I bought my Cambridge Sound Works T300s about 13 years ago. I use them all the time.
Love the sound quality and amplified bass. My entire family uses them. They fill our living room with accurate and sound reproduction.

Clear, precise sound at any volume level.

I have absolutly none

Was looking for a very good pair of full range stereo speakers, and found them. Very crisp and slear sound. Very tight, and sound great at all volume levels. From heavy metal to country, they really perform!!.
I have heard better speakers, but at a much larger retail price.
The warranty is top notch.
I could not find a better pair of speakers for anywhere close to the price.
Not too mention hifi.com's free shipping. ( Speakers are 75lbs ea,)

Similar Products Used:

MC500
MC300

I'm taking so much heat from my review that it is rediculous. I said in the review that I only listned to them for an about an hour and that people should just try out other speakers. I was informed by a non-infantile user of this site that the speakers were probly set up wrong. I went back to the store and listened to them again, with the problem fixed, for about an hour. I will correct myself in that they do have a very good amount of bass. The "ABSOLUTLY WONDERFUL" Cambridge Soundworks guys had the reciever set up to small front speakers which high passed them at 80Hz. What I stated about everything else in the review still stands. They are a little thin in the lower midrange. It's just my opinion. I still recommend that if anybody is looking at these speakers that they also give the other companies I mentioned a listen as well. I really liked the Energy Veritas. Again just an opinion of mine. I'm gonna give this review 5 stars to balance out my earlier review. Remind me never to try and help anybody on the site again.

Extremely Powerful Subwoofers, Overall Driver Design, Poly. Prop. Woofers, Wood color is AMAZING!, Fit and Finish.

Not very bright.

I must say, out of the box, it is the look of these towers that made me fall in love with them. They are gorgeous. I got them in the mahogony color and it is great. When properly setup with my Onkyo 787, I found the subwoofers to be able to handle all that it could throw at it. The THX bass limiter is nearly to its peak. These subs will handle a lot of bass. These speakers are amazing for home theater. That is what they are designed for. They handle the bass real well and the design of the mid ranges and tweeter allow for a really large soundstage. The tweeter and midranges are really sharp for vocals and really project well. It is the same design as the MC300's.

For example, the background music in the Matrix (building shoot out) was just that, in the background with the old cubes, but with the T300's it was right there. I was amazed at how good they handled all of the complex action in many scenes and how well they were able to control all the detail. I heard everything crystal clear.

For music, the T300's are not the brightest speakers. IF you are looking for bright and tinny speakers, try some of the other brands that use a metallic tweeter. These speakers are made for HT, but they still kick ass in music. Overall, I would say that I am very excited to own these speakers. T300's, coupled with my 787 was a very wise choice.

For those of you who are demoing these peices in the stores, be aware that they are not hooked up correctly. They need to be hooked up LFE (Sub out) on the reciever to get true bass response. Most people who use these speakers will use them that way and CSW should set them up that way. If you are looking for a speaker that really rocks for its price tag, there is no better value.

Products Used:
Onkyo TXD-787
Sony DVP-560D
CSW T300's
CSW MC500
CSW S300
Monster Bass Cables
Monster XP

Similar Products Used:

CSW Ensemble II, Tower, Tower II, Boston Towers and other towers in this price bracket.

Tons of bass (no need for a subwoofer with these), beautiful finish, easy to drive, good staging,

A small lack of midbass

I must say that for home theater use I am completely blow away. The effortless bass produced by the built in subs is awsome. Each speaker has a built in 150 watt amp with a torodial transformer. I am currently driving them with and onkyo 494 (waiting for the new marantz line). This amp is by no means a powerhouse, but with these speaker you can hardly notice. With no bass driver to suck the power out of the reciever the highs and mids come through beautiflly. The crossover to the sub occurs at 150htz. Which may be the reason they lack a little articulation is the area. I wish the bass controll knob on the back had a bit more attenuation in it. Even with the knob turned all the way down these speakers have a whole lot of bass. These are, however, all small complaints and I would not hesitiate to recomend these speakers to anybody. You can get them in a surround pakage for about 2500. If you are a middbass junkie consider the T500 which are crossed over at 100 and have a 6.5 midrage instead of 2 4in.

Similar Products Used:

Klipsh, RBH, BA

Crisp Sound, versatile speaker, beautiful finish (mahogany), home theater sound in a single unit (no seperates/subs needed).

None - yet

I originally bought CSW's T500s - they were just too big for my living room (sound and size) so I down-graded to the T300s (see my review of the T500s on this site). I got the T300s with the Mahogony finish - the T500s I purchased were slate finish. The slate made the T500s look like cement slabs (Monoliths). The Mahogony finish helped the T300 to blend into the room's surroundings and give the speakers a more refined look (very nice finish). Also, the slate finish, like many black laptops, tended to hold fingerprints, smears or any other mark resulting from touching them.

I actually like the sound from the T300s MUCH better than the T500s - They are more crisp and are lessed drowned out than the T500s overly warm sound (which could have been due to the fact that the T500s were just too big for may small living room). Also, CD music seemed to have better clarity and better overall sound from the T300s. I think the T300 is a better all around speaker than what I felt was a more home theater biased T500 which had too much base and too warm a sound for my tastes.

In a bigger room, with a bigger TV - the T500s would shred. In my small living room, their size and sound was too dominant - just the word to describe these speakers. The T300s gave me the refinement that I needed, in terms of size and sound.

The home theater sound from the T300s is beautiful. Not as crushing as the T500, but still extremely impressive with more than enough bass (way more than enough) and punch to scare your friends and shake paintings off the walls. I watched the Eagles' Hell freezes over on both the T500 and the T300 and the T300s were just more punctual/exact with regard to drum hits and bass - guitar stings sounded crisp and clear. On the T500s the music seemed a little too warm - the bass seemed to drown out the calrity of the other instruments... Again - big speakers in a small room didn't help the T500's case.

The best thing about these speakers is the company - Cambridge Soundworks expects you to take them home and try them out. Rather than being stuck with a bad decision, I took back the T500s and auditioned the T300s. With their array of speaker choices (too many in my opinion) you're sure to find a speaker combo that meets your needs.

I bought The T500s as a packaged surround set with the Cambridge Soundworks MC300 center and S300 surrounds. The surrounds are very nicely designed and do a great job. The center is tonally matched to the T300s and creates a nice sound stage. Even before I brought the whole set home, I downgraded my center channel speaker from the MC500 to the MC300. The MC500 is like taking an entire speaker and putting it on top of your TV - I'd be suprised if many folks actually use the MC500 as a center channel!

Overall, the T300s with the MC300s and the s300 are the PERFECT combo!!

Similar Products Used:

CSW T500s

Same as before, this is a follow up!

Not enough mid-range

I still like these speakers, but I feel that they lack a little in the mid range. I know detail is missing in the mid, because I could hear these details before with the Tower Two's.
If you can afford it, go with the T500's or continue to shop around. I would have looked around for an alternative speaker if I did'nt have the trade-in for my old Tower Two's. I do know for a fact that the T500 is a great all around design (I think they added a 6" mid to the design)
I will most likly up-grade again to the T500's soon.

None yet.

I just upgraded to the T300's from my Tower Two's, taking advantage of the 1 year upgrade window (very cool!).
I expect these speakers to warm up a little more with about two weeks of break-in time, but I can say that these things sound very nice. I'm kind of bummed about the previous review that guy put up... not because he gave a bad review, but because the guys at the CSW store set them up wrong!!! If CSW expects to compete with "high end" shops they need to get it together. The T300 are a great buy on a top notch product! If you have 1600.00 to spend on some speakers.. check these out, you will get more bang for your buck.

Below

Below

I hate for this to be the first review up here but I have to do it. I don't actually own a pair of these things and I'm glad I don't. I don't pretend I am some kind of Hi-Fi god or anything, that's why I put casual listener, I just enjoy good sound. Well let me begin my story, I was at the local mall with my girlfriend shopping for easter. I saw the T500's and the center channel in the window of the Cambridge Soundworks.. Being the curious person I am I decided to see if I could give them a listen. Well being there new line and all, they had them all hooked up and were happy to give me a listen. At first I listened to the T300's figurng they would sound about the same as my Monitor 7's. And of course he had them hooked up to a Marantz SR-18($3000) with top of the line Monster cable. He threw on some Dave Mathews (not the best recording) on an Onkyo cd-player. I was prepared to be impressed and lets just say I was the complete opposite. I'm not saying that they were REALLY bad but they only had 2 4" woofers and one 1" softdome tweeter. I'm not a big fan of softdomes anyway. The tweeter was acctually kind of nice as well as the upper and mid midrange. NO midbass or bass to speak of what so ever. The drums weren't even there. With a 10" on the side I was expecting a good amount of bass. The soundstaging was decent, by decent I mean about the same as my girlfriends Titans. The guy was bragging that the bass was on flat so I had him turn it up to +6 (I guess the max) and all it did was add VERY bloated midbass. Overall my $650 Monitor 7's and my $400 Onkyo reciever sounded 10 times better. (Wait till I get my Rotel) Then I had him hook up the T500’s to the same receiver and wow the same think. They did sound a little better (with the one 6” and the one 4”) but were still extremely lacking any sort of authority below 150 Hz . And even though they stepped up to a 12” woofer (not a 15 like the guy below me thinks)
So as a word of advice to anyone looking for a nice set of fronts, keep looking. If you want to spend that much money buy B&W ,Paradigm Reference, or Energy Veritas, HIGHLY recommended. If you want something that still sounds better and costs less. Paradigm Monitor series all the way. My Mini Monitors on my 1978 Marantz 2216B sounded better than these things. Had a lot more bass too. The only thing that I have to admit is that I only listened to these speakers for about an hour but what I heard was bad. This is Hi-Fi for someone who’s never been to a real Hi-Fi store. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell people that think Bose is the best. “There not better just because you spent a million bucks.” So happy shopping and thanks for reading this redicously long review.

Similar Products Used:

Energy, Paradigm.