Sounds better the louder it gets. Great for home theater front speakers. Looks as good as anything out there.

A little hard to get around what it can do at first. Manual could be better. Be patient a lot of buttons to get to the movie sound you want!

I spent a lot of time looking over the Yamahas, JBLs, Cerwin Vega and a few others that were in my price range. It took me a little while to figure out that the JBLs I wanted did not sound as good as the Sony''s. I kept walking back and forth between the listening rooms for a couple of weekends in a row. I''m really glad I bought these and so is my wife.

Similar Products Used:

Yahmaha, AR

value, clarity, style and accurate sound

decent bass

Initially, I went for the home-theater in the box route since I was a bit new in the home-theater scene. I bought the Sony Theater in the box. I was satisfied when it played sound from movies but the sound for music was disappointing. Hence, I was back at online, Best buy and Circuit City selecting my components. I had about $1500 budget for receiver and speakers. I decided to give these Sony Tower a chance for front and rear speakers. I also matched them with the Sony WM40 Sony Subwoffer. I also had the center channel from Sony capable of handling 150 Watts. The receiver driving them is a Harman Kardon AVR320. I must say I was definitely impressed with these tower speakers. I have tried the Yamaha, Cerwin-Vega, and Bose but this is the one I liked the most. They are an outstanding performer for home theater. Along with the subwoffer, they can easily rock a family room (at least mine). The room is 25 feet by 35 feet by the way. I had a Pearl Harbor on DVD playing and it seemed like the planes were bombing my family room. It felt like there were a real fly by from the Japanese planes during the attack in Pearl Harbor. As far as music performance, I put on SADE and let her sing "Is it a Crime" and I must say the vocals are clear and it feels like she is right there in the room with me singing solely for me. The only complain that I have is the bass. The bass is not that deep and strong on Stereo mode (subwoffer and surround speakers off). However, I do like softer music so these are perfect for me. However when it comes to rap- and rock and roll music I turn on my Sony subwoffer and I am ready to party. I had these playing "SADE live" on DVD during a party and let me tell you my visitors who wanted to go home at midnight did not go home until 1:30 am due to the "fantastic sound" according to them…I''m sure the wine served also helped. Recently, I tried to look for higher end speakers such as Klipsch, Definitive Technology, B&W, JBL, and Paradigm speakers. I went to a local store that carries these brands with my SADE CD (for head to head comparison) and I must say the B&W and Paradigm were definitely better. Of course, comes with that performance is a price 4X more than what I paid for the Sony Tower speakers. I thought about it for few days…. Should I spend $2,500 for speakers and get a better sounding…I decided to just stay with th

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klipsch, boss, JBL, B&W, Paradigm and Definitive Tech, AIWA

the drivers are AWESOME. Dual 8''s coupled with a 12 in power sub cover almost the whoel hearable spectrum. the 8''s them self make loud bass. The mid range is so much better, but isn''t being utilized at all with the lact of crossovers. They are VERY SHARP (looking). Compare to the ND310''s from jbl very nicely. And the price is unquestionably awesome, 210$ i paid you can''t beat these. Very nice look/size. imaging is much better than 515''s (for DVD, but a good guitar song seems to be lacking)

lack of inductor (cross over?), if you want loud highs. Evidence of sony cost cutting. Making me have to add another 100$ in them to make them what they CAN be.

I got these speakers and hooked them up to my 875 sony receiver. I put my old 515''s which were awesome on the A''s and theses 600''s on the B and kept switching. The sound is VERY different, and i really doubt that it has to do with just the new woofer sizes and or the breaking in of the older speakers. What i found was the highs/vocals are a lot quieter on the 600''s. I don''t know if they are as "high" as teh old titanium tweeter 515''s but they sound more authentic. more of what the artist intended. the midrange is a lot better driver, but the actual audio comign out of it has the same difference as the tweeter, it seems to be not as loud. And it isn''t just the woofer overpowering, you can hear the differences. So i decided to open them up, see what was so different other than the drivers, and inside i saw a few things: 1. The 5 way bosts are no longer gold, but silver. Not a big differnece, but definately worthwile to change 2. The foam/fiberglass inside the case is almost non existence, as oposed to the 515''s that were almost filled with it. Again not a BIG difference, but seemed like a cost cutting strategy. bigger woofers so less foam. 3. THE (NON-EXISTANT) CROSSOVER. this upset me. All the speakers are wired in parrallel directly off the terminals. There is no board. The resistors for the high and mids are wired in series to the mid+high, meaning they are actually part of the wire going to the speaker. which isn''t that big of a deal, just a lack of a chip, but then i look towards the woofers, and there is NOTHING. your woofers are connected directly to your terminals, directly to your receiver. No inductor coil at all in teh whole piece. This doesn''t seem right at all. I will be buying myself a nice 3 way corssover WITH coil and see how much that will help (cause it will) 4. The wires inside the speaker are the string you used to use between two cups in your front yard when you were 5. They are scary thin. They need to be rewired on teh inside, what''s the point of using 8 gauge MC only to drop to 24-28 gauge inside? So i was a tad bit dissapointed after having such an incredible experience with the 515''s. These look better, and have much better bass/potential, but don''t seem to be a completed product

Similar Products Used:

sony MF-315s/515''s Yahmaha towers. JBL ND310 (dual 10 woofers) JBL310''s

Style, Sound quality, Versatile, Warranty, Price

For the price,can''t name a one.

The speakers say Sony on them. They could say Great and still be correct. Name brand is a big deal in audio. From car audio to home audio,companies that tend to specialize in speakers tend to make better speakers. Of course there are the exceptions. KLH is known for speakers, they are also known for sucking. Sony being the huge electronics giant could easily make a horrible speaker and sell it off to people like my parents just because that is a name they are familiar with. My parents probably think Polk is a type of food. Surprisingly enough these Sony towers are great. In a similiar price range a person might be able to spend a little more and get some Cerwins or Yamaha''s. Cerwins are good, my biggest beef is their designs seem to be a little out dated. Yamaha''s make similiar designs to the Sony line but their sound quality is different. Their bass is more aggressive but their high range isn''t near the quality of Sonys. My budget is really tight so I checked the speakers out in my price range pretty thoroughly. I really wanted towers so the Cerwins I found never really satisfied me. The Yamahas were nice but could of sounded better. Sony was the last ones I really checked out, just because of the name brand. They were about hundred cheaper than the other brands but they sounded excellent. I haven''t had a single regret in my purchase. The quality of the sound is much better than many speakers that cost quite a bit more. The highs are comprable to any brand. I put in Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here and it made my heart jump. The sound is so clean, audio that was lost on poorer speakers became a bad memory. I supplemented the bass with a 200watt Yamaha Sub. Combined they make my dishes rattle in the kitchen. My music never sounded better. The best part of these are when they are used with DVD. The quality of the audio on DTS can really be appreciated with these speakers. It doesn''t sound like you are there, it sounds better. People will swear up and down on different brands. In my dreams I own $800 dollar JBLs. In reality these weren''t the most expensive speakers I could afford. They are the best I could afford though. Sony has sold me.

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Friends JBLs, Yamahas

Clarity

Lack of bass

Bought them with a Sony STR1075 receiver. They''re great, very clear even when really loud.

very clean sound, great for home theater, not as tinny as other sony's. VALUE,VALUE,VALUE!!! Looks aren't bad either.

short on deep bass, cover is rinky dink, sony badge.

I have had these speakers for 4 months and I am nothing but impressed. You would have to spend about $500 more to notice a real difference in sound. They don't have earth pounding deep bass, but they let you know that they can rock. The highs and mids sound great for this price range too, they have a warmer sound than most other sony speakers. Home theater is where they really shine, spatial imaging is great and bass seems to show up in movies much better than music, that could be the DVD quality audio that reproduces bass frequencies better, either way you will come out a winner with these. If you are on a little bit of a budget don't go buy a $800 pair of PSB's or Polk's, try the sony's you will be surprised at their quality sound. Don't forget that you need a good power source to power them, a low grade receiver won't cut it, you need a high quality receiver like a HK or Marantz, don't use a low end sony or some other low end crap you will not be able get the potential out of these speakers.
Overall the value is outstanding, don't walk past them just because they say sony on them, they actually put together a quality product this time.

Similar Products Used:

cerwin vega, PSB, yamaha

mids and highs are very goog for towers that cost so little

the bottom needs a little help so i reconmend a sub

for under $300 quite possibly the speekers out there

These speakers are amazing for the price look cool better than any pair of speakers under $500.00. tall look like audiophile speakers that cost 3 times as much.

heavy as hell, no spikes for speakers, a little bright out of the box but break in period fixed that.

these are amazing speakers that provide a lot of punch and good low end base. awesome 3 way sound sounds amazing with dvd audio and dvd video discs. I have these speakers matched up with a pioneer elite v37 receiver so the sound is great. these speakers have amazing soundstage when matched up with the siny wmf40 sub which puts out 120 watts (I have 2 of them for earthquake power) overall these speakers are one of a kind and you woulden't think it because of sony's reputation for speakers, but they are one of the best out there i give them 5 stars.

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bose 901's

style, sound, highs, midrange, price!

bass

I was new to the whole home theater thing about a year ago when I started purchasing components. For speakers, I purchased one of the KLH six piece jobs with a subwoofer to go with my pioneer vsxd 608 receiver (I know--don't laugh). They got me started, but I knew there had to be something better out there that wasn't going to set me back $1,000. Well, I auditioned a set of the 500H Sony's at my local Best Buy and was quite impressed. I was actually dead set on purchasing them right then and there at the store for what I THOUGHT was a great price of $149/ea. I decided against the on the spot purchase and went home. I did some searching on the web, and found the 600H model (even better) at video-direct.com The price quote I got from them was $199 for the pair (this was a while back, not sure what the going rate is now). Needless to say, I promptly ordered the 600H's and the matching center surround package SS490. Well, the 600H's arrived promptly, but the center package was on backorder. I cancelled the remainder of the order, and I finally tracked the center package down at etronics.com for $119. So for less than $400, I got a complete midlevel system that is light years ahead of my KLH setup in terms of sound quality, and that can also compete favorably with JBL, Cerwin Vega, and the like. Just make sure you use a sub if you really need that low bass rumble. Words can't express how happy I've been with this setup. Sony got these speakers right, and given their past mistakes, they are pricing them to attract a market. Give them a try out and see if you like them, just remember your price point when you make the final decision. I don't think there's a better bang for the buck currently than these and the matching Sony center package.

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KLH

Is driving the wife "crazy" These things work!

Not enough time to listen to them

Can't be beat for the buck invested. I know they will not do what the JBL-412 will, but they are close, and lots less money. I had thought of the JBL-312's, then found that Sony has free overnight shipping, so what the hell? Order'd them, and would do it again. Next will be the 120 Watt Sony sub-woofer, and with the free overnight shipping!

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AR3-A's
JBL-412's