The ratio of price, value, size, power, design, performance, connectivity, assimilation with other speaker brands and styles, and especially how the XLS-6 sound are given 5 stars by my home system.
Please note I'm not a audiophile.
I'm a man who has try's to get the best for what I can afford for the best use. I predominantly play cassette tapes and vinyl records, particularly genres of death metal, techno, bluegrass, jungle and jazz. I demand speakers to handle both my old school Sansui's G-7700 and QRX-9001 huge sound to be clearly listened to by my neighbors .3 miles away!!!! One must visualize performance by the clarity and power being heard, say by dueling banjos players picking away. But also enjoy the dinner party softness and tranquil at mellow volumes of "Tiny Bubbles". These speakers will shake the hands of performance if you got the power, and then hold hands for a game of Red Rover. ...Red Rover - Red Rover send distortion right over.
Ha! Distortion didn't make it through.

The horn tweeters are high and crisp, not super ting'y or annoyingly hiss'y.
The woofers thump when called for; woof when called for.
The mid range is pleasant for a two way bookshelf speaker.
The vocals come through well, a strong feature with these speakers.
Cabinets are extremely well built. Great for people who like to rearrange or are mobile.

My opinion of these speakers is based on personal experience as a DJ, audio fiend, and collector of audio components and speakers. I support small business and Made in America.
I listen to music, not movies.

Play naked. Play analog!
- ChefE

I bought these for my bedroom system as I have CLS 215s in my living room and have been mightily impressed by them. The XLS are partnered with an old Sony ES integrated; still a very good amp. Firstly, these are not efficient speakers, despite Cerwin Vega's reputation. Don't run them on low power amps. They sound anaemic. On the Sony (and on my main system) they sound very smooth; slightly rolled off on the top.The bass is detailed and you can feel it, unlike the "mirage" bass of most standmount speakers where you can hear it but it has no real presence. The soundstage is expansive and capable of extending beyond the extremities of the speakers and providing a fairly convincing 3D image, and one that is not to sensitive to listening position (a very good thing considering that they will probably be placed in a variety of locations). Quite versatile: great with vocals, rock, jazz, dance, but not very pleasing with classical (I am a firm believer that you need a full-range speaker to even come close to reproducing most classical music). Not the last word in detail; like other members of the XLS family, I think they have changed the crossovers from the CLS series and toned back the highs; something does get a bit lost compared to the CLS 6's I listened to. That said, the XLS series will fit into a wider variety of systems. No buy-wiring; good to see this baseless practice disappearing. Very well made compared to the Dali Lektor 2s I sampled. I had THREE pairs of them all with build faults and the cabinets were not as solid sounding as the CVs (and not as much fun to listen to, so back they went.) I've bought another pair of these for a friend as a gift and she is loving them. Cerwin Vega are definitely moving away from the "frat house" beer & bass image and are producing some fine products. Well done to Stanton Group for taking CV to another level.