Clarity, great transient response, smooth high frequencies, no raggedness, Great pricing, even for the larger units.

None

Good build quality, Cabinets seem to be of real wood. Sony claims a stiffness to weight ratio for their (kevlar) cone material that is 30 times higher than polypropylene. The most noticeable thing about them is a lack of coloration and energy retention in the cone material. I had a set of their earlier models for surround sound. The grilles have also been redesigned for less diffraction at the edges.

The test setup included two SS-F5000 floor standing speakers, one SS-CN5000 center channel speaker, two SS-10000 bookshelf speakers, and (not always) a Dayton 12-inch subwoofer. The amplifier was a Pioneer VSX-917, the HDTV a Samsung 42 inch DLP. Satellite HDTV, satellite radio, DVD, and CDs were used for sources. The listening room is 15 x 25 ft with the speakers on the long wall. The room has a beamed ceiling that slopes from 7 to 9 ft across the short dimension.

Before the SS-5000s and SS-CN5000 arrived, I decided to go ahead and get a pair of SS-1000 bookshelf units. I used these for a day or two atop the tower speakers I was replacing. I was surprised at the smoothness and fullness of the bookshelf units. I'm a frequent symphony orchestra concert-goer. They did an excellent job with full orchestra.

This series is smoother. Before I bought these, I listened to five laboratory models (not available for production) made available to me by a custom builder. These will not produce the same piano as a pair of dipolar arrays 6 ft. high and two ft. wide, each with two twelve inch woofers, four 61/2 inch midrange drivers, and two ribbon tweeters. Nor will they yield the same performance as a $27,000 Aerial system. But they are remarkably clear. They reproduce the original venue acoustics. And they reproduce all the instruments in the orchestra cleanly. The mid-bass instruments were full and clean and could be discriminated from each other. I've had some good speakers, and have taken my cds to audition a lot of equipment but I heard things in Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Respighi's Pines and Fountains of Rome, and other traditional pieces that I hadn't heard before. As an audiophile for more than 50 years, hearing something new is quite surprising.

These speakers acquit themselves well on guitar, piano, viola, violin, cello, tympani, woodwinds, horns, and reeds, and human voice. There are some things I'd recommend in setting up a system however. First, Sony recommends placement about 4 inches from the wall behind the speaker. In my case, there are too many objects in near-field locations around the speaker, so I have them about 18 inches from the wall, 20 feet apart, toed in, with the listening position about 10-11 feet from the center point between the two speakers, The center doesn't seem to drop out in stereo mode, even when they're this far apart. After placing the speakers and wiring them up, run the automatic setup on the receiver, if it has that feature. Then, go to manual setup and set all of the speakers to "small", if you have a subwoofer. I set the crossover frequency manually to around 100hz. When they are far enough apart, the surround sound and the airiness of the soundstage seems much improved. I had to reduce the subwoofer level in final adjustments.

Customer Service

Unknown for these speakers. Sony responded very well to a receiver I had to return about three years ago. They returned it repaired under warranty in about 10 days. Vann's shipped the order free via Fedex the day after I ordered it, and I received it undamaged four days after I ordered it they're located in Montana. I'm located in Texas.

Similar Products Used:

Altec A-7, Rectilinear, BIC, Bose, Bozak Symphony, Cerwin-Vega, JBL, Advent, AR, University, Klipsch, Advent, EPI, Infinity towers, Yamaha NS-500, Cerwin-Vega, Pioneer, Polk, Paradigm, Fluance.

Pioneer -VSX-1014, Yamaha 5860, Yamaha 661, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer Elite VSX-81