great clarity across the spectrum.

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Compared to BOSE 301 and Pioneer bookshelf models