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Review 1 of 2
Price Paid:
$199.00
from Cambridge Soundworks Summary:
The Newton T100 is an engineering success, but (for very understandable reasons) a marketing failure.
The idea behind them - other than the marketing dept's desire to fill a void in the lineup - is simple: With the advent of home theater more and more serius listeners and film watchers have powered sub woofers in their systems. This has freed designers of main speakers from the need to produce large amounts of very low bass and thus has allowed them to concentrate on other qualities. Faster and tighter mid-bass for one. Smaller speaker size for another. Thus today we see many fine speakers with multiple small "woofers" instead of the 10, 12, and 15 inch ones common years ago.
CSW's Newton line has largely follwed this approach. Their "bookshelf" models typically having 2 5 1/2 or 6 1/2 woofers in wither a 2 way or 3 way design. These spakers have developed a very good reputation and sell for considerably more than typical CSW systems did in the past.
CSW also incorporated the advantages of this approach when building larger Tower speakers. But what they did really was simply add powered subwoofers to the system as an all-in-one cabinet.
The T100s are different. What the designers did was simply adapt the drivers from the smaller 2 way system into a larger ported tower speaker. This slightly extended the low bass, but to a greater extent allowed them to make the speakers more efficient.
At the "list" price of $500 a pair the were a good deal in comparison with the comparable bookshalef models and, aside from their lack of deep bass extension, they soundeed excellent. Just add the now customay sub and one had a truly great sounding system that was easy to drive to high sound prssure levels with a medium AV reciever. Great!
From a marketing POV, however, things were less rosy. Buyers did not compare the sound of the T100s to similarly priced bookshelf speakers but to other CSW Towers. And those speakers (which sold for two or three or even fout times the price had subs built in. On their own the T100s just didn't compare.
The sales person and the CSW dealer I went to was knowledable and frank. But in me he had a customer who could get the point. The average Joe apparently did not and the speakers lanquished on the showroom floor until they were highly discounted and then dropped from the line.
Couple a set of T100s with a good subwoofer and one has near perfection. The highs and mids are clear and well balanced. he mid-bass tight. The speakers beam hardly at all. And they play LOUD.
At the reduced price of $199 (Down from the list of $499) I bought two sets. One pair for L and R mains, the other for center speakers flanking my 62 inch Pioneer Elite monitor. Bass is handled by 2 Carver 10 inch (1000 watt RMS) subs. The sound is exquisite. Perfect for movies, of course, but also for well recorded music. (I demo the system with Telarc's Maria D'Amato's blues album and blow people away. "It sounds live!" is the typical response.)
A set of CSW's bipolar surrounds completes the system. Strengths:
Good sound. Low proce. Weaknesses:
You do need a good subwoofer to complete the sonic picture. Similar Products Used:
Beforegetting the T100s I was using ADS studio monitors. Alone the ADSs were better. With the subs the T100s hold their own.
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