Deep tight bass, good soundstaging, very neutral and uncolored

Can sound a little bright on some recordings

Overall, an excellent choice in its price range. When compared to the aforementioned speakers, the E.5's came out on top, IMHO. Very balanced sound with little or no coloration and virtually no cabinet resonance. Outstanding bass response (down to about 32Hz). Although the treble can be a little bright on some CD recordings, this can be toned down with treble and boundary switches, or the right selection of cables (MIT for example). The company which is now a subsidiary of Boston Acoustics, has very good customer support. Highly recommended. Overall, for value and quality I'd rate them a 4.5.

Similar Products Used:

Vandersteen 1c's, Paradigm Studio 60's, B&W 603's, Magnepan MG-12's, PSB Stratus Silver

Recently upgraded my Mission 700 bookshelf speakers (excellent speakers, by the way) to the Snell E.5 Towers. They sound great!! If you like a tight controlled base and a neutral to bright mid/high end you will love these as well.
They are very flexible in placement. I have them next to a large TV and the imaging is superb. Classical, jazz, pop, new age music all sound beautiful with the E.5's. I got the rears (SR.5) and waiting for the center channel (CR.5) to come it. I can't wait to get everything hooked and test out the home theater capabilities.

Price very reasonable (if you can find a dealer that carries Snell).

This new Snell is a definite contender for best speaker available under $2000. I auditioned these against a number of the current audiophile favorites in this price range (Paradigm Studio 100's, NHT 2.5, PSB Stratus Silver and Stratus Gold, B&W 804), and overall the Snell's blew the rest away. They are very good tonally through the midrange (just this side of some of the $5K Maggies), useful extension into the bass down to about 30 Hz, and a top end that may have just a tad bit too much sizzle. Sound quality is a little on the lean side; on piano, you get the feeling you are listening to a Steinway, vs. a deeper Bosendorfer on the darker 804's. The bass is taut, the midrange detailed, and the top end shimmery. However, you should hear the soundstaging and imaging from these puppies: you get instruments coming from outside the outer edge of the speakers, incredible depth with layering in the soundstage, and believe it or not, a fairly impressive sense of vertical imaging. In one of the reviews posted of the big Paradigms the reviewer talks about John Coltrane taking up residence in his right hand speaker. With these 'Trane is standing there about six foot five between the speakers, and you can hear him moving his sax as he sways to the rhythm. Another advantage: these tower speakers are not as big as the Paradigms or PSB Stratus Golds, room positioning is not real critical, and they sound pretty good no matter where you are in the room (standing, sitting, moving around, dancing). They are also shielded, and have a "boundary attnuation" switch to use if you position the speakers close to a large TV, so I suspect they would be pretty good for home theater applications.
On the downside, bad recordings will sound bad on these speakers, and they will open a window into questionable sound engineering tricks on some recordings that you won't hear on other speakers. They are also nominally 4 ohm speakers with a rated spl of about 90, so they could pose a problem if you are running dreck for electronics (my current amp, an old modified Hafler, is outclassed, and sometimes gives up at inopportune and unexpected moments). However, they won't necessarily super components; I auditioned them being run by Rotel electronics, and they sounded pretty fine. They can and should be driven hard, and can handle just about any type of music thrown at them, from Nirvana to Miles Davis to Callas singing La Boheme. They do blend well with a subwoofer to add some weight to the bottom end, and investing in one around $1000-1200 may be useful addition for those who get off on subterrean bass and the body effects of true subwoofer sound.

The last disadvantage: dealers selling these Snells can't keep them on the shelves, and for the near future will probably not be very willing to cut much of a deal. In the store where I got mine they were back ordered about a month-month and a half, while the Paradigm 100s at $1800 sat forlorn and unwanted in the corner. Mind you, the Paradigms are also very special speakers, but they don't exceed the performance of the Snells on any point but bass extension. By the way, Snell is working its way up their model line in replacing the old Kevin Voecks designs (these pretty much improve on the sound of the old Snell D-IVs), and the new revised K's are pretty good minimonitors.

I give these five stars, as one of the great bargains in audio.

This speaker is a great entry level high end floor stander. It sounds wonderfully transparent and open, and appears to be very revealing. Critically listening I found that the midrange is almost flawless, treble is tad bright, which may be compensated by the right amp and cable, and the bass is a bit shy, which I felt only at certian types of music though.
Another advantage is that this speaker is very easy to drive (only 15 watts minimum, and a benign Z). Tube heads should definitely check this piece out :o).

In a money no object rating this speaker would get 3.5 stars. However I am talking about a $1200 (list) speaker here, that bumps it up to 4.5. Total I'll give it the average of both, which is 4.

I agree w/ Jim's review. Additional benefits are a treble level switch, and a switchable rear-firing tweeter. Note that the new critically acclaimed (and very expensive) Revel (by Kevin Voecks, formerly of Snell) also uses a rear-firing tweeter. These options may offend purists, but I find that they are a great advantage under real-world conditions. The speakers are also very well-constructed, warranted for 5 years, and use metal grilles, which don't sag or attract dirt, lint and fingers like cloth or foam grilles. They perform superbly. Four stars for absolute performance, 5 stars for value.

I auditioned these speakers along with the Vandersteen 2Ce signatures, andeventually decided on the Snells due to a couple of reasons. I did like
the imaging a little better on the 2Ces maybe due to their use of cloth
surrounds (I'm no physics major) but I liked the upper freq. of the
E-5's and the rear tweeter was actually quite helpful. Both speakers seemed
well made, but the 2ce's were more fragile due to the cloth covering, whereas
the snell's grill is steel. This is important when you have 4/5 year
old nephews running around. :-) (My speakers are hooked up to my audio system so my nephews likes to play games when they're here) The E-5's are also mag. shielded and take up a smaller footprint. In either case, both speakers had
great sound for the money and I got these pairs as a demo unit that was in perfect shape for $1175 with cables thrown in. I also tried to audition B&W 604's and DefTech's BP30 but the dealers didn't have. I did listen to B&W 602's
which was very good as a bookshelf, but I was looking for floorstanding ones.

BTW, the dealer had the Snells hooked up to amp/preamp/CD all by Classe.

Like to give it 5 stars given the cost, and 4 stars overall. == 4.5 stars.
Since it's near christmas, I'll be generous and give it the 1/2 star present

I've just finished breaking in the Snell towers; I have had these for three days, and have been using Stereophile's test CD all day and all night to break these puppies in. They begin to losen up after 35 hours or so. Before I begin my review, I will state that I have a setup that must serve both music and movies--Which consists of a Parasound PS/P1500 THX pre-amplifier, an Parasound 806 amp, a Pioneer 604 laserdisc player, a Toshiba 2108 DVD player, a Sony 740HF VCR, a Rosewood finshed, sand - filled Vantage Point rack with satin silver finished posts, and a Sony V- series monitior. Interconnects were by Silver Sonics; Speaker cable is by Kimber Cable, 4TC in two eight foot runs. The Snells were not bi-wired at the time this review was submitted. A week ago I had audtioned a pair of NHT's VT 1.2's in my setup. Unpacking the Snells, I was struck right away by there attention to detail. Handsanded, book matched veneers are used on all sides of the speakers, except a portion of the front and back; gold plated bi-wireable binding posts are used. as well as gold plated switches that depresses treble, turns off the rear- firing tweeter ,etc. This was a big jump upward from the NHT's gloss-black finish and its plastic binding posts. The Snells are in a room approxmatly 14x16 feet, with a 9 foot high ceiling, and were only about a foot off of the wall, slightly toed in to my chairs, around seven feet away. As I fired up some Jazz, I knew something nice was a foot. The Snells have a lithe, clean, ugimmicky sound that drew me into the music. The balance of the Snells were laid back on the side of netural, but not dark at all. Bass was well defined, if not as tight as the very best--at least in my paticular room. I left the boundry switch set to the "off" postion-which dosen't depress the bass, and its tightness would be very room dependent. But the bass was there, in spades. The midbass was well defined, warm but far from over board. In the theater context, the leaness here was indeed much less pronounced--in fact, it might be considered a virtue. The Snells had a clarity, a coherent sound that reminded me of the NHT's, if not quite as "fast" as the VT 1.2's. The NHT's are an 'In your face' type of sound; those with inexpensive recivers will not be happy with thier revealing, forward balance. The Snells, however are a true highend speaker in thier own right. Thier sins are ones of admission; they are not the ultimate; they do not elimainate the need for cutting edge designs--but as a high-end speaker that has to serve both music and movie duties, the Snell towers would be tops on a small list. Just make sure your amp has the ability to drive 4ohms loads. Highly recommended. A steal, even at $1,500 a pair.

Owned a pair of Snell Type Q's (monitor bookshelf, discontinued) before the E.5's, so I am familiar with the "Snell" sound. I did try the Sound Dynamics P-100's based on reviews I saw, but to me the sound was bloated, and no air in the higher frequencies. I feel Snells do justice to the treble by having the rear-firing tweeter, which "fills" and gives air to the higher tones.
Anyway, I must say the E.5's are what I was looking for. The Q's were great, but had no bass below 75 Hz, the E.5's have good solid bass down to about 35 Hz. I feel the sound is very accurate (Snell matches the pair to within 0.5 db of master), and no part of the sound spectrum is emphasized. Also, one cannot forget the beautiful cabinets!

If looking in the $1,200 to $1,500 area for a tower speaker, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. We all have different tastes in speakers, but I feel that for the price this one is a steal. Connected to Adcom GFA-555, Amber Preamp and Audioquest F-18 cable.

I've had these speakers for nearly six months and I can't praise them enough! I auditioned them against Paradigm refernce studio 80's and was blown away. The sound is so clean, airy... It's almost like removing a veil from what I've been hearing. The soundstage is HUGE compared to the more expensive Paradigms. Part of that is due to the rearward facing tweeter. If you have a forward sounding system (my damn carver amp..) the sound may be a little tiring, but that's simple to correct. Bass response is slightly lacking compared the the 80's but it beats even the $1K more expense Infinity Overture 3's and looks cooler, too.I damaged the tweeter (nearly cried,too) - Snell customer service to the rescue!
These guys fixed it (for free) and ZERO hassles! Overall, I'd recommend these guys to anyone looking in the $1400 range. I don't think anything I've heard compares. Get out there and at least audition them before you buy anything else. You owe yourself that much.

GREAT FOR BOTH HT AND MUSIC

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I have just upgraded from the Snell K.5 bookshelf speakers. I was considering the Paradigm Studio 60's, but then listened to the E.5's. I already had the other Snell speakers [CR5 center and the SR5 surrounds]. I use the Velodyne HGS-12 as my Sub.
Rather than change the entire system around, I was urged to consider the Snell E5's. All I can say is UNBELIEVABLE!.
Very tight and smooth with excellent bass, even though for movies I set me Denon 5700 to the THX mode.
These E.5 towers are very dynamic and powerful, giving a huge sound stage.
Don't hesitate to give these a serious listen. They are an excellent value.
If you are interested in an excellent dealer for these speakers in the NY-NJ area, email me.

Mitchell
milesgrp@injersey.com

Similar Products Used:

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