Summary: I love these speakers! I paid in Canadian dollars. I am very pleased and would easily advise others to audition these speakers. I listen to a wide variety of music and hence really value speakers with true musicality and balance.
I have driven these speakers listening to Tool, Bach, Our Lady Peace, Pink Floyd, Sting, Rush, Thievery Corporation etc. I primarily listen to fairly hard music so strong performance with such recordings was imperative. I find the sound quality and depth of the music very, very nice through the C-5s. Of course rock recordings played load get muddy as screaming guitar and pounding bass does tend to merge into a mass. I listen to my music quite loud and with rock at first I felt a little cheated as the sound can get messy.
To really be sure of these speakers I have spent many hours playing a diverse range of music and recording quality. After really listening to these speakers driven loud and softly with well recorded albums like Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds of Love: Sting - Ten Summer's Tales: Toad The Wet Sprocket - Dulcinea: Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth: Thievery Corporations newest album and others I can say with confidence these speakers are very nice.
Bear in mind I have also played a great deal of orchestral and choral music as well and the music remains very well portrayed. My system is decent, but by no means an expensive one. I have an old NAD 3240 integrated amplifier, which is very nice and a new NAD C521BEE CD player. I am currently bidding on a used NAD 2600A power amp that I think will really help bring the music out even more when coupled with the 3240 as a pre-amp. As others have said, you will need to spend more money to do better so give these speakers a very good listen before walking away. If possible make sure you can audition them in your own space to determine whether these speakers meet your needs. Good audio shops allow returns if you aren't pleased so make sure of the return policy before buying!
Strengths: Very Good Build Quality
Excellent Sound Quality
Strong Bass Response
Attractive with or without the grills
Weaknesses: Haven't found any that I can attribute to the speakers myself. I like music loud and all speakers will degrade as the sound gets louder for many reasons such as source recording, room accoustics, other components etc.
Similar Products Used: Pioneer HPM 100 (very sweet)
Mirage Mi Bookshelf (very sweet)
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Summary: they are good speaker, actually, at very best @ their price range. Well, there is nothing much for me to say about the Energy as we all know their sound quality
Strengths: Image, clarity,
Weaknesses: Look ugly with or without grill
Similar Products Used: Wharfadale, bose, JBL, infinity, Polk. These are trash!!! they can't compare to Energy, not even close
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Summary: I purchased these speakers for the mains in my Family Room Home Theater system, but I required speakers that could stand up to 2-channel audio as well. They do it all, and better than anything else in the price range. I evaluated many speakers over a wide price range (martin-logan, magnepan, KEF, Monitor Audio, Definitive Technology, sonus faber, mirage), and nothing came close to matching the overall performance of the C5s. Nice tight bass, great imaging/soundstage, crisp midrange and highs. Partnered with a mid-range Denon receiver (AVR-1082) and other Energy speakers for HT (CC2 center, C3s for surround, and S10.2 sub) most visitors are blown away by the sound of the speakers (at least until they hear the Rotel/DefTech combo in the basement).
Strengths: Great imaging/soundstage; tight, fast bass response
Weaknesses: for the price, none
Similar Products Used: many
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Summary: these are awesome. I picked up a C1 center channel and 2 C5's for only 811 at goodguys..a steal if u ask me..i have yet to break them in, but they are awesome, flat response, and clean highs...tight bass...i have a denon 3803 and denon 2800mkII dvd player and all thx cables...these things sound so clean its awesome...i got wharfedale 8.1 and dfs for the surround (7.1)...all in all bad ass
Strengths: trust me u will love them
Weaknesses: none
Similar Products Used: polk R30, acoustic research HC1, JBL S center channel, Marantz SR5000, denon 3803, denon 2800mkII, thx cables
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Summary: Excellent Speakers for the $999 cdn I paid for them. Well worth the money and much more. These speakers are beautiful, they even sound better then the C7's which I also tested. The two 6.5 inch woofers provide much better bass over the three 5.5 inch woofers in the C7. You could go without a subwoofer with these if you wanted to, they have a really nice bass.
Strengths: Strong construction
Great sound / price ratio
Weaknesses: None to date.
Similar Products Used: Energy C7
Energy C3
Energy C1
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