Bob Shannon

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Gosh Matt, I didn't realize how ignorant and unrefined I was. Thank you for pointing it out. I was just wondering what kind of equipment you use. Do the French make speakers?

Summary:
This was the first hifi speaker I ever got, back when I was in eigth grade. My dad bought them for me on my birthday and I paid for the JVC reciever and CD player(the first of the titanium finish series). Alot has changed since I finished junior high, high school, college, and off in life. But it was this speaker with lots of '80s, big hair rock (Winger, Metallica, etc.) that sent me down the road of home audio. I can't listen to Cerwin-Vega or Motley Crue anymore, aside from reminiscing a little. They are a good speaker for rock or rap and the cabinets are built much better than most stuff in thier price range. I've since given them to my father and he listens to Jim Croche and Neil Diamond on them. I give them three speakers. I really don't know what to rate them as. But thinking about these speakers makes me step back and look at some of the snobbery that goes on in this hifi industry. Everyone goes through phases in thier lives and different facets of peoples' minds develop in different ways and at different times. Whether or not we all gravitate toward the same end and just take different roads to get there or if we just take different roads that go thier own way forever is still turning in my mind, and has for quite some time now. But for all of you (and I include myself in this category) who think "how can anyone listen to that shit," try to look back and remember what your first speakers were and what sound was important to you for the longest time before you became an audio freak and went over the edge. I'm not saying people who like these "lesser" products are in a more primitive stage or anything of that sort. It all boils down to value. Civilizations are built upon these; the French like things one way and Americans (for some reason I exclude myself from that category) like things a different way. Is one really better than the other? In some ways we could probably make convincing arguements and each could learn alot from the other, but alot of it is just differences of preference. Just let some things be. Don't tolerate; to tolerate implies one holds thier values as superior, but will put-up with the others values. Just let it be. This is an assumption, which no assumption is safe, we all want to be happy. Therefore, if one is happy then another really doesn't have anything to argue against. If someone thinks Harman/Kardon's reciever with a .001% THD rating is high-end, let them, no harm is being done. One could argue that they need to be enlightened for various reasons, that ignorance is thier happiness and not built to last, that they must be educated the sooner the better. We do not know the nature of the world we live in. Yes, the "Allegory of the Cave" suggest we enlighten ourselves, in a nutshell, but what is enlightenment. In time, the more we search for something the more elusive it becomes. Yes, we have an idea of how atoms work, but we don't know what those subatomic particles really do. And in the world of ideas the basic concepts we use, words, become ill defined at times. What is a good definition of "experience," or of "love." Surely you have met someone who has been and done everything but yet they still appear to know nothing; and then their are people who've pretty much done one thing their whole life and seem to always have the right answers. Look them up in the dictionary, think about them. We use those words quite often, but what do these inferred symbolisms really symbolize. Knowledge is based on our perception of reality. We make this world more than it makes itself. How many different dimensions are in this universe? I forget, but its at least a couple dozen. How many can you name/percieve? For most of us probably the three physical dimensions length, width, and heigth, (assigned however you want them) and a time dimension. What about the others? How different would our world be if they existed in a more evident state? Did we who prefer higher end stuff enlighten ourselves through our audio journey? Not really, we just desired something more/different through time. If anything we are less happy because we a notorious for playing this upgrade game and for being upset for people we percieve as ignorant in this business. Are we really ahead? I'll stop talking because I'm probably pissing alot of you off with too long a review. Besides, I usually write better. As a finishing not though, the only reason we usually have "issues" with others is not because there really is anything ethically or morally wrong with them, but that they just aren't like us. Consequently, we don't interact well with them and tension arises. Opposites do not attract, likes do; in the world of people anyway. Studies have actually been done on this. As I said earlier, three stars is as good as any.

Summary:
100W, 8ohm, 8" woofer, 1" horn tweeter.
40Hz-18kHz freq. resp.
$250-$350 or less ($US)
These DX-1's (which belong to my brother) are one of the best smaller-low cost speakers around! I've had them for 3 months now and I have yet to be dissapointed by them. The bass is abundant, tight and precise (Unlike my C-V AT-12's, and most other Cerwins as well) without being overtly boomy. The midrange and vocal reproduction capabilities are pleasant and well-defined. However, the horn tweeters can become earpeircing at higher listining levels. Though they reproduce high frequencies incredibly clearly and precisely, they only go up to 18kHz. The DX line is one of Cerwin-Vega's older lines, but I think it is one of the better ones. Even with the old-tech tweeter the DX-s sound more accurate than the AT-8's and the VS-80's. I think Cerwin's best tweetes are the ones in the AT-12 and AT-15, and if it those were paired with a tight DX calibre woofer, a small speaker could easily outdo anything in its class. But, when it comes to the larger Cerwin's, I think C-V should do thier midrange shopping at B&W. :)
Overall, I find (with a small amount of treble reduction) the DX-1's can be an amazing little player! They can play soft or INCREDIBLY LOUD sounding great without audible distortion. They sound great as home theatre speakers, and you don't really need a subwoofer (though one can always help!).

If you have any questions or comments on the AT or DX series please, I'd like to hear from you.

mike steeves
v7q2@unb.ca or
mjs@nbnet.nb.ca