When this magazine’s predecessor, Stereo Review, evaluated Energy’s Take 5 system some four years ago, micro-size home theater speaker systems weren’t too common. We were more than a little impressed that the Take 5’s tiny satellite speakers and 8-inch powered subwoofer could produce a well-integrated, dynamic, tonally “right” sound from surround and stereo sources alike. Four years is an eternity in this business, and for a speaker system to survive that long unchanged is a sure sign that plenty of folks have felt the same way — and proved it by plunking down their dollars. Nevertheless, in the world of home theater, change is as inevitable as hyperbole, and the Take 5 system has now been supplanted by — ta da! — the Take 5.2.
Had it been up to me, this $900, five-speaker-plus-subwoofer suite would be called the Take 6, but I can understand why Energy would pass over a name that might suggest 6.1-channel capabilities. Anyway, this year’s model is very similar to the original, but the five satellites, which arrive packed in a single carton, are snazzier and slightly larger. They’re also vented instead of sealed and have larger, 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeters along with their 31/2-inch woofers.
The Take 1.2 center speaker has two of the woofers, and the four Take 2.2 left/ right satellites have one each. As in several competitive systems I’ve seen lately, the finish of the satellite enclosures is exceptional for the price. Gloss-black lacquer flanks curvaceous, playfully bulbous grilles, with multiway binding posts seamlessly inset in the back of each speaker. The Take 2.2 satellites also incorporate a nifty tilt-and-swivel fixture that clips onto the supplied wall-mount brackets or to the top of optional Take 2.2 stands, which can be had for $75 a pair.
The updated S8.2 subwoofer furnishes the same heavy-duty connectors for all four of its speaker-level input and output terminals. (That’s great, because I hate fiddling with the cheesy spring-clip terminals you find on some subs in this price range.) It also includes two line-level RCA input jacks labeled Xover and Input — which can be a bit confusing since the manual doesn’t use the same names consistently. The Xover input bypasses the sub’s crossover and level controls.
Those controls are on the front, making them more convenient to adjust, but also subject to inadvertent resetting by vacuum cleaners, dogs, and other low-slung creatures (especially the two-legged variety). Also up front is a single toggle switch labeled A for audio and V for video. The video setting kicks in a fairly prominent boost around 45 Hz — in case the average action-film soundtrack doesn’t already have enough boom for you! The tradeoff is a substantial sacrifice in deep bass below about 40 Hz.
Energy recommends connecting the Take 5.2 system using the line-level subwoofer output of an A/V receiver or proc essor instead of speaker-level hook ups via the sub. I tried it both ways and found only slight differences between them using a “large” speaker setting and a standard 80-Hz crossover. However, my B&K AVR307 receiver’s crossover is infinitely adjustable, with selectable slopes, so I did some experiment ing. I found that setting the front L/R speakers to “small” with a crossover frequency of 95 Hz and slopes of 12 dB per octave in both directions yielded clearly superior sound in my room, with better dynamics, enhanced midrange definition, and no penalty in sub/sat blending.
Since most people who buy the Take 5.2 system won’t have the luxury of such a flexible crossover, I did most of my listening with the basic speaker-level hookup, setting the crossover frequency and output level using the subwoofer’s controls. I also left the sub’s mode switch in its more ac curate audio position.
Once hooked up and sorted out, Energy’s Take 5.2 system reproduced two-channel music with impressive accuracy. The low end was solid and refreshingly free of the bass and lower-midrange anomalies that plague so many compact sub/sat arrays. I had no trouble achieving an ex cellent blend between the S8.2 sub and the Take 2.2 satellites with either wiring scheme. While I wouldn’t go so far as to put the S8.2 behind me — it’s not a good idea to place any subwoofer behind the main listening position — the Take 5.2 setup suffered less from subwoofer localization and sub-sat “disconnection” than many small systems I’ve evaluated.
Overall balance was engagingly open, with a hint of top-octave reticence — a high-hat cymbal’s “ticky-tick-tick” was just a hair less prominent and had a touch less “air” than on my (vastly more expensive) reference speakers. I also noted an occasional slight vocal-range narrowing. This midrange effect was evident as a vague coarsening, or barely perceptible distancing, of male voices, such as Jakob Dylan’s warm baritone on the Wallflowers’ sophomore War ner Bros. effort, (Breach).
Stereo imaging was terrific all-around: the Take 5.2 put up a real audiophile-style “floats-in-the-air” soundstage for simple, well-recorded two-channel material, like the piano-and-vocal opening bars of Natalie Merchant’s “Life Is Sweet” from Ophelia (Elektra). The system’s bass extension was remarkable given the 8-inch driver in the sub, which produced an honest 32 Hz with reasonable punch and good definition at relatively modest volumes. Performance like this will let you appreciate music and movies that actually include some true deep bass in a way most pint-size subs do not.
You won’t get the real chest smack of 20-Hz pressure waves from T-Rex footfalls in Jurassic Park — I don’t care how good your engineering is, for that you need a honkin’ big subwoofer — but at least you’ll hear the correct tonal balance. I applaud Energy for designing its little sub to favor accurate, extended bass over boom. And if you happen to want boomier bass, you can always flip the front-panel switch to its video position.
Bottom-octave bass aside, the Take 5.2 system plays ridiculously loud for such a bantamweight (remember — each satellite is about the size of a box of Pop-Tarts). That said, like every other system with 3 1/2-inch woofers I’ve evaluated, it couldn’t reach concert-hall levels, or even concertlike ones, in stereo playback. The front L/R satellites announced their low-frequency dynamic limit with a mild “Thwop!” on kick-drum beats and the like. With typical pop music, this was masked at first by the subwoofer’s output, but it became obvious as I cranked up the volume. And yet, despite repeated excursions into this danger zone, I failed to damage a single satellite.
Of course, surround-encoded music and movie soundtracks enjoy an advantage of several decibels in dynamic potential by having five satellite speakers pumping air instead of only two. The system was able to play quite a bit louder on multichannel rock recordings before the sound became noticeably muddy. We’re not talking concert levels here, but plenty loud for a cozy room of 12 x 16 feet or so.
For its part, the S8.2 sub never sounded stressed-out thanks to dynamic “smart” limiting of its low-pass-filtered signals, but I did notice a sort of bass-sustain effect on bass-rich music — like “Froz en Charlotte” from the Merchant recording — played at extremely high volumes.
The Take 5.2 setup excelled with movie soundtracks. Dialogue was clear, intelligible, and precisely balanced — the little Tale 1.2 center speaker did a good job. Tonal matching between the center speaker and the front left/right pair was very good on both voices and instruments, as close as I’ve heard from any inexpensive system with mini satellites. The center channel even seemed to have a bit less of the off-axis “honk” I usually hear from horizontally oriented center speakers with dual woofers. All this added up to seamless front soundstage imaging and incredible realism in dramatic pans, like the helicopter scenes near the beginning of Rules of Engagement. While I prefer the more diffuse envelopment provided by my usual dipole surround speakers, the Take 2.2s functioned well enough in that capacity.
Overall, Energy’s Take 5.2 is one of the best ultracompact home theater speaker systems I’ve heard so far, and at the price it’s a stone-cold steal. If you’re looking for a system as small as possible and your budget is about $1,000, the Take 5.2 is hard to beat.
Fast Facts
| TAKE 2.2 | TAKE 1.2 | S8.2 | |
| (L/R satellites) | (center) | (subwoofer) | |
| TWEETER | 1-inch aluminum dome | 1-inch aluminum dome | -- |
| WOOFER | 3 1/2-inch cone | two 3 1/2-inch cones | 8-inch cone |
| POWER | -- | -- | 100 watts |
| ENCLOSURE | vented | vented | vented |
| DIMENSIONS
(WxHxD) |
4
x 7 x 7 1/4 inches |
11
x 4 1/4 x 6 7/8 inches |
9
7/8 x 16 1/2 x 12 1/4 inches |
| WEIGHT | 3 1/2 pounds | 5 1/2 pounds | 24 pounds |
| FINISH | gloss black | gloss black | black ash vinyl |
| PRICE (Total: $900) | $220 a pair | $160 | $300 |
MANUFACTURER Energy Loudspeakers, Audio Products International, Dept. S&V, 3641 McNicoll Ave., Toronto, Ontario M1X 1G5; www.energy-speakers.com; 416-321-1800
In The Lab
by Tom Nousaine
| FREQUENCY RESPONSE (at 2 meters) | |
| front left/right | 110 Hz to 16.3 kHz ±4.5 dB |
| center | 110 Hz to 17.4 kHz ±4.5 dB |
| surround | 110 Hz to 13.2 kHz ±3.2 dB |
| subwoofer | 32 Hz to 100 Hz ±2.6 dB |
| SENSITIVITY (SPL at 1 meter with 2.8 volts of pink-noise input) | |
| front left/right | 89 dB |
| center | 90 dB |
| surround | 89 dB |
| IMPEDANCE (minimum/nominal) | |
| front left/right | 4.3/9 ohms |
| center | 6.7/8 ohms |
| surround | 4.3/9 ohms |
| BASS LIMITS (lowest frequency and maximum SPL with limit of 10% distortion at 2 meters in a large room) | |
| front left/right | 80 Hz at 77 dB SPL |
| center | 80 Hz at 81 dB SPL |
| surround | 80 Hz at 77 dB SPL |
| subwoofer | 25 Hz at 82 dB SPL |
| 97 dB average SPL from 25 to 62 Hz | |
| 104.0 dB maximum SPL at 62 Hz | |
All of the response curves in the graph are weighted to reflect how sound arrives at a listener’s ears with normal speaker placement. Because the Take 2.2 is used for both the front left/right and surround channels, the differences in the curves primarily reflect the different weightings.
The Take 2.2 had a buildup of energy between 1 and 5 kHz followed by some roughness at higher frequencies. The Take 1.2 center speaker had a similar character but was smoother at high frequencies. While the vertically oriented Take 2.2’s frequency response became smoother off-axis, the horizontally oriented Take 1.2 developed a wide, 3-dB trough between 1.5 and 7 kHz at 22.5° off-axis, and its response became even more irregular at larger angles.
Bass limits for the S8.2 subwoofer were measured with it set to maximum bandwidth and placed in the optimal corner of a 7,500-cubic foot room. In a smaller room users can expect 2 to 3 Hz deeper extension and up to 3-dB higher sound-pressure level (SPL). The S8.2 had relatively limited low-frequency SPL capability, as you’d expect from a subwoofer that has an 8-inch driver, but respectable extension -- down to about 30 Hz. The unmarked crossover-frequency dial had a turnover frequency of 100 Hz at the upper end of its rotation, 75 Hz at noon, and 60 Hz at the bottom end, with an approximate slope of 18 dB per octave.
