I have owned these speakers for over ten years. I recently decided to replace them for two reasons. 1. Contrary to Cambridge's statements, placement of the woofer boxes is CRITICAL. The crossover is too high to hide them without paying a price; and the boxes are too ugly to be on the front wall, where they belong. 2. The satellites do a poor job of imaging. Even when a vocal is perfectly centered, it sounds as if there are two vocalists (one in each box). They do not provide the illusion that there are instruments or vocals between them.

After a lot of study and auditioning, I recently purchased Mission 774's and have spent some time tweaking their position, which was not too difficult. I just finished an A/B test of these two. I actually preferred the bass extension of the CSW's *(e.g. bass riff on "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"). However, the Mission's won easily on imaging and detail. (For the first time I understood lyrics that I listened to many times on the CSW's).

Equipment
Carver HTR-880
Yamaha CDC-902

Pleasant Sound, works very well for home Theatre

Satelites are more directional than what you would expect, care is required with placement of woffers.

I bought the CSW Ensemble in 1994. It was attached to an Onkyo reciever and CD player. I don't remember the model of the Onkyo, but it was 70 watts per channel (supposedly). I bought the CSW mostly because of the good reviews I had seen of it, and partially because of the flexability of the satelite/(sub)woofer combination. I was planning a return to a small appartment at school, so large towers were out of the question. Please note that I am being carefull about calling the woofers woofers, not subs. While mid-bass seems to be pretty decent, the ultra low bass is completely missing. This is not noticeable unless watching a movie that I KNOW should have some more physical vibration. There is more than ample bass for Rock and Roll, etc.. Possibly some good clasical pieces would dip down that low (1812 Overture comes to mind :)

The quality of the construction on my speakers were excelent. I chose the black (cheaper) woofers. After listening to them and being relieved that the sound quality obliterated the BOSE sat/sub setups that I had heard, I started playing with the placement of the sats/woofers.

Having lived in several different places (from a small 15' X 15' room to a 900 square foot loft with a 16' ceiling), and having reconfigured the system for each place, I have some insight and some rules about placement of the different components.

I will say as well, that the sound of the speakers has "mellowed" over the years. The "tin can" sound that several people have mentioned went away in less than a month. If you decide to audition any CSW products, please allow for this break in period.

I have always wired the system like I was bi-amping, but with the wires bridged at the AMP. This is how it's illustrated in the manual. My elementary grasp of signal theory tells me that this is the only way to do it. If you wire them serially, you're asking for troubble.

The placement of both the satelites and of the woffers make a LARGE difference in the sound you get out of the system. I have noticed that in even the largest room (14400 cubic feet), you want the woofers together, one on top of the other, in the corner of the room. If you move one of the woofers away from the other, you will think the bass is missing something. Don't do it.

You will also want to avoid carpeted rooms. This seems to make the sound from the whole system suck. I have liked hardwood flooring best. Tile makes the system sound too "tinny".

I have noticed that you want to have the satelites form an equalateral triange with the listener. You can angle the satelites slightly towards the listener if you want to improve "imagery" and slightly away for more seperatoin. I leave them facing dead forewards for movies, but I find it sounds slightly better if they are angled towards me by a coupple of degrees.

One of the things that I liked most about CSW is that they provide you a complete solution for slowly building up a surround system. I slowly purchased their dipole surrounds, as well as the center channel plus speaker. My next move will be a sub. I will probably get some nice tower speakers in the none too distant future for listening to serious music. This, however, will be after I have moved into a house (out of an appartment). I will still retain my CSW speaker collection for use as home theater equiptment. I have decided that my system sounds as good as any of the cinemas arround here, with the exception of sub-sonics.

As an asside, I recently upgraded to a new Onkyo DS676 reciever and a DV-C600. I was blown away by the jump in quality of the audio. The sound difference is most noticeable in strings in clasical recordings. There is just more life and energy that what I was experieceing before. I don't know if it's the digital signal path or the increased wattage, but it is a strong difference. The quality increase may as well be attributeable to the class of equiptment. The original amp was a low end affair, while the DS676 is no audiophile equiptment, it is a fairly nice piece of consumer grade gear.

All in all, I would have to say that I have been very happy with the Ensemble.

Similar Products Used:

None

Owned a pair of these speakers for about three years. I thought they were relatively decent speakers, boy was I mistaken. Recently stepped up to a pair of Vandersteen 2ce signatures for $1400, what a difference! I would highly recommend spending the extra money, you can not believe the improvement.

I have had the Ensemble since 1989. I bought them when they sold for $500. I would have to say that these are adequate speakers for the money but I would never buy the satellite/woofer system ever again. I did say woofer because these are not subwoofers. They don't go below 50Hz with any sort of authority. The sound is OK, but then again for $650 you can get much better speakers, the B&W 602 comes to mind which is also cheaper. I'd say stay away from them, unless you are hurting for space or your wife hates large boxes.

bought these on sale to help create my first stereo w/a denon avr600 reciever and (don't laugh) the cd-rom from my computer.very palpable sound. ideal entry-level speakers for an apartment. imaging is fairly good, but the separation between background & foreground instruments is surprisingly good. decent bass but could go lower. especially good at reproducing warm female vocals and small acoustic bands. will sound flat with bad recordings.
like all sub/sat systems the crossover from the midrange to the bass unit is set too high (150 hz), but since you have two bass units you can minimize the area effect by putting each in opposite corners. needs considerable break-in time. they seem to sound better week by week.
another interesting thing about them: they sound extremely good during cold humid conditions.
all in all, an excellent buy for the money and for those with conventional placement problems.

p.s. stands are necessary for the satellites but do not buy the csw stands, they are extremely flimsy. instead choose a fairly sturdy surround-type stand from any a/v dealer.

I've had this speaker for quite a while.
Strengths:
- Good dynamics, can handle fairly loud levels.
- Speaker placement can be optimized. You can easily achieve good placement
within most rooms. This alone gives these speakers an advantage over most it
this price range.
- Geneally a balanced, realistic sound.

Weaknesses:

- The grill will rattle on certain tones (test with piano music).
- Some loss in the upper bass range.
- Inefficient (you need some power to drive them to high levels).

These small speakers do produce great sound with virtually any kind of music you may want to throw their way. Jazz, Rock, Symphonic Orchestra or Organ,-- they will surprise you with the sound quality you get for the money you pay. The only kind of music that did leave a bit of a sense of emptiness with me were sonatas for cello. It wasn’t that cello sounded awful with these speakers -- I would give it a B-. But it did sounded pale compared to everything else I have tried with these speakers. Music sounded very realistically in a sense that I did not get an impression of overly purified sound, yet it was not too mushy to blur the acoustic picture.Ensemble’s compact design makes it worth consideration for people tight on room space. At the same time, its reasonable price should appeal to those trying to get good sound on a budget.

Placement options, ease of concealment, imaging, balanced sound for the bucks

Crisp, well defined bass, but doesn't have the extension of my main system (which cost over 10 times as much, whatcha want?).

I've had these in a couple rooms. Depending on placement and room acoustics, the highs sometimes seem a touch over bright and may be helped by 'toeing out' the satellites so they reflect off the sidewalls. No doubt this will make the audiophiles cringe as it definitely reduces the imaging, but it seems to may help balance the subs and sats in a 'live' sounding room.

As someone else noted, placing the subs under something substantial, like a bed, can cause a bit of a dropout in the upper bass.

My comments regarding sound quality are relative to my main system which cost many thousands of $$$. For their price, these match anything I've listened to personally in terms of sound and the twin woofer plus sats configuration is easier to deal with and seems to sound superior to single subwoofer setups.

They're great where a mid-price system that's easily concealable is what you're after.

Similar Products Used:

Celestion A3, modified JBL L-100 Century, NHT Audiocenter I

I have owned the Ensemble for about 8 years, so I have the original product. I have been very pleased with the quality and workmanship of the speakers! Originally, I had the satellites on a pair of CSW floor speaker stands, but after a month or so I got tired of the looks of the stands and asked for a refund. The rep said that it was after the time period for a refund, but I took a chance and sent the stands back anyway. Low and behold, they refunded the full purchase price! I then got the CSW wall mount brackets for the sats, and have been happy ever since. When I started to put together a Home Theater, I looked at the CSW products to compliment my Ensemble speakers. I purchased the CSW Center Channel Plus, and CSW Surround II's for the rear. Upon first hearing the results, I was somewhat disappointed with the bass, however. So I then got the CSW Bass Cube 12 (what, no reviews on this yet?), and was blown away by the bass! This is a definite improvement over the 8 in. subs on the Ensemble, and movie soundtracks in Pro Logic rock. I leave the bass at "0" on my Carver HTR so that I don't drown out everything with the bass. Even though CSW has a 5-year warranty, they fixed a sat that I dropped for free after the warranty period expired. This is the type of Customer Service that is almost non-existant in the world (at least the US) and is a reason CSW products deserve a look. Try getting free repairs on high-end products after the warranty peroid-Good luck. All in all I give the speakers an overall 4, because I know you can spend a lot more and probably get better sound, depending on one's own opinion.

The Cambridge SoundWorks Ensemble is no bargain at $450. I listened to the system on a fairly good AdCom front-end and the sound is thin. Just a looking at the equipment visually the speakers are obviously cheap and light weight--the kind of stuff you can find at any discount store for a couple hundred bucks. The system is better than your average Bose system but if you check the reviews on the Bose system that is not saying very much. : ) Some of the reviews stated that you would have to spend twice as much as the $450 spent on the Cambridge system to even equal its sound is imprecise. I absolutely guarantee you I can recommend many speakers under $900 that blow this system away and also systems that cost under $400. For example, PSB 300, NEAR10m and 15m, Linn index, Paradigm bookshelves, etc... I liked the comment in one of the other reviews of these speakers that said if you replace the subs with a different brand of woofer they sound even better!?! Maybe if he replaced the satellites with a different brand the system would really sound good!!