We put in several different movies, CDs and multi-channel DVD-Audio and SACD discs to listen too. The sound was pleasing and I found the speaker to be comparable in sound quality to other speakers I've heard in this price range. Dialogue was intelligible and music was robust and could play loud. Bass was present but was often a bit muddy and the treble could be fatiguing over long periods of time. The center channel suffered from lobing where the frequency response would shift horizontally across the speaker depending upon where you sat. As I mentioned earlier, the speakers are also very directional, so off-axis performance could be improved. Guess what? I've possibly just described nearly every $500 speaker system available in the giant retail monopolies people shop at every day.

Conclusion

These speakers win by being beautiful to look at and matching the price/performance ratio of other speakers in their class. I enjoyed listening to them and felt that they could take up residence in a home and provide many years of satisfying home theater enjoyment - especially if coupled with a nice subwoofer. These speakers will not make you reach new heights of audio nirvana, nor will they suddenly cause your spouse to say as she's passing by the room, "Hey, those are the best -sounding speakers I've ever heard!" One thing they will do is make your wife very happy, especially if you're a cherry furniture nut like me.

Editor's Note

* Originally these speakers were priced at an MSRP of $527 and received a higher value rating. Canyon Audio later raised the price to $987 which we felt dropped the value rating on this set considerably.

UPDATE: Still later, Canyon Audio raised the price to $1,397 for the set - which we feel is an absolute joke and makes us wonder if we weren't used for pull quotes in an effort to rip off unsuspecting consumers.