I've had a pair of the LX8s for about three weeks. I'mthoroughly satisfied with them. I paid $166 for the pair
(plus 100 feet of 16 gauge speaker wire) after tax. I've
got to tell you, for that price these LX8s are the steal of
the decade for budget audio gear. They're easily worth twice
what they're selling for.

I highly recommend these speakers. Anyone on a budget, get out
to the Shack. They're discontinued, but can still be found
if you look around.

As far as specifics about the sound, I won't go into much detail
here, as it's all been covered in previous posts. I'll only add that
they work slightly better for open-sounding music like Jazz and Classical
than for Heavier music. But they're genuinely decent all around.

Cheers

O.k., so here I am, a step or two above your average college student as far as expendable income goes, and I had 2 leftover Infinity speakers from their 5-piece MinTheater pack, and I've been looking for something to add to the front, moving the Infinities to the rear. For the price I had my eyes on the Bose 301's...Sam's Club had them for ~$300, so it seemed like a good deal. I started checking out speakers on the internet and ran across an article on the Optimus LX-5 that praised them highly. On a whim, I decided to stop into the Shack and check prices. Well, the LX-5's were there, priced about $140 each. So, I figured, ok, these are about the same price as the Bose would be...then my eyes fell to the bottom shelf, and what did I see? Well, the clearance tag of $69.00 on the LX-8! I check with the salesman, and he tells me that they are actually $59.00!!! So anyway, after I got them home and listened to a very eclectic range of music, I decided to try to stroke my ego and read some reviews of the speakers. I came across this site and man, am I a lot more comfortable with my steal from RadShack, and a lot happier that I didn't get back to Sam's for the Bose. I think that I'll probably go back and get the $60 center channel within the week. So anyway, pardon my ramblings; 5-stars for bang for the buck. They've handled everything that I can throw at it from an Onkyo 535 with no distortion or funny noises that shouldn't be there.

Just purchased a pair of LX8s'(had to buy at two different Radio Shacks, I think I got the last two in the Jackson Ms. area.) Paid $59.99 each. Got a couple of the LX5II along with them (75 bucks each on sale) for rear speackers. I've got these running on a Denon AVR 2400. Really sound good. I'm not that up on speakers, receivers etc. but I've got this setup in an 18 x 18 room and it is really hard to tell where the music is coming from. The music is soooo realistic. Yesterday I honestly thought someone was in the room with me, until I realized the sound that I heard was coming from these speakers.. I'm hooked up through cable to the music choice channels and on many selections bass is very good. On the older classic rock songs it is sometimes lacking. Will probably include a subwoofer in future. Anyway, for the price I would have to rate these a 5 all the way.

Picked up a pair a couple of days ago for $49.00 each.They were the last pair in the store.After reading the reviews here I figured why not give them a try.Using them for rears they are simply amazing.I think I'll have these for a long time to come.For price and performance they have to be 5 star speakers.

After reading all the reviews here I called every RS store in the city and ran out and snapped up 2 of the last ones, at $49 each. I'm in the process of putting together a basic home audio system,just for radio/cd/taped music listening pleasure. So I dug out some old equipment (from the early '80's) including a toshiba sa-420 stero receiver and huge, heavy speakers from a company called Becker (?) which still sound great but they were too unweildy and messed-up looking. So I disconnectd the old speakers and connected the LX8's, parked them on top of the now-mute old speakers -- I swear it sounded like a concert hall. Full, rich sounds, good base. It was like listening to some of my cd's for the first time (previously I had a JVC mini-system).
I don't know enough about this stuff to give a detailed professional review. But it seems the positioning of these babies is really important, because I later retired the old speakers and placed the LX8's directly on the floor (temporarily) and they sounded completely different. But in the right spot they are wonderful. My Tom Waits newest sounded a little odd, but it might just be Tom himself, not sure yet.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there knows anything about my old receiver (Toshiba SA420) or the speakers I mentioned (Becker company?) please contact me, I have questions. Thanks!

I have had the LX8s for about 1 1/2 years and I have grown to appreciate them more and more. I am a professional musican and music professor, so I mainly listen to classical music and am impressed with their ability to reproduce some pretty demanding recordings. For example, I often listen to vocal recordings (choral and solo) and the ability of these tweeters to handle "glass shattering" high notes by sopranos is quite amazing. Where most tweeters would distort or sound strained, the Linaeum tweeters don't even break a sweat. Overall the speakers sound quite warm and full bodied, especially recordings of stringed instruments. I do some recording on the side and a recent recording of a violinist I made using some excellent mics and a high end mic preamp sounds wonderful over these speakers. They reproduce a surprizing amount of detail in the timbre of the violin. Since what we hear as "timbre" or "tone color" is the result of the upper harmonics in the overtone series, I credit the tweeters for this feature of these speakers. The weakest part of the speaker is the bass, though it's not bad. I especially notice it when playing recordings of the pipe organ. The highs sound great on the organ but often the woofers cannot reproduce the fundamentals of the pitches on low notes. What I sometimes hear is the first partial, or the octave above the fundamental. This gives a sort of "boomy" quality to the bass at times. It is easily corrected, however, with a subwoofer which cleans up the bass tremendously. I'm probably being a little to picky, however. Seeing that the organ has a frequency range greater than any instrument in western music, I can hardly expect bookshelf speakers with 8 inch woofers to reproduce this monster of an instrument perfectly. Overall, I love these speakers. They deserve more credit than they are given and they are pocket friendly to starving artists.

I purchased my Optimus LX-8s last September, (1998), for around $200. I set them up in a squarish room and waited for the excitement. It didn't happen. I started doing some homework, reading more about them in the Newsgroups, etc., to try to do something about the flabby mid-bass. I considered attaching Dynamat inside the cabinet, to tame resonances, and I still might. However, I checked the reviews here and noted the suggestion about moving them farther out fron the wall.
Well! 90% of the problem was solved! The bass is much more under control and the higher frequencies really opened up, spatially. Much, much better. I'm quite pleased now, and plan to keep them. Saving up for Magneplanar MMG speakers will be less urgent now, though I still believe they're what I "really need." Overall, unmodified, a 4 rating. Value now seems closer to a 5.

You know what? I thought my friend was crazy when he came to work and told me about the new speakers he had just bought. Optimus Pro LX-8's. I begruggingly went to his house to hear these 'things' and was all prepared to pretend to like them but was I ever blown away. I could'nt belive the bass I heard from these things. I nearly fainted when I heard what he payed. 150 dollars for the pair! I went to Radio Shack a week later to get a pair and found out that they have dicontinued them. CRAP!!!!!! Anyway....at least my friend tells me how good his sounds...all the time.

Its a shame, really. You'll read this review about two or three months (or years) after its written and wonder what I'm talking about. Radio Shack has a habit of playing 'musical product line'. Even though they've up-graded their speaker line, they still would rather sell computer or communications products. And now they've discontinued one of their better speakers. The Optimus PRO LX-8 is/was part of their Linaeum Tweeter series and uses the same tweeter that the LX-10 and LX-5 uses. The woofer is slightly better than the other two however; an injection molded 8" woofer in a ported enclosure. you'd need heftier stands than R/S sells for these speakers and its a waist to put them on a shelf ( they sound best when at least a foot from the rear wall). The real shame is when you hear what they sold for at close-out. $79-$89 each. They regularly sold for $199 each. And they sound as good as speakers selling for twice as much. Great bass and superb imagery, thanks to the Linaeum dipolar ribbon tweeter. If you see this review before Nov 1st, run out and buy them now. Even if you are a serious audiophile; they make good mains or superior surrounds. You'll find them shoved under the RC cars and behind the new Sprint display. BTW, they sell the Linaeum tweeter in its own housing as an add-on for a measly $29.95.

I have seen these speakers on sale for $250.00 and they were a steal when I bought them for $300.00. I compared these to speakers from the likes of NHT, KEF, and Paradigm before coming to the conclusion that you really can't buy a better speaker even if you spend up to $100.00 more for the pair (it is true that you can get a different sounding speaker, but not one that really has anything objectively "better" about it.). No budget speaker will beat this onet on imaging, detail, or depth and none of them will likely have as much bass as this 8" two way will.