GTSDARTS

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $350.00 from Craigslist

Summary:
I have to write about my experence. I have been auditing speakers most of my llife . I have audited many speakers and always prefered Dahlquist dq-10 in the eighties and found them hard to beat but as time went on I have owned many nice speakers in my price range. I have had a CJ MV-55 AMP AND Audible Illusions preamp as well as a muse model 9 transport and a Ead 9000II DAC. along with many cable changes. Anyway recently I purchased the snell CV and though I would play them for a while and probably sell them as I have done with many other speakers in the past. But after hooking these up to my system I must say I will never sell them I was in shock when I turned up the volume. I am running a modest rotel RCD-950 TO A DAC AND CAN'T BELIVE MY EARS. If it's the last thing you do it should be to find a pair and haul them home and you will be hooked As I am. my favorite passtime is reading reviews and auditing equipment and or buying used equipment. I finally found my favorite cables cd player and speakers of all time And have had many nice amps and preamps.

Strengths:
Amazing imaging and seperation . beautiful mids. I am very happy and enen amazed at the quality. Amust hear speaker. I audited them before buying and though ok what is the big deal but after set up at home I had to pick up my jaw from the floor!!!

Weaknesses:
CAN'T SAY STILL SEETTING UP FOR OPTIMAL BASS.

Similar Products Used:
Dahlquist dq-10 ,Gma, advent , maggies ,polk, Klipsch. Velodyne Also Conrad Johnson, Ead. Audio Alchemy PS audio Jvc vl-8 table Grado Nakamichi clearaudio sota rotel adcom sony audio magic van den hul Discovery parasound hafler audible Illusions , and many more

murray-pam

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.33 of 5, 6.00 votes

Price Paid:  $2000.00 from Wilson Audio

Summary:
There may come a time in all great marriages when you get an urge to scratch a ten year itch. Well boys & girls, let me tell you - scratch all you want, but chances are nothing will satisfy you like the real thing.

I am of course talking about the wonderful Snell Type C/V Loudspeaker.
Having these in my listening room for the past 10-years has given me plenty of time to either get comfortable with, or deeply loath em. Fortunately my Snell's and me have a pretty open relationship and over the years we've both played the field a little and rest assured we always end up back in each others arms appreciating the good thing we have together.

I have to admit that in the past few months I have been out there looking and listening for that 'grass is greener on the other side' feeling and I gotta tell ya folks, what drove me to write this review was the fact that sometimes a classic comes along that perhaps only a few will truly appreciate and that's what you'll find in the C/V.

Most importantly as with any relationship, space is critical. I am fortunate enough to have a very large listening room and can only urge those out there considering older (and believe me, sometimes older is definitely better) more experienced speakers, you do need to give them room to stretch their wings a little.

All kidding aside, I have been seriously considering new, sleeker and more curvy B&W's and when push comes to shove I end up leaning toward their older 801's and just can't help to find myself coming back to my steady CV's.

Ultimately tailoring our experience by bringing a few toys into the listening room has always proven to be the best medicine. Sometimes we need to spice things up a bit and I have found that by changing interconnects, cables and other gear I really can impose either drastic or subtle changes that make things interesting or just different dependent on what is going on with me at any particular moment in time. Admit it, we all become fickle here and there.

What strikes me the most about the CV's is their continuous ability to adapt to any venue feed into them. I have never been left dissatisfied from a lack of. They are abruptly revealing. This is perhaps the greatest shortcoming I can come up with. You should expect to provide good quality recordings and good quality equipment. Don't even consider junk electronics and don't consider garbage recordings. You might do as well with an old transistor radio if this is your media.

If there's too much junk in the trunk the CV's will muddy up only with too high a volume setting and/or with poor matching cables. Your choice of recording artists will also influence the bottom end as well. Don't expect to put crap in cause you gonna get crap out. I would expect anyone who is critical about their listening sessions (when time permits of course) completely understands the fact that less is definetely more and accuracy counts. I have only a few recordings that push the limits of the bottom end and truthfully they are nowhere close to what would be considered audiophile grade music.

My wife and I have been married for a long time and I still after all these years find my heart beating really fast and and my breath taken away. When I give the C/V's the same attention they still leave me all shaken and stirred, my breath taken away, my palms all sweaty. Perhaps following Revel might lead to the same satisfaction years down the road. For now I'll hunker down for the next ten years of satisfying eargasms and occasionally throw in some component swapping just for a little something different.

Suggestions; From experience I recommend Threshold, Proceed, and Classe' along with other similar upper end products. Straightwire has served me well at both ends including off shelf and a few custom sets. I have found these speakers most comfortable with at least 100W and most responsive above this. I have never bi-wired them, but will not say that I would never try it (want to be open minded you know). High quality recordings a must as with any high end system. Plenty of room. Don't expect to put these in an apartment. Give lots of room both sides and back from wall!!

I paid around 2K for these about 10-years ago and would have gladly paid 3-5 times as much for what I have received. Only a few other more power hungry speakers would provide anything close to this experience. I have original boxes and all packaging for every audio item I own with exception of these speakers. My unstated commitment to keeping these 'until death do us part'.

Strengths:
Everything if you are willing to give as well as receive. These speakers will reveal everything you could want to hear and more. In a large room they are able to adapt and with lots of TLC you can have lots of fun experimenting with different positions to your hearts content without complaint.

Weaknesses:
Truly, there are few weaknesses that I can commit to. If you listen to garbage that is what you will hear. People say that they are big and heavy and hard to move around. You know, I have yet to meet anyone really into this stuff that does'nt just get into it. Yeah they are heavy, but the majority of the better speakers I have heard are too. Go ahead, get your hands dirty. Maybe if you are getting older enlist some help moving them around, but over all just have fun man. Revealing, so be carefull to find the right combination for your listening habits. Keep searching and the right combo will show up and those goosebumps will be right back just like they always are when everything hits just right.

Similar Products Used:
B&W, Infinity

thule

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $1300.00

Summary:
Snell E3 was my first experience with the snell sound,and what a music insight those speakers had,you forget all about technical,is just the music who is in the front seat.And that is same with C/V but much better in all area,they are just amazeing speakers who drawn you towards and in to the music.

Strengths:
A very good Wide,height and depth sound image,whit excellent rhythm and a deep and clean fast bass.This speakers can play very loud,and not lose a thing of their brilliant quality.

Weaknesses:
NONE

Similar Products Used:
SNELL E3,KLIPSCH-3,MULTICELL

Price Paid:  $1000.00 from eBay

Summary:
I haven't read any of the magazine reviews but I do know the speaker was wel regarded. The Snell C line seems to have lived in Stereophile's Class B since it was introduced. It was designed by Kevin Voecks, who's now leading the engineering efforts at Revel, part of the Madrigal Group. His design approach is still the same with a focus on accuracy (this can mean a lot of things to a lot of folks but the Revel website contains Kevin's latest thinking on the subject.) I had an interesting experience with this speaker. I bought them as an upgrade to my old Snell Cis. I initially was forced to set up my system with the C/Vs in more or less a square and reflective room that was also probably too small. In this room, the speakers were unlistenable - hard, glaring, soft bass. Ugghhh! I was having the same experience as one reviewer from England had posted on this speaker a while ago (which isn't up now). He called the speakers vulgar. I would have had to agreed. But I knew the speakers were interacting with the room in nasty way but was not at liberty to fix this. This was not the speaker with the reputation I understood it to have, and it didn't approach the performance of the old Ci in this space. Well, finally setting them up in a different room yeilded excellent results. They were tranformed. Big soundstage, detailed and subtle while also powerful with tremendous weight and dynamics. The bass response is excellent - tight, controlled and remarkably extended for a speaker of its cabinet size. There's enough bass there for me. I've never gotten them to totally disappear like some other speakers can do. Talk with the Snell folks they're very fond of the old Es, Ds, and Cs. All of these were popular and well regarded speakers. I've used them with a number of digital front ends and amplifiers. They've worked well with everything I've used them with. They do a good job of revealing the differences of gear behind them.

Strengths:
- Bass weight and extension - Soundstage - Detail - Dynamics - Fairly neutral

Weaknesses:
- Big and heavy. This may not be a problem for some folks but once spiked to the floor you don't want to think about moving them often. They are imposing in a room.

Similar Products Used:
- Snell Ci - Audio Physic Virgo III - Magnepan MG-1.6QR - Green Mountain Europa - Others

Price Paid:  $1200.00

Summary:
Here's what the Snell site says about the C/V. I thought it might help answer some questions. Can't hurt.

The Snell Type C/V is a significant advance in the evolution of the renowned Type C Loudspeaker series. Design advances have created a three-way system that more than fulfills the requirements for today's demanding multipurpose home entertainment needs, while ensuring the highest-quality music reproduction. As with all Snell designs, the Type C/V offers exceptional tonal balance, sonic clarity, and astonishing dynamic range. Extensive double blind listening tests have proven its superior performance when compared against competitive loudspeaker brands costing as much as twice the price of the new Type CV.












The woofer configuration in the Type CV includes two eight inch custom designed drivers. Each driver is mounted on the baffle at different heights which serves to optimize bass performance by minimizing room and boundary interactions at low frequencies. This strategy, earlier trademarked by Snell as "Room Ready", refers to a design technology which specifically enables competent bass performance within a variety of real world listening environments.

The use of sophisticated high order crossover networks and impedance compensation circuits result in tremendous power handling and dynamic range, together with low distortion and optimized on-and-off axis frequency response. The frequency response of the Type CV is extremely flat to within +-2 dB from 24 Hz to 20 kHz (half space anechoic) both on axis and as much as 30 degrees off-axis. High sensitivity (efficiency) permits driving the Type CV with as low as 50 watt amplifiers, while high power handling capabilities allow for the use of amplifiers up to 250 watts.


To ensure that these exceptional performance values are enjoyed to their fullest in the final listening environment, Snell Acoustics employs unique production processes whereby each crossover/driver set for every loudspeaker model produced is hand tuned to match the master reference design to within a .5 dB tolerance. Investing in this level of production consistency guarantees that the customer will enjoy the same performance standard set by the Design Engineer with the original reference design. In addition to this level of attention to detail, a three hundred percent quality control procedure is followed throughout all production stages to secure optimum performance consistency as well as superior construction quality. In summary, both the design and production techniques utilized by Snell Acoustics provide a level of sonically accurate loudspeaker products that are truly unique and unrivaled in the loudspeaker industry today.
The driver compliment of the new Type CV loudspeaker reflects the same MTM (midrange-tweeter-midrange) configuration found in the more expensive Snell Type B and B minor design. This approach to driver configuration helps to create a " virtual image" whereby the midrange image coincides with the tweeter acoustical axis to produce extraordinarily smooth and coherent response, even well off-axis. The result is an extremely wide listening window with superior harmonic integrity.

TYPE C/V PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
Frequency Response
30Hz-22kHz (±3dB)
Driver Complement
Two 8" woofers with injection-molded cones and surrounds; two 5" midranges with injection-molded cones and surrounds; one 1" pure titanium dome tweeter; one 1" five-layer laminated metal tweeter.

Finish
Oak, Black Painted Oak, and Walnut.

Hand Tuning
Our technicians rigorously match our systems to within ±0.5dB of the Master Reference.
Power Requirements
Suitable for use with amplifiers from 40 watts to 250 watts.
Sensitivity
90dB SPL @ 1 meter with 2.83Vrms

Impedance
Nominal 8 ohms Minimum 5 ohms

Dimensions (HxWxD)
46-7/8 x 10-5/8 x 18" (119 x 27 x 46cm)

Weight
214 lbs per pair (97kg)