loud
bass

a bit harsh

great for home cinema

good rich tone, plays low sounds well, and they offer good performance for the price

sound quality is good but not excellent

I have a Denon 2801 receiver/amp and a Denon DCM-370 CD player. I believe my receiver/amp and CD player are of a higher quality then these Cerwin Vega speakers. I find the speakers handle power just fine, and have not experenced any of the static and poping sounds reported by others. I wonder if these problems are caused by cheaper amp which will distort and damage speakers even at lower volumes. These speakers are rich with tone, and handle bass well, but the midrange sounds lack some quality. Someone with a low to mid price receiver will probably enjoy these speakers.

Everything!!!! They can play very loud and clean.

You got to have strong amplifiers to make the sound good.

They are really good. I like everything. These babies really rock fat. These loudspeaker are perfect for Techno!!!!!!!!

With two replacement woofers (none other than CVs top quality Vega 124s), bass is incredible.

My 120W/channel Sharp amp is even more obviously underpowered.

Ok, I posted a review here a few months ago, and I wish to append it. Some things have happened since then, relevant to the review. I also read the lovely 1-star review just a few down from this one and I'm not impressed. At least there weren't any apparent spelling errors (common in flaming reviews), though the length was commendable. I usually respect any review that is that long, with that much material (positive or negative)...

Anyway, I stupidly blew out one of my E312 speakers by taking it out of the cabinet and playing music. The Sharp just sent the cone WAY past the point of no return and instantly fractured the voice coil. To make a long story short, I bid on two Vega 124s from e-bay and installed them. I sent the E312 woofer to CV out in CA and they repaired it AND shipped it back for free. Good warranty, to say the least. The performance with these Vegas is, at a minimum, different. Unfortunately, some of the quality mid-bass in the 500Hz region seems to be missing, due to the fact that these are car subwoofers. But it's not that noticable after a while (I can't tell anymore...it's not like I can use them after a few weeks of non-listening and exclaim "These things sound like crap!" It's not like that at all. Since they have much higher power handling than the old onces (I'd say the old ones could take 100-150W RMS), the old Sharp doesn't even make them move much in normal, loud music sessions, whereas it would make the old ones go fairly crazy (couldn't bottom them out though, it was a fairly good match). Also, after long listening sessions with the Sharp, and, more importantly, my friend's 170W x 2 Aiwa, the old woofers would get fairly warm to the touch. These Vegas are stone cold, no matter what you do. I need some serious power.

Using my friend's Aiwa, and turning BBE on just a bit, there is quite a high level of quality from these speakers. No imaging isn't great, for for movies, these are awesome - you don't need a separate sub. Placement is key, too. I have two sets of speakers and two amps. My 120W/channel Sharp (dirty and bright-sound-lacking as it is) hooked to my CVs. Why? Because it actually produces bass properly. The 170W/channel (I have doubts about this rating, too) Aiwa is connected to some 1974 Scott brand speakers, 3-way, with 10" woofers. They are sealed and sound very good for their age. The Scotts sit on top of the CVs, a foot from the wall. The listening area is against the back wall. Using this positioning, the sound quality is, IMO, VERY good. Everything is crisp sounding, loud, bassy (even the low-low stuff) and not strained (with all BBE levels turned on for the Aiwa, to compensate for the Scott's lackluster treble performance). It's basically a high quality home DJ-type system. It's not trying to be an audiophile system, but seriously - any digitally mastered CD sounds very good on this system. The Dave Matthews cd Before These Crowded Streets makes me smile. These are almost concert levels of sound, inside a dorm room - I can't complain. Though everyone else does. If I missed anything, or want me to elaborate, or just have any general questions, feel free to e-mail: kmoore@wpi.edu.

I feel that being honest is enough to avoid flaming e-mails these days, and I am taking a chance here...There is no reason to be pissed off about a set of speakers. The only emotion that these speakers should invoke is excitement.

Similar Products Used:

I have experience with a lot of consumer level stuff, but nothing high end or expensive. I have a 96 Maxima SE with the 200W Bose system that I think is a VERY high quality factory stereo. The lows, highs and mids it produces are nothing short of amazing, considering there isn't even a sub. But I'm not a Bose junky. It's just a good stereo.

That all you people with cheaper receivers or seperates made by worthless Teac, etc. call yourselves audiophiles or even enthusiasts! You all crack me up.

You can buy them at Sears- what do you think?

These speakers are for casual listeners who don't know the difference between a receiver and a real seperate (not Teac or Harman Kardon junk).

The Cerwin mids are so bad that they make crackling sounds on receivers (unless it was those nasty little things and not the mids at all)- they probably took a 10w car stock speaker and crossed it over.

The tweeter is a $2.99 thing that is slightly better than a Bose tweeter.

The woofer has a puny little magnet and about a 5mm peak excursion without blowing the coil off of it. Despite that it is still too powerful for all the little amps and receivers that "these Audiophiles" use.

Take one of these noise boxes and plug it into a 60wpc seperate made by Adcom or Rotel and crank it. It will probably max the bass and blow off the mids and highs on that little 60w amp. Take your "120w Sharp or Teac seperate" and it will clip because it is really 25w. I checked a sharp 50wx2 amp and it had 1/5 the filter storage of a 100wx2 Denon receiver's single channel (still not that good)- why doesn't that surprise me?

The imaging on these wide boxes is the worst possible and probably couldn't get any worse. Soundstage, clarity, and depth don't exist. Put on some well recorded classical music and hear the worlds worse orchestra.

These speakers get 1 star because they use the some of the worst possible components. And because "Audiophiles" and "enthusiasts" with Circuit City level receivers who listen to nothing but rap and Korn like stuff have the nerve to call themselves what they aren't. Even with that music- these speakers will manage to mangle it into worthless noise. They would get 2 or 3 stars for value since they beat Bose, Sony, etc. but I'll give it a 1 since it deserves it.

You can call yourself an Audiophile when you blow several K on a Krell and/or tube amp and some 5K+ speakers- until then get a life and stop the crap. I'm not an audiophile but I would never use these "casual listener" speakers.

For $400 you can get some great bookshelf speakers- mids and highs being clean with adequate imaging are more important than the 1-note 50Hz boom of the 92+db woofer combined with 87db mids/highs that really suck the life out of the music (unless pop boy bands is your thing).

If you feel like flaming me for this post then go ahead. It still won't change the fact that everything I said is true. If you flame me then I know you are denying the truth that these are not "enthusiast" or "audiophile" class. Same goes with those receivers- the best <1k receivers being merely enthusiast level for stereo reproduction.