Price Paid:  $500.00 from BB Radio

Summary:
These speakers are fantastic, and are capable of producing a full sound in all of the required areas with great balance. In the store, I compared them favourably to Bose, Totem, Energy, and well anything remotely similar in the $2000 price range. The only notable weakness compared to much more expensive equivelents was a dampened sound, but this is noticable only in comparison.

Strengths:
Very smooth, deep base, which was well balanced with the overall sound. This base is reflex and has zero delay or distortion. The speakers are very warm, and when plugged into my NAD and Technics turntables, sound extreamly rich.

Weaknesses:
Softer high end response as compared to more expensive competators. Must be placed properly to avoid "booming".

Similar Products Used:
B&W, Totem, Bose

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Excellent ! Excellent ! Excellent !!! When I was looking for a new and ultimate sound system these were the best I could found ! Along with a Harman/Kardon Amp and CD the sound was powerfull, very accurate, warm and full bases. You can hear every note just as accurate as it was played at the studio ! The seconf time I set them up was with a turntable using a Shure M44E cartridge (excellent as well!) and an old Kenwood KA-3004 30W amp. This time the results were amasingly as goog as with the first setup also very different. I could get best-quality vynil reproduction with the accurate and warm Shure cartridge. You should be carefull using these speakers with mid or low quality equipment as you're gonna get diappointed, because you will hear the poor sound that comes from the source cd/amp going out of these speakers - again - accuratly enough :-)

Strengths:
They can sound BAD with certain amps/CDs as they deliver accurate sound of the source. So if youre gonna use crap you're gonna hear the crap going out of these excellent speakers. If you're gonna use hi-end equipment, the same way, you're gonna hear that excellent sound well and accurately !

Similar Products Used:
The new Missions are far from being as good as these !

Price Paid:  $70.00 from Richer Sounds

Summary:
I bought these lovelies as a direct replacement for my old mission 732's after they suffered death by brothers party. I used the 732s in conjunction with a yahama ax amp. My Denon CD player died some years ago and, having an audigy sound card i decided to run my P.C through my amp. This meant that new speakers had to be very versatile (from MP3's of various quality, DVD, games and CD music). They also had to be able to withstand a good drum and bassing (i am a DJ). I tested out a pair of Pair of celestion floor standers and found that they were not keen on the levels of bass i would need to throw at them and that they were not kind to poorer quality sound sources. They really showed up where the compression format kicks in on an MP3 recording. The Missions, however gave them a warm sound with a punchy bass response and a mid range that complimented most quality variations without ever sounding harsh. Once set up i had a quick game of wolfenstein, a watch of 'chicken run', a quick spin on my decks and a listen to my MP3s. The missions performed wonderfully in all areas. And as they are discontinued they are now an utter, utter bargain. If you are in need of some versatile, bass friendly performers and are on a budget (like me, £100 to sniff out a bargain) i would recommend these in a heartbeat. Not amazing for classical recordings or less bass driven jazz, although i dont listen to an awful lot, so i doesnt bother me. You cant buy better bang for your buck.

Strengths:
Versatile performance. Punchy bass, which doesnt over power the top end. Very cheap!

Weaknesses:
Bass occasionally too heavy for certain reproductions. They are as big as bookshelfs get! I needed new stands.

Similar Products Used:
KEF Cresta 2, Mission 732,

Summary:
These speakers, to my taste, are the best I've ever heard.
Full, rich sound, very accurate, lot's of power. Delivers the source sound very accurately, with certain live instrumental CDs I had the feeling I was experiencing a true live performence at a concert hall. I heard at least 40 different speaker models at the range of 1000$-1500$ and haven't find any as good as these one.

One thing that is very interesting, and I would be happy if someone could explain it to me, was that any of 3 different new pairs of the Mission 702 I checked out, had two different sounding speakers ! One is very "pure" sounding, VERY accurate, warm, and focused (sounds very good with mids, like guitars, pianos, strings, flutes and vocals) while the other is much less "focused" and got more bass, sounds more "wide" and delivers the bass and low tones the first one "lacks" (it doesn't actually lacks these tones, but the second kind of completing the frequencies the first one doesn't give out). Does Mission engineer the model in this certain way ? I have no idea.

Anyway, I just bought my second Mission 702 set after the first was stolen, because I didn't find any better model to replace them.

I'm giving this model 5/5 which is 100% ! No less.

Summary:
When they discontinued the Mission 702 range I stuck my hands in the air and said "WHY??????!!!!!" Why not leave good things alone?

It has been said that you need to feed this speaker good sound quality to make it perform well, but I have to disagree. I have these speakers connected to a Sony STR-DE515 receiver's main L/R channels. It's not a secret that the Sony does not measure up to the best in sound quality but the Missions really makes the change. If it was not for the 702's I would have long ago trashed the receiver and got a Rotel or something (I'm thinking of it very seriously.)

The 702's has very good bass capability so if you don't have a sub then the 702's would be a great choice. I find the overall sound to be quite good. With very strong bass it becomes a bit boomy, but that is to be expected with such a large box - here speaker placement (and a sub) is the key.

In a real world a very good speaker for a great price.

Strengths:
Great bass. Clean, clear sound. Plays a piano note as good as it gets. Good for home theatre sound.

Weaknesses:
Needs space to be itself - at least a room size 3m X 3m for home theatre.

Similar Products Used:
Sansui EXEC. Tannoy. Sony.