PERFORMANCE FOR THE PRICE

NONE

I just wanted to remind everyone that I remain thoroughly impressed with these speakers. Also, I felt the need to remind everyone to once a year trim and re-strip your speaker wire and polish your connections as the elements tend to deteriorate connections over time. It is a simple task (assuming you don''t mind entering that thicket) but worth the effort to keep these speakers and your system performing its best. On another note, I don''t know if I mentioned this before but a friend of mine who takes high performance to a new level swears that you must insulate your components from vibration. So I listened and went to Home Depot and for $7 bought a bag of styrofoam sheets about 1/4" thick and cut them to size to allow all my components to sit on them. Some beleive towers should also be set on styrofoam to reduce vibration delivered to the floor but, in fact, that deters from the quality of the sound as the speakers will ever so slightly be permitted to sway thereby reducing the sound waves that are delivered to the ambient air. If these speakers are set on carpet.... USE THE INCLUDED STUDS YOU MAY HAVE STUCK IN A DRAWER TO ANCHOR THEM TO THE UNDERLYING FLOOR. If they are sitting on a hardwood floor USE THE STUDS STILL to eliminate any resonance that may develop between the speaker base and the floor. FOr what its worth... Happy listening.

Great sound at a great price

None

I traded up for these speakers when I returned the Tower III''''s. These speakers sound great in my home theater and for music. The price is hard to beat for the quality of sound you receive. My System: Receiver: Sony STR-DE1075 DVD: Sony DVP-C650 5 Disc CD Changer: Sony CDP-CX235 VCR: Sony SLV-779HF TV: Sony Wega KV-32FV16 Sat: Echcostar 4900 Speakers: Center: CSW Center Stage Fronts: CSW Tower II Rears: CSW Surround 5.1 Back Center: CSW Newton MC300 Sub: JBL PB-10

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer SL1, CSW Ensemble II, CSW Tower III, Sound Dynamics SS-1

Great performance for the price.. unmatched in my opinion

Can't think of ANY!

THis is an update to my previous post in which I questioned anyone who takes a speaker home, opens the box, and pulls out their tool box to rip the guts out of it.

Now, after a sufficient break-in period, I can honestly saty these speakers continue to improve with age. My Onkyo Reciever has now been fine-tuned for them and as I mentioned.. you need a quality Reciever that can feed these speakers the juice they need. Don't skimp on the cables either and keep the length to the speaker less than 8' if you can.

Anyway, I have set these speakers to "large" as recommended on my reciever and have opened up the sub wof to maxilul range. In this way, I have been able to reduce the base sent from the reciever and boosted the amount the the sub produces. I believe you get far better current to the Towers if you more fully utilize your powered sub. THis results in crisper highs with less distortion from pushing the low range in the towers. The tweeters have greatly improved now they are more fuly broken in and as far as imaging goes, play with it a bit you will indeed find the ultimate soundstage.

I can't say enough about these speakers. Drive them hard use them for DVD, TV, CD, and anything else. They just get better with age.

Can't beat them in my opinion.

Great sound overall; Strong Base

Sort of large compared to other systems

As a casual listener, I use these speakers for music and home theater. I am by no means an audiophile, but I have yet to be disappointed by the sound coming out of these speakers. I'm still in the process of building my system and do not have the rear speakers yet, but still get great results for home theater. If you have $3000 dollars to spare buy a higher end speaker, but if you don't this is money well spent

Price, warantee

I just cannot understand the reviews of this product. Who in the hell looks inside speakers and base their review on what is inside? What is on the inside that counts is only good for humans. If we were to look inside of some of the best high-end equipment, we would be disapointed at how few electronics are inside (home theater is not included because of the need for all the decoding stuff).

Are these the best speakers? No. What is the best speaker? The ones we like to listen to.

I cannot say "these sound great." You have to hear them for yourself. I can say that I think these speakers sound fantastic - for the money.

I have listened to many speakers; Aerial, B&W, Sonus Faber, Canton, Theil, Snell, Paradigm, and so on. For the price of $1000.00, these speakers have the edge. (Oh, I also listened to Polk, Energy, Klipch, Boston Acoustics, Infinity).

Boomy bass? Move them away from the wall. No imaging? Do not point them toward you. No detailed highs or muddy midrange? Get better wire.

Bottom line, for the money - they cannot be beat. If I did not know the price tag, I probably would still buy them.

In fact, I will pick up my Tower II's tomorrow. That is, after painful review of so many speakers using music I listen to, I choose the Tower II's.

Give them a listen.

Great natural sound, tight clear bass.

The connections are a little annoying and don't fit perfectly with the Monster XP cables, but it doesn't affect
the way they sound.

Bought these speakers last year and have loved them
ever since. The sound is warm and clear. Bass response
is excellent. You won't need a subwoofer for music.
Even action movies sound quite good through these because
they're ported and have a quick low response.

Cabinets are nice looking (comes in walnut and black).

One piece of advice: check the levels on each speaker.
I had to take my first pair back and say "Make these
sound the same" -- Cambridge Soundworks has an excellent
replacement policy (more convenient if the store is
near you), and they replaced one speaker so that the
levels matched. Buy a sound meter ($30) and use the
test tones on your receiver or a test CD at 500Hz, 800Hz, 1000Hz and so on to make sure the levels match.

Performance per dollar.
Good sound, looks and warranty

Bass could be a little tighter.
Must be hooked up to a good quality amp.

After reading the many love/hate reviews of the Tower II's, I had to add my two cents.
I bought these speakers in 1997, and thought they were a great value at a sale price of $900. They are now selling for $700 which is an fantastic price/value ratio.
At first I had them hooked up to a 60WPC Phillips receiver and they sounded fine. About six months later I hooked them up to a Carver 705 Amp and they improved tremendously.
The bass improved, and there was additional "presence". These speakers sound great on rock and jazz which is what I listen to.
They will go as loud as you or your neighbors can stand with no distortion or muddiness.
The bass is not as controlled as on some high end speakers but it is as tight as you will find on a sub $1000 speaker.
The highs are crisp, clean and beautiful.
One last comment, more towards some of the other reviews than the Tower IIs-
You cannot reasonably compare Tower IIs to $8,000 Dynaudio's and expect them to hold up. However, my enire system cost less than the Dyn's and it rocks pretty well. And lets not even go into the jackass who takes apart speakers before listening to them. Its pretentious blowhards like those who give a bad name to the term "Audiophile"
My system (for anyone who cares about such things):
Carver 705 Amp $900
Parasound AVC1800 pre amp $700
Parasound 1500 CD changer $500
Toshiba SD2300 DVD $260
Toshiba 36" TV $1000

Similar Products Used:

None in this price range.

Great bass depth and bass detail. Great sound stage.

Midrange harshness and uneveness, especially with the piano and violin. Tweeter unable to resolve brushed snare drums and cymbals.

I was coming to the end of my "in-home" trial with the Tower II's. While the midrange did smooth out considerably during the trial period, I still found the mid/upper ranges somewhat harsh and fatiguing. The final deal breaker was listening to the "Anabis" track on Chucho Valdes's "Live at the Village Vangard. This is not the best miked song on the album but the Tower II's just make things worse. The piano was very uneven and "tinny" sounding and the cymbals didn't sing. These problems were cleared up when I went back to my Advent Legacy II's.

I really wanted to keep these speakers because of the excellent bass response but I felt that no amount of break-in would give me the detail and smoothness I was seaking.

It seems to me that these otherwise excellent speakers could have grealty benefitted if just a little more money was spent on the midrange and tweeter drivers.

On a positive note, all of Cristian McBride's bass work on his recent recordings sounded excellent on the Tower II's.

However, considering all types of music, I will go back to my Advent Legacy II's and will continue my search of an affordable full range (non-powered) speaker.

Related equipment:
Rotel RX-975 receiver
Rotel DCC-955 CD changer/player
Integra EQ-35 Graphic Equalizer

P.S. Thanks for all of the reviews about this speaker. It was certainly worth the audition.

Similar Products Used:

Advent Legacy II's and B&W 603S2's

The absolute worst speakers I have ever heard in this price class. The bass was loose and sloppy. The mids were bloated. The highs were ok but not great.I opened them up and found no sound foam and a cheap crossover, cheap drivers and overall cheap build construction. No wonder why there were so many B-stock available. I sent these cannons back the next day. Terrible !!!!

Price, warantee

nothing yet

This is an update to my initial review.

The speakers have been in my home more than a month now, and I have to say I am very impressed.

I could have bought the Tower's, but for me, the imaging was confused by the bi-polar speakers.

I have tried all sorts of music from pop, dance, rap, rock, heavy metal, classical, jazz, and of course Dolby digital surround. The sound reproduction is wonderful. The highs are very crisp, but not painful to the ears. Using a CD specializing in low bass, responce was very well. Sure these are only twin 8" drivers and do not have the volume to vibrate the floor, the level or reproduction was very smooth. There is an audible drop-off around the 35 Hz range, but using a test tone at 30 Hz, the sound was still audible.

Frequency responce, based on my test disk and current equipment seems to be in the 30 - 19,000 range. For $800.00 speakers, that is fantastic.

I have heard detailed information on my favorite CD's with these speakers, so I can say I will hold on to these speakers for awhile.

My equipment:

Cambridge Speakers all around:
Tower II's, 5.1 surround, Center Stage
Yamaha RXV-995 Reciever
Carver M-500T amp (using the pre-outs on the reciever)
Panasonic DVD-A310 (using analog output)
MIT Terminator 2 bi-wire for mains and MIT T2 for surrounds
MIT 2 Interconnects