Finish, Size, sheer depth of sound

None so far...

I spent about 2 months going from store to store and checking out various packages , but after reading the Energy Encore's reviews on this website I had to find a pair.
Unfortunatly no one in my area had them to audition,
so I took my chances and couldn't be happier. My Kenwood 3090 doesn't push them enough it seems (don't get me wrong, this reciver rocks, but an Outlaw Amp would make them so much better!!), but they are without a doubt the best speakers(seperate or packaged)I've heard in the price range.
The best part is that I managed to find them for 1100$ online. With these bad boys, my 36in XBR250, Sony 850 dvd, and my Kenwood VR-3090, I'll never go to the movies again.

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Sony, Bose, Polk

Incredible sound for the price and the size.

None that I can find.

After listening to the Take 5's and Encore side by side, the Encore won me over with the additional mid range and ability to fill a larger room with beautiful sound.

Awesome for home theater. Has a great soundstage and imaging for 2 channel audio. Sub is very tight and rumbles with much larger and higher priced subs. Sub blends in with the rest of the system flawlessly. I'm driving the system with a Yamaha HTR5150 receiver (70w X 5 channel) which works great. Speaker package retails for $1500 in the states. Give Marc Hallam a call at the Audioshop in Canada at 613-233-2215 and save some money. $1240 usd including shipping insured FEDEX 2 day delivery to my door. Also check out their web site at www.audioshop.on.com for product info, exchange rates and pricing.

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Bose Lifestyle 12 Series II. (Acoustimass 15)

Impressive sound for the size. Beautiful finish. Strong bass from small sub enclosure.

A bit too subdued in the upper midrange and treble.

This is a very good speaker for its size. There is very little of the "audio hole" that you find in many other sub-sat speaker systems since the sub blends in very well with the satellites. The subwoofer's output is very tight and powerful when you consider how small it is. My only complaint is a slightly lacking treble in the satellites and center speaker. Of course this is purely subjective, so if you like the way these speakers sound, by all means get them. I don't know if I could justify the almost doubling in price when compared to the Take 5, or the fact that it is $500 more (MSRP) than the Boston Acoustics Micro 9000, but if you're willing to spend the dough this is a very good speaker system.

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Boston Acoustics Micro 9000, Polk RM7500, Energy Take 5

High quality finish, Musicality for their small size, sub

Break in period, very skimpy document

I just purchased these from Len Gerling for a very reasonable price, and have set up the fronts, center, and the sub. The surround will be installed next week by my contractor, who is routing the wires through my ceiling.

The Encore system outputs an amazing sound given their small size, and the sub has very tight bass with sufficient volume for a decent size room(14'X22') I am driving these with a Denon 3300 receiver which has adequate power for the size of my room. I could feel the sub even at relatively low vol from other parts of my house, so I can't wait to really turn them on for a HT experience.

Unfortunately, I have just installed these so it will take a couple of weeks to break them in before I can appreciate their performance. They sounded a bit bright initially, but I am resetting the speaker configuration and bass mgmt on the Denon to small settings for the fronts & center, thereby directing all the LFEs to the sub.

I bought these primarily due to the size requirement, as I was looking for the best HT speaker systems in a Sat/sub configuration for under $1500. These had to be mounted beyond the curious hands of a young child, but with great music and HT capabilities. The Encore met the requirements with ease, but the jury is still out until I can run them through their paces, and compare them against my Carver ribbon planar speakers.

I will update this review after breaking in all the speakers. But so far this is an amazing HT system for the price.

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Never used Sat/sub combo before

Amazing sound,, superb quality

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these speackers are awsome, all the sound fills the room with joy. please dont listen to what im saying. Go listen to them!!!!!! be the judge for your self. but if u buy them hook them up "Hign level connection" dont use a RCA for your sub.dont settle for less these babys rock!!!!!

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Had bose am10 took them back once i heared these

small size, great to look at, excellent workmanship, the 8 inch sub is work really good, just like a bass from 12 inch sub.

Just got this system lask week, it is really clear, smooth and when you want to, you can get it pumping! I'm very surprised what that little 8inch sub can do. I would recommed these speakers to anyone looking for great performance

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bose, sony

This is sort of a followup to my initial thoughts, now that the speakers have broken in and I've tried the alternate setup scenario as suggested in a previous post.

No question, break in time is critical - but just as important (for me) was using the high level hookups (speaker jacks on sub) rather than the low level (RCA cable)one. I tried this on a whim after reading a previous post - the only difference being that I run the left & right front outputs from the receiver to the sub high level inputs and have the fronts attached to the sub's high level outputs. (I use banana plugs so it's kind of hard to put more than 1 wire in a binding post) I figured the differences heard here would be very dependent on the receiver but regardless of your equipment I feel it is worth a try (I have the Outlaw Audio 1050 6.1 receiver).

Movie playback was always exceptional - but now music playback sounds much better than before. The glaring midrange has become much more balanced (possibly due to a hole in the frequency response when using the standard hookup) and the bass response is even better - in fact I had to turn down the bass level slightly with this new configuration.

I now run my fronts "large" and the sub is turned off. Check out http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_1/energy-encore-speakers-1-2001.html for another opinion on using this configuration.

Great sound for home theater/DVD.
Great sound for music when set up correctly.
Customer service.

Mounting brackets are easy to overtighten (BUT excellent Energy customer service sent me a new set in less than a week!)

Proper hookup of the Encores will make a tremendous difference in your satisfaction. When I first hooked these up, I was not very happy. DVDs sounded pretty good through my amplifier, but music sounded downright terrible. I called Mark from Audioshop in Canada (where I bought them) as well as Energy customer support and was told the same thing...the only way to get great sound out of these speakers is NOT to hook them up in the traditional 5.1 setup (i.e. subwoofer connected to the amplifier via a subwoofer cable and all satellites set to SMALL on amplifier). Instead, the optimal setup for these speakers is as follows:

* hook up the four satellites and the center channel to corresponding speaker posts on amplifier as normal;
* use standard speaker wire to connect right High Level Input post on rear of subwoofer to FRONT RIGHT speaker post on amplifier. Connect left High Level Input post on rear of subwoofer to FRONT LEFT speaker post on amplifier. Do NOT use a subwoofer cable to connect the subwoofer to your amp. When hooked up correctly, you will have two sets of speaker wire running from each FRONT speaker post on your amp...one to a satellite and one to the subwoofer.
* set front speakers to LARGE on your amplifier
* set amplifier to indicate "No Subwoofer"
* set the Bass and LPF dials on the front of your subwoofer (I set mine at 1 o'clock).
* try it out!

Basically, you are removing the subwoofer as a separate channel. Instead, your amp believes that you have a 3/2 setup with a set of LARGE speakers attached to the front channel and no subwoofer. Therefore, the amp will send a full (i.e. LARGE) signal to the FRONT speakers. The built-in low pass filter of the subwoofer filters out all but the low bass signal. The remainder of the signal is reproduced by the corresponding satellite speaker. Unfortunately, I found out about this after spending $50 for a premium subwoofer cable that I could not return (threw away the packaging/receipt). The setup above uses only standard speaker wire...oh well.

After setting up in this way, both DVDs and music sound phenomenal. My friends are truly envious!

Two more comments:
1) these speakers are made in Canada. As such, there is way more competition in Canada between retailers than in the US. As an example, only two stores in all of metro-Detroit carry the Energy line. You can get a much better price from a Canadian retailer...the exchange rate doesn't hurt either. My local retailer wanted full retail of $1500 USD for the Encores. Mark from www.audioshop.on.ca in Ontario, Canada sold me a set of brand new Encore "seconds" (slightly imperfect finish on bottom of center speaker) for $1500 Candian which inlcuded two-day FedEx. After exchange rate conversion, my total cost was only $1060 USD shipped.
2) customer service has been great. I installed/reinstalled the speakers on the built-in mounts several times and stripped out the mount. One call to Encore customer service and I had a new set in less than a week.

Very, very happy with this purchase!

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Listened to everything before making this purchase

Unbelievable sound for price, sounds way bigger than they should, image like crazy, and stunning cosmetics

Nobody goes home to watch movies anymore, they come to my place

When I got this speaker set home and set them up, I was quite excited and was ready to be blown away. My first impression was that they still look great, but that they sounded better in the store. I spoke to one of the guys in the store and he assured me that what was needed was some break-in time. This sounded a little foreign to me but I took his advice and boy am I glad. The first thing I noticed was the difference in the sub. At first it sounded like it was behind a matress and reminded me of the Bose system. I listened again to the Encore sub after about forty hours of break in and the sub was completely transformed. Bass was low and tight, with good pitch differentiation. My room is not small and it loaded it up nicely. Even my girlfried, who said previously she hated the sound of subs (saying it sounded like bass that was happening outside) enjoys hearing (and feeling) the bass now.

Although I had few complaints about the satellites and center previously, after the break in period I realized how much better they sounded as well. When I finalized there positions, the main pair were seven feet apart with the center smack dab in the center (where else). I cranked up U2's rattle and hum with a Marantz SR7000 behind it and proceeded to be blown away. Helter Skelter had just the right amount of "edge" and the voice remained clear and unstrained, even at neighbor annoying levels. I couldn't get over how easy it was to seperate the different sounds each band member was generating. Between songs, you could hear little acoustic clues about the venue they had recorded it in. Each song had a great sense of space and the Encores clearly reflected the size and reflective properties of the venues. Pretty impressive for sure. The tweeter are among the best I've heard, and these components alone are worth the price of an Encore package. Smooth and detailed, never drawing attention to themselves, yet able to resolve the finer points of all my favorite recordings.

I was all about Bose before hearing these, and then I heard that Bose doesn't even use tweeters in their design(!) and that it hadn't changed significantly in years (decades?). Overall, very satisfied with the dealer and the product. I've heard lots of these systems, but when you add it all up , and consider the price, this one's is tought to beat.

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Bose, Polk, Klipsch.

great HT

Music

I bought these speakers last month in conjunction with a Denon AVR3801 to replace my old NAD AV713 and Phase Technology PC-80 primarily for using with my TV (I also bought a new 2-channel stereo system to use exclusively for music...moved into a new home where the TV and the music setup are in different rooms, so I'm using the Encores for Home Theater 99% of the time).

First thing I must mention is that straight out of the box, these things suck. I bought them with out having demoed them based on all the great reviews I had read (mail order from AudioShop in Canada), and when I first heard them in my home, I thought that I had made one of the biggest purchase mistakes in my life. My 2-channel Phase Technology setup sounded MUCH better than this 5-channel setup for both home theater and music. The monitors sounded thin, and the subwoofer sounded like the New York subway.

However, I gave them a chance to break in (9-10 days of constant playing), and I will say now that this speaker system makes for an excellent home theater setup. The monitors warmed up, and the subwoofer has definitely smoothed over its rough edges...they have a warmth to their sound that makes movie and TV soundtracks very enjoyable. I had heard a friend's JBL home theater setup where he demoed the bank-heist scene from the movie, "H.E.A.T.", and that system sounded overly harsh. Not so for the Encores...they played dynamic without sounding harsh. The lobby gunfight scene from "The Matrix" had detail without sounding too bright, and had bass that moved the room but wasn't boomy. And the first note during the opening credits of "The X-Files" (the TV show, not the movie) expands and fills the room nicely.

(note that my home theater room is not that big...13ft by 20ft).

For music...well...these things still have a long way to go. I still feel that my $500 Phase Technology speakers were MUCH better for music, and on the Encores, most of the music I listen to sounds like it's coming from FM radio instead of CDs. And particularly on DTS-encoded CDs, music sounded flat.

Overall, I'm happy with these systems for what I bought them for...home theater. If I could only have one system, tho, and could only spend $1000 on speakers, I probably would have forgone the 5.1 setup and just stuck with a 2-channel setup (music is more important to me than home theater soundtracks).

My rating is only for the home theater performance of these speakers...

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