New Athena's "8 way" slim floor speakers.

[Smokey]

Gave these speakers a listen while in Bestbuy (WS-100...$600). For their slim size, they sound pretty good. But I suspect speakers were made specifically for HT sound rather than music since mid to lower bass seem to be lacking from these speakers-as compared with other larger woofer speakers. So a Sub might be mandatory.

May be they assumes buyers will have/buy a sub when considering these speakers. Neverthless, they look pretty cool and don't take up much space :)

Three 3-1/2" injection-molded polypropylene woofers and 5 passive radiators.
High-powered 1" Teteron dome tweeter.

<img src="http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/images/products/7035/7035102_sa.jpg">

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7035102&type=product&id=1099395865333

[JSE]

I listened to these speakers a couple of week ago and was not impressed at all. Granted they were listened to in BB so that has to be taken into consideration. The mids and highs seemed to be "muted". The ol' towel of the speaker analogy comes to mind. The bass? Well, there's virtually no bass. I think these would have to have a strong sub to make them halfway decent. Obviously these seem to be geared toward the form over function crowd but that will only seel so many pairs. I think Athena really messed up with these speakers, especially after the Audition series success.

When I first started listening to them, I thought they were OK. But, this BB still had a pair of AS-F1's hooked up right next to them. When I started toggling between them, man what a difference. The F1's blew them away in every aspect, except for looks. Hopefully the new updated Audition series will be about the same price as the previous models. For the same money, the Audition Series is simply a far far better speaker.

JSE

[Smokey]

I listened to these speakers a couple of week ago and was not impressed at all. Granted they were listened to in BB so that has to be taken into consideration. The mids and highs seemed to be "muted".

The way some of BB speaker audition room is decorated (wall carpeting), I am not surprise by your finding. But as you said, a sub is necessary.

May be with this offering, Athena is trying to find a market in prepackaged HT component market where most speakers are slim or small. I think samsung and Panasonic make same type of slim speakers :)

[JSE]

Man, the BB I was at did not even have a sound room. The speaker section is just a small section of aisles for speakers. Each company has their little section but its wide open in there. The speakers have to compete against the entire store's noise level and other speakers cranked to the max by Hill Bille Bob.