Henry Kloss' last speaker design, the Cambridge Soundworks Tower 1's...
Okay, these aren't my actual pair. I just never took any pictures.
But I did get the ones with this reddish veneer. They're actually tiny in person, only a hair over 3 feet tall.
I bought them when I was struggling to get the PSB Stratus Gold's to sound right in the living room. I've come to the conclusion that for
my use case (can only speak for myself), bipolar designs will work best for the 2-channel setup. That depth of stage makes TV and movies feel "cinema-like" which is what it's all about in the first place.
The side effect is that
all music, even studio recorded) sounds live and concert-like when listening to bipoles. Not going to call it good or bad... just different. I may well try to get a pair of bipole speakers for upstairs, just to be able to switch every once in awhile and listen to the same music a different way.
But for the living room, a standard monopole box isn't going to do. Since the Denon had A/B speaker switching which could be done by remote (yes, really!) I listened with the best half to the CSW's and the PSB's with some music and some Netflix. I like to sometimes see if she hears what I hear (helps her cope with my audio insanity when she does).
Without telling her which speaker was which, her conclusion was "the A speaker sounds like I'm inside of a box. I don't like it. The B speaker sounds open and spacious, like you're in font of a stage. It just has a nicer effect." My observation was the same. She was surprised that the diminutive CSW's had so much more presence than the notably larger and heavier Stratus Goldi's.
My overall impression of these, top to bottom... the highs are pleasant and non-fatiguing, the midrange seems thicker on the bottom ranges than the upper regions, and the bass is strong but not extended.
I'm learning as I go (you never truly stop learning, do ya?), and while I know some people say that there's no such thing as "music speakers versus HT speakers", for a pure 2-channel HT setup,
reproducing speech is life-and-death critical. Mark (TLS) has expounded on this many times, but since we've moved and I've had multiple speakers in and out of the living room, I've experienced just how profound a difference it makes.
Singing ain't speech. Those Von Schweikert VR-4's I regretfully sold, did speech right. Upstairs, where I pretty much only listen to music, the VR-33's with their dual Scanspeak mids and ring radiator danced all over the old venerable VR-4's. But those 4's kicked serious ass in the living room. The time-aligned drivers, minimal baffle, and rear ambience tweeter all seemed to come together for making A/V media come to life. Speech sounded like people talking. (sure that would seem a no-brainer but when you hear the difference, it'll blow your mind) When I sold them, first thing I did was bring the 33's downstairs to take their place. I just KNEW they were going to blow my freaking mind compared to their predecessors.
Wrong. I was tremendously underwhelmed. The speech in movies and shows sounded hollow, and placement wasn't helping. I realized (too late!) that the depth effect is crucial to good multimedia sound. That's why I went ahead and sold the 33's when an offer came up. They rocked the world on music, but didn't excite me in the living room.
So all that was to say, that on speech, the Cambridge Towers have superb depth, but are not quite right for speech. Good but not "great." There's too much emphasis in the lower midrange. Men speaking sometimes sound shouty, and women speaking can sometimes sound the way a man would if he was trying to imitate a woman. Now, put some piano music on these bad boys and the note emphasis will take you to a concert hall, but listening to the Byrdes argue in an episode of
Ozark isn't natural. I considered disconnecting the rear midrange, but that would a) hurt soundstage depth, and b) alter the crossover point of the remaining mid.
So, the search continued. I am keeping these though. I'm going to re-finish the veneer and when my youngest moves out to live with her beau, it'll be a gift for them. They roll their eyes at my obsession but love the quality of the gear that I buy. "When we get our own place, we want you to help us find some speakers!" Yeah they really said that.
So little do they know, it's already done.
