I just purchased a pair at a local flea market for $18 b/c I recognised the Onkyo name from the 1980s,and the kevlar cone woofs /fabric dome tweet looked to be high quality. My standard for comparison is the Realistic Minimus 7 with crossover upgrades....

2 user reviews

Trappist ale on a beer budget. I admired the HSU Research HB-1 horn-loaded loudspeaker when I first heard it at the Home Entertainment Show in Los Angeles in June 2006. Nearby demo rooms were stuffed with megabucks two-channel gear, much of which...

3 expert reviews

Together again for the first time. As I unboxed this month's Spotlight System, I flashed on the innovative histories of Marantz and Snell Acoustics. Saul B. Marantz was a bona fide American audio pioneer in the 1950s and 1960s. His company's...

3 expert reviews

No more. In fact, this week Induction Dynamics introduced the ID1.15 and S1.8 loudspeakers. The two products complete the company's "Super Loudspeaker" line, which also includes the ID1.18 tower loudspeakers and the C1.8 center loudspeaker.

2 expert reviews | 1 user reviews

There are practical reasons for this omission. It's not that we haven't been paying attention to what's "in" these days. But what we know about the laws of physics, at least as they apply to speakers, has also kept us at arms length from radical new...

2 expert reviews

Moving speakers for moving pictures. I've had the good fortune of being able to bring some extremely cool gear into my house: a 50-inch plasma HDTV (way back when 50 inches was big for a plasma), a $40,000 Kaleidescape multiroom movie server, and, last...

3 expert reviews

I've been reviewing speakers for a long time. I'm not saying my ears are any better than yours, but they're trained. Give me that much credit. I can wax rhapsodic paragraphs ad nauseam on why the latest multi-thousand dollar speaker can bring you...

3 expert reviews

The Aeon's 37 x 8-inch electrostatic line-source panel uses MartinLogan's familiar CLS (curvilinear line source) technology, designed to widen the optimum listening zone with its relatively open (yet still controlled) horizontal dispersion pattern, yet...

1 expert reviews | 2 user reviews

Small footprint, Good sound, Built in FM radio, Small footprint, Good sound, Built in FM radio

2 expert reviews

In its quest for continuous quality improvement a couple of decades ago, the U.S. business community fell in love with a cobbled-together phrase known as paradigm shifting. The phrase comes from Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific...

4 expert reviews

The SS line of subwoofers is the more affordable part of the Critical Mass family of subs that includes the acclaimed UL...

2 expert reviews

When I say, "horn loudspeaker," what do you think of first? Most longtime audiophiles immediately visualize big corner-mounted Klipsch K-Horns or Altec Lansing "Voice of the Theater" speakers. Although horn-mounted technology is not as common today as...

3 expert reviews

Getting Morel of a good thing. Released from the boxes of thousands upon thousands of plasma and LCD TVs was a nasty disease that's induced feverish thoughts of flatness and smallness in the minds of otherwise good and decent people, making them forget...

3 expert reviews

The Newton T100 is an engineering success, but (for very understandable reasons) a marketing failure. The idea behind them - other than the marketing dept's desire to fill a void in the lineup - is simple: With the advent of home theater more and more...

2 user reviews

The LC265i-IP is a two-and-a-half-way speaker with one 6.5-inch woofer, one 6.5-inch midwoofer, and a 1-inch ring radiator mounted on a pivot that you can angle up to 15 degrees. It is a triamplified speaker with 100 watts for the bass driver, 75 watts...

2 expert reviews

Hang a blue ribbon on the wall for these planar-driver speakers. To stand out from the crowd, a speaker (or any product) needs to have a gimmick. "Gimmick" is too harsh of a word, really. "Unique element of differentiation" is too clinical but more on...

3 expert reviews

Why settle for a sweet spot when you can have a sweet room? There's nothing unusual about a father who's eager to show off pictures of his kids and rave about how great they are. This is one of those moments, except Ken Hecht, the president of Phase...

3 expert reviews

Given Pioneer's current prominence in the world of plasma displays, DVD players (plus soon, they trust, Blu-ray Disc), and other home audio and video electronics, it may surprise you to learn that it began as a speaker company. In fact, Pioneer...

3 expert reviews

How would you feel if you woke up one day in a perfect body? You'd pull back the blanket and look down on a perfectly flat tummy (something I haven't seen in years, although heaven knows I'm trying). Combination skin is a thing of the past—you seem to...

3 expert reviews

The sweet sounds of success. Neil Young was on NPR chatting about his new movie, Heart of Gold, when he uttered a line that stuck with me: "The art of singing is making a sound that comes from your heart." Thanks Neil, I'm co-opting the idea to...

3 expert reviews

$1,550/ea. 10" powered subwoofer with 1,250-Watt Tracking Downconverter amplifier, self-diagnostic EQ, single-ended and balanced line level inputs Bob's latest subwoofer uses a single front-firing 10" driver and over a thousands watts of power to...

2 expert reviews

A year ago I reviewed Infinity's terrific- sounding $749 TSS-750 surround speaker system, and it quickly became one of my favorites in its price class—a surefire recommendation for entry-level surround sound systems. But much though I admired that...

3 expert reviews

If you want to hear the uncoloured truth about your music collection in all its glory and have decent amplification this is a bit of a bargain.

2 expert reviews

I replaced AR's in 1998, been hooked on Kef since then. Driving 9.2 and 90's hard with 1st a Rotel amp, then Technics Surround. Very solid, detailed 3D sound filling a large living room. Used mainly for rock, classical, movies like Inception,...

4 user reviews

The audiophile and the ecstasy. Bowers & Wilkins offers an impressive range of speakers in nearly every size and price category, but they're best known for models that demonstrate the company's continuing pursuit of the state of the art. Just last...

2 expert reviews