Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

Flat-panel TVs—both plasma and LCD—are wall candy. I've never heard anyone say, "I'm going to buy a plasma TV because the picture looks so much better than what you get from a (fill in your favorite display technology acronym here) projection TV." Nope. People buy flat-panel TVs for one or more of three reasons: they're thin; they're cool; and, boy, do they make your friends RGB with envy. Half a millennium ago, I'm sure that people who could afford it covered their walls with the finest tapestries for exactly the same reasons. Is it any wonder then that panel after panel goes into homes with teeny, tiny, embarrassingly little home-theater-in-a-grocery-bag speakers next to them—or simply with no speakers at all? I blame the salespeople (or lack thereof). I blame the imperialistic, aggressive TV manufacturers who would have us all on bended knee in subservience to the great, glowing flat-panel on the wall. (Talk about must-see TV. . .) And I blame AM talk radio for convincing people that the idea of really good audio cohabitating with nice video is just another wacko liberal concept that will undermine this country. (Yeah, I have issues.)

One thing you can't say about speaker designers and manufacturers is that they haven't been busy over the last 10 to 15 years making drastic changes to the standard speaker form. There may have never been another period like it in the annals of speakerdom. What you can debate, however, is what the driving force for all of this change has been. It strikes me that a good portion of it has been aesthetically and ergonomically motivated, and far less of it has been geared toward making speakers sound better. Now don't get me wrong—I'm not here to trash flat panels, in-walls, wireless speakers, or anything else. Some of these designs can sound very good, despite their inherent compromises, and they are getting better as they mature. They all have their purposes, and many of them have well served people who may not otherwise be interested in speakers outside of those in their televisions, or those folks who aren't willing to give up floor space to accommodate speakers. But special congratulations must be given to those speaker makers who, either through new technologies and designs or not, are actively trying to improve the sound quality of such designs. This quest is as important now as it has ever been.

At about the same time the Spice Girls hit number three on the Billboard charts with "Say You'll Be There" in 1997, Energy Speaker Systems was striking gold of their own with a set of tiny home theater speakers called Take 5.

Snell's new LCR7 speaker system stopped me in my tracks at last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The look was so new and fresh, yet elegant, and there was just something about the way their aluminum ends set off the speakers' curves that spoke to me. Yeah, I'm a sucker for style; but, when I learned that the legendary speaker designer Joe D'Appolito had a hand in creating these snazzy Snells, I was hooked. I doubt there's another designer with more name recognition—he lent his name to the ubiquitous woofer-tweeter-woofer arrangement—a.k.a. D'Appolito array—way back in the early 1980s. His goals for this new generation of Snells were disarmingly straightforward: to have them play loud with low distortion, provide an amplifier-friendly load, and produce razor-sharp imaging. Even a cursory audition of an LCR7 speaker will prove that Joe D'Appolito isn't resting on his laurels.

Aperion makes a big deal out of selling direct. Frankly, this implied criticism of large chain stores has the fishy odor of opportunism. There are many worse places to buy speakers than a huge electronics store. You might, for instance, buy them from the back of a van in a parking lot, as our editors once did. Or you might leave a thick wad of bills on the sidewalk, using a rock as a paperweight, then come back the next day to see if anyone has left any speakers there. When you've exhausted all of those opportunities, call Aperion and say, "Help me, please. I'm not tough enough for the retail environment." You wouldn't be the first.

There are many different approaches to home theater, which is one of the reasons why this magazine is as burly as it is, month after month. The stereo speakers built into many modern televisions are nirvana for some, while carefully matched loudspeakers, preamplifiers, processors, and amps are the only solution that others would ever consider. Somewhere between those two polar extremes are the ubiquitous home-theater-in-a-box systems and novel products like the ZVOX 315 Sound Console. The idea here is simple, and noble, offering your TV a painless upgrade to the inadequate audio it was born with.

Here's a tip for home theater newbies: Don't shop for speakers using just your eyes. That advice holds true for any speaker, regardless of size or price; when it comes to what we euphemistically refer to as "lifestyle" speakers, though, please try to listen before you make a purchase, or you'll deserve what you get. Lifestyle-inflicted design compromises too often exact a toll on performance—skinny towers can sound undernourished, wall-mounted speakers can produce pancake-flat imaging, and pint-size satellites can come up short.