How much are 4 Cerwin-Vega AT-15's worth?

[Glen B]

With a little care and ingenuity, D-9's, AT-15's, 380SE's and other 15" model CV's can be made to outperform your so-called "audiophile" speakers easily and cheaply. Your impression of them is solely based on the ones you heard which were probably in need of attention, I'm sure. Honestly, I can't understand why people are so quick to bash the "whole" when all they did was listen to the "one" or a "few". I have modified my 380SE's with whole new crossover networks with custom frequency points and they outperformed every single high dollar "audiophile" speaker I put them up against, and all I spent was a few hundred.

Good for you. But he's talking about stock C-Vs, and I agree to some extent that they are not the best sonically (in stock form). I have owned D-9s, 380SEs and AT-15s in past years, so I have more than enough hands-on experience with the brand. As much as I tried to like them, in the longrun, treble and midrange to my ears could be too harsh and strident at times, especially with earlier generation digital playback. Loved the bass though, especially when listening to pipe organ recordings.

[markw]

If you're saying that your speakers came from the factory needing enough attention that you had to totally re-engineer the crossover, the speakers suck to begin with.

Also, remember, it's easy to "change" the sound of something but "better" is subjective.

I pickd up a Tivoli Isong at Sears and it's the best portable hi-fi I've ever owned. It's not where you buy something, it's what you buy.

[JoeE SP9]

There's not a whole lot that pixelthis and I agree on. His opinion of CV speakers is something we do agree on. They are absolutely horrid. They make me want to cut my ears off and run away. If they had used them on Noreiga he would have given up in an hour at most.

markw is correct about re-engineering a pair of speakers. Rather than go through all that, why not buy some decent speakers in the first place? It will probably be cheaper and certainly less time consuming.

With that said, the new CV models that were recently introduced have been getting very good press. I haven't heard them. However, people who's ears and opinions I trust have good things to say about them. They have also said that if you like the traditional CV sound you probably won't like the new ones. That in itself says a lot of good things to me.