I bought a pair of these speakers a number of years ago as my main units, I was quietly impressed by the performance, when I upgraded my system to a full dolby 5.1 I had no hesitation whatsoever in using these as the 'back speakers'.

The small size lends them to being mounted on a cheap pair of Ikea speaker stands, these sit either side of my couch and angled at 45' to the room are the perfecct complement to the rest of my system.

Such a small driver size and bass reflex design mean the ulra-bottom-end is somewhat less than I'd expect from 'full size' cabinets, but the addition of an active sub more than made up for this - it has a nicely balanced mid and to end which creates an entirely satisfactory surround sound effect.

I bought these as an 'end of run' pair from Richer Sounds, but twelve years on, I've seen absolutely no need to replace them.

if you get a chance of a pair, at a reasonable price, don't hesitate to use them.

This review is for the Mordaunt Short Music Series 05 (MS05).

I bought a pair of these as an interim measure for my second hi-fi system after the mid/bass driver on one of my Celestion DL6s blew. I used them on wall brackets with a range of other equipment and was very pleasantly surprised with the performance from such small boxes. I gather that some people use them for home cinema too.

The upper and mid ranges were actually more revealing than the Celestions on each combination of equipment that I used. Piano chords on Zero 7's "When It Falls" album had greater resonance, and acoustic guitar on Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams" showed more "twang". There was noticeably greater decay and range of tone on cymbals. The soundstage wasn't as wide but then the DL6s are getting on for twice their size.

You won't get sternum-shaking lower end with bookshelf speakers. However, bass was slightly better than I'd expected from the small cabinets when I began with a Pioneer CDR609 and Quad 33 + 405 front end, being light and lean. They delivered well-produced modern rock such as the RATM "Battle Of Los Angeles" album competently in a small room. Then one day I needed to test a Garrard 401 / Rega RB300 / Denon DL103 with Exposure VI + VII + VIII and the little MS05s discovered a whole new depth, reaching down impressively for the double bass on Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" album. As with other speakers, so much depends on what's put into them, and this proved to me that they have more than you'd expect for their size.

Nowadays you can pick up a pair for just under 50 dollars. If you need some speakers for a small room, home cinema or monitoring, and it suits you to have them close to a wall (where they work best) then you won't go wrong with them.

Great punchy sound. Hardly any magnetic field leakage.

Front reflex ports make dust patches on the grill fabric!

Cleaner sounding than the Diamond, more full than the AR8BS and more compact than the Mission 700 yet more rich in tone.

Hmm.. That didn't help much did it?

They are a great little pair of speakers. For the price I've not heard anything better and they work near my computer monitor with no trouble.

A great little buy - no reservations - slightly muddled but I'm used to very pricy systems.

Similar Products Used:

Wharfedale Diamonds, AR 8BS, Mission 700.

A percect speaker. Small, good looking, and excellent sounding. Bass & Treble are just right, and the mid-range is just as good! Sound is perfectly crisp and are suitable for a wide variety of music, although they excel when individual sounds are required to be split out, and differentiate well between any vocals and instrumentals. I would imagine you'd be able to get better speakers for more money, but for this price point the sound is absoloutely awesome.

I would recommend these to anybody as a first system-speaker, or as a replacement for a home-audio listener such as myself.

I picked up my pair for £50 from Ebay, but they sound like a lot more!

Similar Products Used:

Numerous