you say Athenas are good, but how would I know???

[Seanc0500]

It seems like there is a lot of hype over the Athenas, and as I am looking
to replace my HT speakers, I am hyped.
One problem though, according to their website it looks as though
they are only sold through 4 different 'authorized' dealers, all of which
(except best buy, where they're not in the stores) are online dealers.

How on earth would anyone be able to test them out before
buying a pair??
For all of you who own Athenas, did you just buy them online and
hope they were good?
I did that with a Celestion Centre2 center channel speaker and promised
myself I would never again buy speakers without hearing them first.
The Centre2 sounds awful, but it was a screaming deal.

[cabron]

It seems like there is a lot of hype over the Athenas, and as I am looking
to replace my HT speakers, I am hyped.
One problem though, according to their website it looks as though
they are only sold through 4 different 'authorized' dealers, all of which
(except best buy, where they're not in the stores) are online dealers.

How on earth would anyone be able to test them out before
buying a pair??
For all of you who own Athenas, did you just buy them online and
hope they were good?
I did that with a Celestion Centre2 center channel speaker and promised
myself I would never again buy speakers without hearing them first.
The Centre2 sounds awful, but it was a screaming deal.

I own the point 5 speakers, ASP-300 sub, and a pair of AS-F2's. I bought all of this equipment online ( without prior auditioning ). I must admit I was very nervous; and I was initially disapointed. After the break-in period, I was very satisfied.

Check out this link:

http://www.athenaspeakers.com/guestbook.php

All I can say, is that I am a happy customer, and I went back and bought more Athena equipment online.

Check out this link as well

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10011759&catid=10552&atab=4&spviewed=&logon=&langid=EN&dept=10

Keep in mind that the reviews above are from people who have bought Athena products. It is rare that someone does not like the products they purchase.

[Woochifer]

I was about to suggest Best Buy because I've seen the Athenas set up in the stores in my area. Oh well, you 've basically stumbled upon the primary drawback with factory-direct speakers -- you need to buy them to hear them. Basically, if you feel strongly enough that the Athenas fit into your preferences, then you should just order them and try them out at home. The risk is that you won't like them and will have to fork over the return shipment charges. The reward is that you'll wind up with a nice set of speakers that fit your preferences.

Otherwise, if the risk and reward balance that factory-direct selling offers is not the way you like it, then you should stick with what you know (i.e. those speakers that you can audition locally) rather than get caught up in what you don't know (i.e. those speakers that you need to buy before trying).

[RGA]

Athena is an inexpensive speaker -- Best buy is not a good place to audition -- yet they sounded to me better than anything else Best Buy sells...They are not world beaters but you can still get a reasonable sense of what they're about and so you should. So long as you have a return policy in place I would say they're worth a gamble to try.

I have a reservation about the treble -- but that's usually the case with speakers for this money.