Wonderful full body sound from bookshelf speakers. They are expensive, but boy do these sound great. I'm listening to Jerry Goldsmith music smiling ear to ear. Really surprise with the quality of the bass...deeper and richer than I would've normally expected. Orchestral music is very detailed. Can you tell how happy I am with these speakers. I haven't felt this way about a speaker purchase since I first bought my "smaller advents" in the late 70's. I'm running them through a proton Al-3000 stereo syste at only 25 wpc.

budget was my main limitation. I have a small home studio and I needed some quality monitors but all the recommended stuff was beyond my reach. You know, the Pro Acs, Questeds, Klein and Hummels etc.
Writing and recording music takes up 50% of my listening time, the rest is taken up listening to good music of all varieties, roots, rock, jazz and classical and these speakers certainly do it for me. Sure they have limitations but place your head and the speakers correctly and your IN the music. These speakers really do shine when I play
my records. From a 70's USA pressing of Abbey road to a HMV Melodiya Shostakovitch (I'm listening to the beautiful seventh symphony as I write) these speakers just don't stop thrilling me.

Hi All,

I was looking for a small bookshelf speaker with a full spectrum of sound as to avoid using a subwoofer. I live in a small Manhattan apartment, and this was to be used in my second bedroom along with my computer where I listen to a wide variety of music. For starters, I looked at the Paradigm Mini Monitors which sounded very good for the money, but the tweeters were unimpressive. The Paradigm Atoms sounded less full, and had the same tweeters. Still a good speaker for the money, but not good enough. I listened to NHT Classic 2s, which had very impressive tweeters and fantastic imaging, but lacked in the low end. They also and had a heightened midrange which I found annoying. Overall, they seemed like they would perform better for home theater than 2 channel audio. Then I tried the Kef iQ3s which sounded full and had an overall pleasant tone, but they were slightly larger than the other speakers I was looking at, and the back of the speaker was narrow, which was going to cause mounting the speakers to be very difficult. After this, I looked at the B&W 686, which I thought were the only speaker in the bunch that sounded bad. They were compressed, harsh sounding, limited in imaging… just bad. I had read that these were the budget speakers of the year, and was very disappointed. So on to the CM1s - The CM1s were more expensive than I had originally budgeted, but they were the size I was looking for. They had the smallest driver out of any of the speakers I had looked at, and yet when they were first turned on, I thought that there was a subwoofer on. The tweeters in the CM1s present a beautiful soundstage, the midrange is smooth and full, the speakers bring music to life… they sounded exciting. The only weakness I found was in the low end. These speakers are ported, and they are a little loud in the mid bass. I didn’t find this annoying, and considering the size of the speaker, it’s a totally forgivable compromise.

All in all, these speakers are fantastic bookshelf speakers. I think lots of small apartments will appreciate how amazing sound can be found in small packages. They are also very attractive. Even my girlfriend thought they looked good. And really, getting great audio equipment past the girlfriend / wife test is a large factor these days.

Best Regards,
Ben

- Great tweeter
- Big sound from small package
- Excellent imaging
- Finish
- Removable grill via magnets

- Light enough to be wall mounted, but not made easy
- Ported speaker bumps mid-bass a noticable amount

Hi All,

I was looking for a small bookshelf speaker with a full spectrum of sound as to avoid using a subwoofer. I live in a small Manhattan apartment, and this was to be used in my second bedroom along with my computer where I listen to a wide variety of music. For starters, I looked at the Paradigm Mini Monitors which sounded very good for the money, but the tweeters were unimpressive. The Paradigm Atoms sounded less full, and had the same tweeters. Still a good speaker for the money, but not good enough. I listened to NHT Classic 2s, which had very impressive tweeters and fantastic imaging, but lacked in the low end. They also and had a heightened midrange which I found annoying. Overall, they seemed like they would perform better for home theater than 2 channel audio. Then I tried the Kef iQ3s which sounded full and had an overall pleasant tone, but they were slightly larger than the other speakers I was looking at, and the back of the speaker was narrow, which was going to cause mounting the speakers to be very difficult. After this, I looked at the B&W 686, which I thought were the only speaker in the bunch that sounded bad. They were compressed, harsh sounding, limited in imaging… just bad. I had read that these were the budget speakers of the year, and was very disappointed. So on to the CM1s - The CM1s were more expensive than I had originally budgeted, but they were the size I was looking for. They had the smallest driver out of any of the speakers I had looked at, and yet when they were first turned on, I thought that there was a subwoofer on. The tweeters in the CM1s present a beautiful soundstage, the midrange is smooth and full, the speakers bring music to life… they sounded exciting. The only weakness I found was in the low end. These speakers are ported, and they are a little loud in the mid bass. I didn’t find this annoying, and considering the size of the speaker, it’s a totally forgivable compromise.

All in all, these speakers are fantastic bookshelf speakers. I think lots of small apartments will appreciate how amazing sound can be found in small packages. They are also very attractive. Even my girlfriend thought they looked good. And really, getting great audio equipment past the girlfriend / wife test is a large factor these days.

Best Regards,
Ben

Similar Products Used:

Kef iQ3
NHT Classic 2
Paradigm Mini Monitor
Paradigm Atom
B&W 686

These monitors are very musical. Instruments and vocals are so clear that it's scary.
No detail is overlooked when playing back a decently recorded CD.
I would recomend these speakers to anyone cramped for space or who just likes stand mounted speakers in a smaller room and who wants to attain real music reproduction

Won't play as loud as other speakers but I never push my gear anyway.

I bought these about four months ago to upgrade from a pair of 602s3's that I had .
Listened to them in the store for a bit and brought them home. I hated them when I first hooked them up to the point that I thought I was going to bring them back to the dealer. I thought I had made a big mistake . I decided to run them for a while and boy amI glad I did. These little monitors are incredible. They opened up and started showing me why B&W is on top of the game.

Customer Service

The staff at Audio Etc were very helpful and courteous in helping me with my purchase