You’ve got to give credit to the guy who invented the six-pack. What a concept: six bottles, all strapped together in a bundle that can be easily toted from your local 7-11 to your fridge. Although not as portable as a bunch of brewskis, many home theater speaker systems adhere to a similar model. In addition to the left/right front pair, these carefully assembled kits usually include sonically matched center and surround speakers plus a subwoofer that complements the rest in terms of size and output capability. When it comes to price, the sky can be the limit for home theater speakers, but most manufacturers offer packages that fit nicely within a beer budget.
The three systems we gathered for this test include Celestion’s AVP305 ($900), Atlantic Technology’s System 170 ($1,496), and a sextet of speakers from Wharfedale’s Pacific Evolution series that total $2,000. Though even the priciest of these speaker six-packs remains affordable, they differ quite a bit in terms of both technical design and styling. So grab an opener, sit back on the couch, and let’s sample some speakers.
Celestion AVP305
In a world filled with bland, boxy speakers, Celestion’s silver-toned AVP305 system ($900) is a sight for sore eyes. The package consists of four identical AVS301 satellites with aluminum-dome tweeters and small aluminum-coated woofers (see the table on page 40 for details) along with a matching AVC301 center speaker that sports a passive radiator the same size as the woofer. All five of the satellites have the same kind of curvy, aerodynamic enclosure, while the S20 powered subwoofer is a traditional-looking black box. I preferred to keep the grilles clamped on the satellite speakers — the metallic drivers’ pointy dust caps looked like they might zap me at any moment. Besides, I thought the gray-toned grilles enhanced the system’s retro-futuristic look.
Each satellite speaker includes a sturdy set of spring clips for hooking up bare speaker wire, and a pivoting base provides a range of setup options. The most common will be to place each speaker on a stand or shelf and aim it toward the listening position. Alternatively, the base can be transformed into a wall mount with the addition of a few screws. The center speaker’s base doesn’t offer the same level of flexibility, but it can swivel horizontally to accommodate an off-center listening position.
Besides its stereo line-level connections, the subwoofer has an input-level adjustment, a crossover control that’s continuously variable from 40 to 140 Hz, and a phase control that can be adjusted from 0 to 180°. There’s also a Cinema/Music EQ switch that’s intended to tailor the sub’s output for movies or music.
After placing the front three speakers on stands in the front of our 21 x 13-foot listening room, with the sub in the front left corner and the surrounds on stands near the side walls behind the couch, I gave the Celestions a spin. The system’s dynamic capabilities were way better than I expected. Watching the opening car chase from The Transporter on an LCD front projector, with the AVC301 center speaker just below the screen and the AVS301 L/R satellites on either side, I was surprised that such little speakers could convey such a big, loud, effects-laden soundtrack so convincingly. The system’s handling of surround effects also impressed me. For example, in a scene where Frank washes his vehicle in a garage near the beach, the natural rendering of a background breeze and waves put me right into the scene. Pretty good show for a $900 rig.
It was only when I watched the new, uncut DVD of Dances with Wolves (all 4 hours of it!) that I noticed some shortcomings. The rumble of stampeding beasts in the buffalo-hunt scene sounded boomy and indistinct — not too surprising given that the tiny S20 sub has only an 8-inch driver. And when I slid over to the right side of the couch, Kevin Costner’s ponderous voiceovers coming from the center speaker darkened in timbre and dropped off in volume (see Tom Nousaine’s lab notes, page 44).
As with movies, listening to music immediately amazed me that such a compact package could produce such a large, seamless soundstage. The combo’s delivery of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, as performed by the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano on Telarc’s Rainbow Body SACD, was surprisingly full, with a relaxed tonal balance that made the massed strings and brass sound airy and sweet. Spacy rock mixes like those on Sigur Rós’s CD ( ) were also well served by the Celestions. During the narcotic drones of “Untitled #4,” a dose of the eerie spaciousness and depth that I’m used to hearing on our larger reference speakers managed to come through intact.
When I downshifted to more basic music mixes, however, a few seams began to show. The system’s imaging was vague, which made Richard Thompson’s vocals on “King of Bohemia” from Mirror Blue difficult to pinpoint. And on “Moon River” from Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones, the drummer’s normally crystal-clear brush strokes sounded somewhat blunted, and the lowest notes of Dave Holland’s acoustic bass were pretty much missing in action. (Switching to the sub’s Music EQ setting didn’t make much difference except to reduce overall bass level.) But those criticisms are ultimately nitpicks. For a sub-$1,000 system, the Celestion was surprisingly powerful.
Celestion’s AVP305 combines cool, futuristic looks with above-average performance. And it does so for a very reasonable price. If you’re ready to leave black boxes behind and step up to something snazzy (and shiny), this speaker system is worth a serious look — and listen.
PDF: Fast Facts
PDF: In the Lab
Atlantic Tech’s System 170 ($1,496) has already been kicking around for a few years, so it predates many of the “mini” subwoofer/satellite home theater speaker packages that have cropped up since. The System 170’s vintage probably accounts for its conservative design — hard-edged black boxes everywhere you look. But a speaker’s looks are only skin deep, of course, and come a distant second to what matters most: performance. Let’s hold that thought while we get into the nuts and bolts of the Atlantic Tech system.
The system consists of two 171 LR front left/right speakers, a 173 C center speaker, a pair of 174 SR surrounds, and a 172 PBM powered subwoofer. The 171 SR has a pair of coated-graphite woofers above and below a silk-dome tweeter, an arrangement that cuts down on ceiling/floor reflections by limiting vertical dispersion. According to Atlantic Technology, this enhances imaging and makes dialogue more intelligible. Bass starts to taper off around 90 Hz, making a separate subwoofer a necessity.
The 173 C center speaker is basically the same but designed for horizontal mounting above or below a TV. It has two nice touches that distinguish it from other center speakers. The first is a set of curved rails on the bottom that fit into a grooved baseplate and let you aim the speaker up or down toward the listening position. The second is a tweeter-level control for tailoring the treble response to match that of the 171 LR speakers flanking it. If you’ve ever put a center speaker on top of a huge rear-projection TV and wondered why sounds panned across the front soundstage don’t seem continuous, you’ll recognize the value in having such a control.
Atlantic Tech’s 174 SR is a typical THX-type dipole surround speaker with a woofer and tweeter on two sides of its semi-triangular cabinet. Basic hardware is included for wall mounting. Besides the usual line-level and speaker-level connections, the 172 PBM subwoofer also has a pass-through input/output designed for daisy-chaining multiple subs or looping a signal back to a surround processor or a receiver. Controls include a low-pass filter that’s continuously adjustable from 50 to 150 Hz and a 0/180° phase switch. In another nice touch, the sub’s level control is located underneath the front-panel grille for easy access.
To set the system up, I put the 171 LRs on Atlantic Tech’s optional 176 ST speaker stands, the 173 C on a shelf in my TV stand, and the 174 SRs on high stands located behind the couch, directly against the side walls. After placing the sub in a front corner of the room, I used the center speaker’s level control to timbre-match it to the front L/R speakers — a quick adjustment that proved surprisingly effective.
Getting down to business, I pulled out The Transporter to see where it would take me. Right off, the system’s punchy dynamics and powerful bass let me know it could handle over-the-top action-movie soundtracks, and the dipole surrounds presented a convincing sense of atmosphere in the beachfront scenes. Moving on to Dances with Wolves, I cued up the buffalo-hunt scene and let it rip. The 172 PBM sub did a great job of capturing the low rumble of the galloping herd, considerably exceeding my expectations. The report of the rifle shots sounded clean and precise, and the narration was equally clear over a wide listening area.
The Atlantic Technology system also proved to be good with music. In Thompson’s “King of Bohemia,” it presented a solid, focused image with a convincing sense of depth. The 172 PBM subwoofer did a very good job of articulating the low notes of the bass solo in Frisell’s jazzed-up “Moon River.” Overall, the system’s performance struck me as well detailed, although at louder volumes the acoustic guitar sounded slightly etched, with a clipped quality to the decay of plucked strings.
Although there’s some controversy on this issue, my experience using dipole surround speakers while watching movies with 5.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks has been generally positive. Movie soundtracks steer ambient sounds to the rear most of the time, which is what dipoles do best. Playing multichannel music on the System 170, however, proved to be a mixed bag.
On some tracks, like “Finest Worksong” from R.E.M.’s Document, a DVD-Audio disc, the 174 SR surrounds sounded great, with their diffuse character helping to tame the overly aggressive surround mix. They also worked fine with multichannel classical music discs, which tend to put only ambience in the rear channels. But on discs that tastefully employ discrete surround effects, like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon SACD, the 174 SRs dulled the presentation to a degree.
Atlantic Technology’s System 170 isn’t the newest compact sub/sat system on the block, but it can hold its own against just about anything in its price range. If you’re short on space but still require big sound when watching movies and listening to music, I guarantee you’ll be impressed by its performance. And at around $1,500 for the package — $1,620 with a pair of speaker stands — it’s definitely a steal.
PDF: In the Lab Wharfedale Pacific Evolution System
The first speakers I owned were Wharfedales, and when the time came to cart them off to a college dorm room, they were layered with candle wax — but still sounded good. Wharfedale’s EVO-30 towers are a far cry from my original pair. To be honest, with their wood veneer finish, yellow Kevlar drivers, and wedgelike form, they look more like a small version of the B&W 803s that I normally use as a reference. But I guess if you’re going to model speakers after another pair, that’s a good place to start.
At two grand, Wharfedale’s entire system costs significantly less than a pair of the B&Ws, but it’s sturdily constructed, and each EVO-30 comes with an impressive set of metal spikes that you can use to couple the speaker’s plinth (base) to a carpeted floor. According to the specs, the three-way EVO-30 goes down to 35 Hz, but Wharfedale still sent along a PowerCube DX12 subwoofer as part of the system. Unlike many subs, it comes in the same choice of finishes as the main speakers — a handsome rosewood veneer on our test samples.
As in the towers, the dual woofers on the EVO-Centre speaker can be amplified separately from its tweeter in a biwire configuration. The EVO-DFS surround is a bipolar design, with two sets of drivers arrayed on either gently sloping side of its cabinet, the front of which is completely covered by its nonremovable grille cloth. Unlike a dipole, a bipole speaker has its opposing drivers wired in phase, which makes their radiation pattern less diffuse. Wharfedale designed the EVO-DFS to be wall-mounted, and it comes with metal brackets on the back panel for that purpose.
The subwoofer’s driver fires down, and along with connections on the back panel there’s a four-position phase switch, a crossover control that’s continuously variable between 60 and 170 Hz, and a signal-sensing auto-on power switch.
With the exception of the surrounds, which I managed to balance on stands against the side walls slightly behind my couch, setting up the Wharfedales was pretty straightforward. The towers went to either side of the screen, the center speaker on a stand directly below it, and the sub in the front corner.
I ended up listening to the system two different ways. The first was to run full-range signals to the front towers and use the sub just for the low-frequency-effects (LFE) signal, the “.1” in 5.1-channel. And the second was to use my processor to high-pass-filter the signal sent to the main speakers at 80 Hz, with all lower frequencies directed to the subwoofer alone.
British speakers have a reputation for being reticent, but that label hardly applies to this Wharfedale system. Playing The Transporter’s soundtrack, the speakers immediately displayed good dynamics and powerful bass in the opening car chase. I was also impressed by the seamless manner in which the surrounds meshed with the rest of the system. There was a fine sense of continuity on effects panned from front to rear, with the bipolar EVO-DFS speakers providing a good mix of ambience and directionality.
Shuttling back a century or so to Dances with Wolves, the Wharfedales displayed similar virtues during the buffalo-hunt scene. The rumble of the herd was nothing short of dramatic, and each time the wayward lieutenant shouldered his rifle, its echoing report reverberated through the room. Costner’s narration sounded natural over the center speaker, with only a small amount of treble dropoff, or “lobing,” when I listened from positions on the sides of the couch.
I started out listening to music on the system with the EVO-30s alone, and overall their sound was pretty pleasing. On “Moon River,” the speakers’ smooth tonal balance made the acoustic guitar sound clean and natural, and I could easily hear the crisp patter of brushes being dragged across a snare drum. In Thompson’s “King of Bohemia,” the EVO-30s delivered a focused image of the singer’s solo performance. Although I could locate his voice precisely in the soundstage, his vocals had a thick, chesty quality that made him sound way too present.
Adding the PowerCube DX12 subwoofer to the mix didn’t remove the chestiness, but the extra bass did mask it somewhat by rounding out the sound from the EVO-30s. What’s more, the EVO-30/DX12 combination rocked. The bass- and snare-drum thwacks were dynamic in “No One Knows” from Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf CD, and the music sounded effortless even at loud volumes. And when I listened to adventurous multichannel tracks — like Pink Floyd’s “On the Run” from the Dark Side of the Moon SACD — the bipolar EVO-DFS surround speakers delivered a precise sonic image that served the music well.
They may not be the same speakers that I remember from high school, but a pair of EVO-30s combined with the EVO-Centre, EVO-DFS surrounds, and a PowerCube DX12 subwoofer add up to a speaker system primed to deliver a dramatic performance with movies and rock out on music. Wharfedale’s Pacific Evolution system has a whole lot going for it.
As our technological world grows increasingly complex, it’s nice to know some things are still as easy to grasp as a six-pack. Whether you have two grand or half that to spend on home theater speakers, these three contenders show that systems packing a surprising amount of punch can indeed be found within that price range.
PDF: In the Lab