Imaging, tonal quality, musical.

HEAVY. I may be moving soon and I don't want to think about moving these towers...they are HEAVY indeed. But that is probably because they are High-End High Quality speakers. :)

I have only heard one other speaker I find more musical than my Snell XA75PS towers...that would be a pair of Martin Logins that cost about 15K a pair. These are wonderful speakers. Mid and Highs are detailed without being harsh and imaging is excellent. Bass is solid and well controlled. I use them with a McCormack DNA .5 power amp, TLC-1 Preamp, and Sonic Frontiers DAC fed from a NAD CD transport. I use them for 80% two channel music listening but I do run a surround processor to them and the preamp for movies and they are fantastic for movies as well. The bass produced from the powered subwoofers on these speakers is quite impressive with action films! Go buy a pair....now....you are still reading this...go now! :)

Similar Products Used:

Snell Type E, Snell Type C.

Tight bass, midrange, finish work of cabinet, Snell service, Flexiblity of placement, speaker adjustments for bass, and tweaters

High-end is not as bright as I like (by just a little bit)

Love the speaker, highly accurate speakers, with a terrific sound. Much different than the british speakers in this price range, which I feel are a bit soft. Equipment used with speakers Snell XA 55 center Rears by Def Technologies (would not recommend) Denon 3802 Denon DVD

Similar Products Used:

NHT, B&W, Mirage, Revel, Dunlavy

Many

Few

I ditto the first review. The voiceing on these speakers is rather special. Stereophile says the XA Snell sound as good as the $15,000 Revel and $20,000 Snell speakers in the voicing and thats what counts. I have a Carver True Subwoofer MkII and I dont even use it because the bass of these speakers are all that's needed for home theater in the room I have now.
I have the complete XA system as does the first poster except I setup my surround speaker the first day I had them. U mount a bracket to the wall and slide the speakers down onto the bracket. Each surround speaker comes with a full size blue print of the bracket with hole patterns and distances between holes so u can tape it to the wall to help u figure out the best setup. I suggest buying a $15 stud finder. The wiring for the surrounds is a little different but there is a switch to make the speakers bi-pole or di-pole. Also the surround are bi-ampable or if in the future 7.1 surround is avaiable u can wire them as two different speakers in one. Each has three tweeters, front, rear and side facing and are the same tweeter as the front and center speakers. At $1,500 a pair they should be special and they are.
The center speaker is the XA55. Oh what a speaker this is. Home Theater magazine in 10/99 rated it as the best center speaker the editor had EVER heard. The Dive in Fifth Element was the test and Brent Butterworth had nothing but raves for it. It measured +-1.75dB.
Both the main and center speakers have a number of switch to control several aspects of the speakers such as the rear facing tweeter and bass output on the mains.
The chessey grills the first poster refered to are expensive metal with enough holes in it to be basicly transparent to sound. The center grill cost $70 to replace. I dont call that chessie.
Home Theater gave this home theater speaker system a rating of 95. It lists for $7,000. They said it rated better for home theater than their Ariel system but a little less for music. They hated the speaker wire connection to the surround. For what the surrounds can do for u now and in the future as ur system expands to 7.1 its worth the hassle. Some of the words are misspelled but I type with nine finger so go figure. I got my system at half price on dealer closeout. XA75's were demo's and the center and surrounds were new in the box. So I'm ready for DVD-A or SACD mulit channel. Its the last big speaker system for me.
My system:
Sony XBR 53"
Sony DVD 7000
Sony EP9ES digital prepro
Adcom 5800 amp(250 watts) to XA75 main bi-amped AQ Crystal
Adcom 555 II amp(200 watts) to center bi-amped
Adcom 2535 4ch(90 watts into 4ohm) to rears.
Marantz 850 Pro prepro mutil room controler with tuner and CD player(an odd peice but I need an analog prepro because of the digital Sony)
TIVO
Snell type D, Q and KII speakers
Polk SDA 1A and SDA CRS+ speakers
Carver Sonic Hologram(fun to play with)
Carver True Subwoofer(in the corner for movies out for music
S-VHS JVC
Custom speakers from Eric Alexander with DiAural crossover!!
Adcom 565 preamp
Adcom DAC600
Sony 300 CD player
Stax Lamba Pro 3 Electostactic earspeakrs w/Class A intergrated amp
and some other things I cant think of now. Enjoy!!

Similar Products Used:

Snell type D's I bought in '95 as dealer demos for 1k

Smooth Midrange, Very Solid Bass, relatively insensitive to room acoustics, EXCELLENT support from Snell.

had a little trouble with one midrange driver when new

I'm quite happy with these speakers. I can't get over how solid the low end is. Measurements in my room show 20Hz at the exact same level as 1kHz after I spent a week of free time to get all placement just right. Highs are very smooth and a little mellow, but not at all lacking. I love the adjustability of the sound. The weeks are slight and very useful. I can't wait to find an XA 55 center to go with them. I'm a recording engineer and listen to lots of speakers in lots of rooms, and I prefer my Snells in my room to all others, with possible exception of one studio. The only thing that I don't like is the movement of sound due to the placement of the HF array relative to the mid driver. Piano runs from low to high move up the image, same with anything that slides in frequency range. I'd really like the XA 90ps to solve that problem, but they are much more dough and prohibitively large. One had a faulty mid driver and later developed a broken seal in the sub spider, and Snell replaced the parts with a smile and a thank you. Best customer service i've ever had. Also, a well meaning friend unplugged the input to the 200 w/p/c amp i use to feed them and blew a tweeter on the back of the speaker. Again, Snell said "Ok, here's another one"
Imageing is very nice. Solid center localization. Go buy some.

Similar Products Used:

Many

flawless mid-range sound, adjustable for a variety of environments, great fit and finish

very heavy, cheasy grills, very complex setup for speakers, the matching rears do not come in matching front/center finish

Years ago I swore off speakers with built in powered subs. Speakers of this type to me seemed to forget sound quality and focus of huge sloppy base and harsh uppers with little regard for mid range volume. I kept this opinion for a long time until I heard the Snell XA line (the XA 60s do not have built in powered subs, only the 75s and 90s do). Unlike my previous experience with speakers that have built in powered subs, the XA75s have excellent mid range sound presence, in fact they have about the cleanest midrange sound reproduction that I have ever heard. As expensive as the Snells are, I think they represent an excellent value, IMO.

Right out of the box these speakers sound very crisp and clear, though it is obvious that they need more time to break in. Given the relative complexity of these guys I have not spent nearly enough time with them to truly dial them in (the matching rears are still in the box), but I expect that the sound quality will improve (and it is already damn skippy). Also, I have not really pushed my system hard yet, (new receiver too) so I do not know their limits, but I expect to be able to bother my neighbors in my townhouse community quite severely, hehe. I will add to this review sometime in the future when they have several hundred more hours of use... One final thought on the performance of these speakers, I doubt that even the most hard core base addict will need a sub with these guys, and if you do, look for the XA90.

There were speakers that I looked at that I liked better for HT (Jamo) and speakers that I looked at that are more visually appealing (B&W and Martin Logan) but for an overall music and HT speaker, the XA75 was an easy choice for me. And I am truly surprised that given the quality and number of people who use this board as a reference that I am the first person to review these speakers.

My system:
XA75ps
XA55ps
SR30mp
B&K AVS 202
Audioquest interconnects
Kimber wire
Sony 770 DVD

Similar Products Used:

Jamo Concert 11, B&W 802, Revel (I dont remember the specific model), NHT (again, I do not remember the specific model) + lots more that I cannot think of now