Today I finally got around to listening to these speakers.
Here is a link to establish exactly which ones:
https://www.amazon.com/Fluance-Signature-Bookshelf-Surround-HFSW/dp/B01A5UI5V0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484027828&sr=8-1&keywords=fluance+signature+bookshelf
Let me cut to the chase and tell you the most dramatic problem of my short audition time. Anyone with these speakers can easily replicate this.
Pink Floyd -
Time from
Dark Side of the Moon
There is a guitar solo from 3:30 to 5:00 and constantly through it, I am hearing two distinct speakers. While not entirely accurate, it is kind of like the strings are mostly being plucked on one side and the resulting tone is coming from the other side. Or kind of like playing this music through a Leslie Tone Cabinet (with the rotating speakers at the top).
Switching to another (any other) pair of speakers gets good imaging with the Guitar solidly planted! Some reverb occasionally comes from off to the side, but that is a totally different character from what the Fluance speakers do.
The location of the Piano on Norah Jones'
Don't Know Why was also insecure, and when she sings the word "come" at 0:31 and 0:36 (among others) her voice is mainly at the left speaker, but transitions to the right speaker when she closes her mouth (essentially humming) at the "m" in "come".
No phantom speaker effect for HT with these! When I say the sound transitions from one side to the other, I do not mean it moves across the center stage, rather it swaps from one side to the other!
In any case, I found this to be such an dominating characteristic that it was hard to listen past it for other attributes.
There were places/instruments where this was not nearly so offensive and in those places these speakers had a reasonably pleasant sound. The treble was definitely tipped up, making them a fairly forward speaker, but that is the type of characteristic which many speakers exhibit. During my short listening session, the tipped up treble was only a problem when the bells/alarms went off in
Time, which was a bit on the harsh side.
I swapped the speaker wires at one speaker to deliberately wire them out of phase and what I got was the same, but different. The effect was less (pretty subtle) where Norah Jones sings "come", but now it appeared at 0:48 where she sings "away" as the word trails off near its end, her voice again shifts from left to right speaker.
The guitar solo on Pink Floyd's Time was still bouncing around between the speakers. At this point, I don't see much justification for analyzing how it is different from when the speakers are "in phase"; either way, they were not "right"!
In this price range, my favorites are the Philharmonic Audio Affordable Accuracy (AA) or the Sony Core Series CS5 (though the Sony lacks the bass of the AA's); but with the Fluance's inability to integrate the sound of the right and left speakers into one coherent image, you would also do much better to get the less expensive Pioneer BS-22's.
The Fluances do look outstanding - the midrange driver has an honest Phase Plug and looks very much like B&W's Kevlar cones.
As I packed them up, I noticed that they have a fabric Maple Leaf tag sticking out from the perimeter of the terminal plate and a label which says "Designed and engineered in Canada".
I could not find a indication of "Made in China" anywhere!
