These speakers are what listening to music should sound like.When first played you are open to clear vocal's with no harsh over tones in the mid band with silky smooth high's.If you listen to rock or beat driven music they will blow you away with the shear power and depth these 3 way speakers can produce.They roll off at 40hz but seems lower than spec show's.I play them on su-a900mk2 amp and with raig against machine with volume at 11 o'clock is quite eye opening and makes your hair on your arms stand up with the listening room vibrating.I also have the Technics su-a700 and the difference between the two amp's is some difference in the clarity side of things but still at 11 o'clock gives you very strong and pleasing listen if i say easy on the ear i mean no harshness just proper enjoyment.
They are 90db three way oval mid driver and oval bass driver with rear port.
The speakers i have are for sale because my partner hates the size and the front baffle colour which is light cherry on black for the rest of the speaker cab.If anyone is interested let me no by email.They are in mint condition and work perfect.

Very smooth, natural sound. No harsh highs or lows. Great detail.

You might need a beefy amp to get the most out of them.

This is a review for the MS 815. Purchased these as left-overs (new, unopened box) for a great price. They are absolutely beautiful to the eyes, and great sound quality. They took a while to break in, but just keep getting better. If you're lucky enough to find them in the back corner of a store (like it did) or on eBay - grab them.

There looks match there sound, excellent. Well ballanced mix of bass middle and trebble, although bass is a little soft but very marginal

None

Well I had a pair of MS816 for a month before I upgraded to the MS817 which were even better. The 816 are very similar to the 817 only the speaker cabinets are smaller, thus the bass is not as noticable in comparison. The only problem I found was that the boxed new speakers (which are big, floor standing speakers) had cosmetic flaws with them, a mark here, slight damage there, so I had to exchange them until I found the perfect pair. Havin said that, once I did, I am a very happy customer.

good bass sound overall very impressive

to my view there are no weaknesses

I havent owned a pair of MS816 but owned the big boys M817's these were very impresive speaker and were bought at an outstanding prize of £350.
The bass is outstanding matched together with the clarity of the mid and Treble.
This are powerfull speaker wattage 200, matched together with a powerful amp and they sing.
Less than three months ago I sold them and bought the new 908s Decleration series. I know the MS817 are nice speakers, but once listened to the 908s you will be overwelmed with the different sound that they produce, they sing with the warmth and power of the 800 series, but are that little extra bit special.
with the 10" sub on the side of the cabinet the bass hard hitting only that of a sub can produce.
They have two ali 4" drivers acting as the mid and one liquid cooled 1" ali tweeter.
The sound is much more superior than the 817's.
They not as big as the 817s,which having getting used them it quite different having that little extra room.
The 800 series are amazing but if you have that extra money to up grade to the decleration series, im sure you will be quite surprised how they perform.

I'd like to add some information to Alan's review. Actually the new owner of MS is Audio Partnership (they hold CambAudio too).
Anyway MS 816 are superb speakers! Perfect quality in all kind of aspects.
They look amaizing as they sound. Good tuned bass, great balance!
Need more free space (that's my opinion.

p.s. Alan you've got it at stuning price!

After reading an article in Quebec Audio that mentionned that the Mordaunt-Short MS-206 were a good deal, I started to look around for a reseller of that brand. In the region, there is only two resellers (Audio d'Occasion in Montreal and Larose&Larose in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu). The MS-206 are good speakers for the price. Though, the bass were not as good as I wanted. The salesman connected then the MS-208. I was impress by the quality of those speakers, especially for only 1200$CAN. When it was time for picking them up for a test period at home, the salesman offered me to listen to the Performance MS-806 (1600$CAN incl. taxes). Wow ! Amazing ! Those are great speakers, voices are natural and deep, high are detailed, lows are defined and short. Extremely impressive. In addition, those are the best esthetically speaking (wife approved). Elegant and refine look with great sound. I wonder why those speaker are so unknown. There is almost no review of those in this web site. Actually the whole brand name, Mordaunt-Short (british made, and recently bought by Cambridge Audio) seems to be unknown that most of the audiohile.
Those speakers are part of a brand new system :
Yamaha DSP-A1
Yamaha CDC-775 CD player
Monster cable biwired speaker cables
MITT Interconnects cables
Toshiba Cinema Serie 27 pcs
and I will probably buy a Toshiba SD-3108 in the near future.

I add those speaker for four days now. I will be able to compare them at home with B&W 603S2. I'll keep you informed of the comparison since we will be three audiophile testing them in the near future.

I also tested the PSB Bronze and Gold, the B&W CDM1SE and B&W CDM2SE and finally the Defintive Technology Cinema Series 400. Up to now, the two bests are the MS806 and the B&W 603S2. The final test will be at home.

MS is a well established brand over here in the UK, but appears to be little known outside of Europe.

MS went bust near the biggining of 1999. This appears to be due to poor management as a number of their existing products were selling well and getting rave reviews.

MS have been picked up by cambridge audio (the owners of richers sounds) and they have declared that they will continue to use the brand name, and intend to put this speaker back into production!

These floorstanders are exceptionally well controlled and articulate with exceptionally tight bass for the price and size. Probably not the best for dance or club music but wonderful with rock pop and classical. These speakers are so good I now don't use my rel subwoofer on movies!

Best of all as MS went bust I got these for 250 pounds stirling (aprox 400 US dollars). Full price aprox 600 pounds stirling.