Great value, one stop shopping - includes cables, stands, dd amp, reasonable sound for the price

Sub somewhat boomy and one noteish, surrounds somewhat sharp sounding, sound uneven between center and surrounds

Nutshell was that I left the store laughing. What! Amp, 5 speakers, sub, wires including toslink for dd and stands for $279!! This I have to check out. I was looking for a surround sound rig and first went and looked at the Energy Take 5+1 setup with a Yamaha surround amp but felt the sound to be underwhelming - somewhat hard and glassy even though the amp was known for smoothness also didn't seem to image very well. Scratch this one, hmm Soundworks tend to have good stuff cheap, so off I went to look at the MovieWorks 408 and a Newton setup. The Movieworks ($299) sounded better didn't hurt that it was powered by a couple thousand dollar Marantz amp this setup seemed to be smoother sounding, ok imaging, quite nice little powered sub but whole thing didn't like to go loud turned hard and glassy. So on to the Newton ($949) liked the dipole surrounds they definately created a better sense of envelopment but the front three speakers still sounded somewhat hard and didn't have quite the sound that I was seeking. So I started wandering around the store and pondering hmm...and then I nearly trip over this tiny little setup, have a quick listen and look and start doing a quick metal arithmetic lets see sound quality 80% of the MovieWorks or Energy price with Amp about 30%. Sugar, wrap it up!! As I mentionend above decent but not flawed sound, price awesome. Really the biggest annoyance is the integration between the center and the front surrounds. The center is duller and slower sounding, the surrounds are sharper and faster, more forward too. But then I have to laugh again and think now if they only came out with one for a hundred bucks or so more, something like the 408 with a little amp now that would really be something! In the mean time this ones a keeper.

Similar Products Used:

Energy Take 5+1, Cambridge MovieWorks 408, Cambridge Newton 208N

Amazing sound quality, very compact.

No remote, speaker stands are cheap and included wire is not long enough for surrounds.

I got this unit from hifi.com for 300 but it included a free samsung 709 dvd player which i sold to my brother. This unit sounds REALLY nice. It had good bass(although it is somewhat boomy because the sub is in either a ported or a bandpass enclousure, i can't really tell). I use it for DVD movies in dolby digital 5.1, VHS tapes in Pro Logic, Playstation games in pro logic or plain old stereo, and regular TV. All sound very nice. CD audio sounds slightly too mid range for my tastes but i have a shelf system already which I use for music.All in all, an EXCELLENT deal especially if you sell the free dvd player from hifi as i did. It effectively cut my price in half. Give this unit a listen if you're fortunate enough to have a Cambridge Soundworks Retail store near you(which I suprisingly am. For once Connecticut has a store that other states don't ;-) Highly reccomended for an a DVD fan who doesn't want to shell out alot of money or shelf space for good surround setup.

Extremely affordable system with excellent sound quality in my small 13' x 13' room. Sub is awesome and the receiver is nice and compact, came with free Samsung 709 DVD player. Best 5.1 complete system for under $300 and probably the only one.

No volume control for the front left and front right speakers. to weak for any large rooms but thats not what they were made for. No optical input.

Can't beat the value on this system especially with the free DVD player. I use mine with my DVD's and my PC with an Aureal 2500 card and soon with a PS2 if I can find a converter to input the PS2 optical into the coax on this.