Clean, articulate, smooth, dynamic. Tremendous value.

I don't know if it is a true "weakness" or not but they need a high current power amp to really shine.

This is an update to a previous review that I submitted a year or two ago. I have not changed my mind at all about the overall quality of these speakers. But I certainly agree with those who've pointed out they aren't at their best unless you drive them with a top notch, high current amplifier.

Remember H. Kloss's "Large Advent" acoustic suspension design from the 70's? The more "juice" you made available to them, the better they sounded and this was true even at polite and reasonable volumes. Lots of folks back then were spending the bucks they saved on their Advents to buy one of the so-called "super-amps" of the day. And really loving the sound.

More efficient or not, the TOWER IIs - another Kloss design - like their "juice" (same as the old Advents). I recently discovered this while my Adcom Amplifier was in the shop for a little touch up work.

I pulled my old ADVENT 300 from the exerecise room to drive the TOWER IIs for a few days. This little receiver (though modestly powered)is considered a quality piece. Its overall circuit design was way ahead of its time and its phono section in particular is STILL highly respected. (The modestly powered Amps from the audiophile oriented company, NAIM, have been compared to the Advent 300.)

Well, maybe my specimen of the 300 is out of spec after all these years, or maybe it was the cheesy cables I used for this temporary arrangement. In any case, the life and luster that I was used to hearing from my TOWER IIs was missing.

With the Advent 300 driving them through basic cables the Tower IIs sounded "nice". But bi-wired into my ADCOM amp they are just a whole lot BETTER.

By the way, I have listened at length to a lot of really good speakers over a lot of years - ARs, KLHs, Advents, Quads, Dahlquists, KEFs, Thiels, etc., and don't feel deprived, at all, with what I am listening to at my house. The goosebumps are THERE.

Deep, tight bass. Sweet, clear highs. Punchy midrange.

None worth mentioning.

I really felt the need to comment on some of the ignorant comments I read here. Specifically, the several supposed "audiophiles" who have opened up the speakers and complained that they didn't find any sound foam. If these people are audiophiles, I'm the pope. That is, unless you define an audiophile as a ignorant, prentitous blow-hard who doesn't have much to say but loves to hear themselves talk. In that case, these people are true audiophiles.

The Tower II speakers use a ported bass (bass-reflex, bandpass) system. In other words: the out-of-phase signal generated by the backward push of the woofer travels through a port that is tuned so that when the signal comes out of the port it is in phase with the the signal generated by the forward push of the woofer, thereby reinforcing the bass signal. A ported bass system doesn't use sound foam.

The type of speaker these "audiophiles" are thinking about is an acoustic supension speaker, a speaker design that traps and absorbs the out-of-phase signal generated by the backwards push of the driver.

Interestingly enough, Henry Kloss (the designer of the Tower II and the individual that some of these "audiophiles" have personally attacked) created the first ever acoustic suspension speaker in 1952; the AR-1. I wonder how many groundbreaking achievements in speaker design these "audiophiles" can claim credit to.

To sum up: In my opinion (for the price) there is not a better set of speakers out there. But that's just my opinion, speakers are *very* subjective. Listen to the Tower II--listen to a lot of speakers--then make up your own mind.