Weighing in at 45lb's the P1000 was quite "dense" considering it had similar demensions to my BassCube 10, but weighed twice as much. The sub by far was the most interesting piece of the group. These speakers were heavy, and required two of the ball n' claw CSW brackets for support, so that relegated the right sat to our fireplace mantle for support while the rear SC300 sats simply replaced the Ensemble threes and fit the plastic CSW brackets perfectly-one per bracket. The biggest chore was moving an extra bracket over to support one of the MC300 sats. It took me a few hours to set everything up. At the very least I would get the chance to play for a month. So with the understanding that I would take the Newtons home and compare them to my current set-up, I was off and running. Then again the extra money I saved off the package price was also good:-)) Needless to say I left CSW that night with the complete package less the Marantz which I replaced with a floor sample Onkyo TX-DS777 DD, DTS receiver (I have long been a Onkyo fan and have found their products to be quite good the Marantz by comparison didn't seem as well-built to me as the Onkyo. In particular an upgrade from my HT system to the Newton 300 System (MC 300's across the front, with SC300 surrounds, the 1000 watt (yeah, right) P1000 Subwoofer and a Marant SR7000 receiver). So I went down to my neighborhood CSW and talked to Jason (a guy who had taken care of me in the past)about the upgrade. This along with the fact that CSW would take back my current system and give me full credit toward the new one made my rationalizing that more compelling- you got to hand it to these guys, their marketing just pulls you in with low cost systems, then keeps you in the family with an 1 year trade-up policy. Sonic wall paper was the best it could provide with imaging that was neither deep nor well-placed.īeing completely disheartened by my experience with these other systems, I peered at the Newton flyer I received a couple of weeks before and in a moment of weakness I fell prey to the 45 day trial plicy. The system did a good job with HT, but was absolutely horrible with music. Then, over the course of a year, started upgrading the sats and the sub to a point where I had a BassCube 10, Center Channle Plus and Ensemble 3's for the surrounds. So I went out and plunked down $700.00 for the CSW 408 series, both because it was small and sounded reasonably good for HT. At the time my stereo system was an outstanding Classe'/Thiel set-up, so I felt I could purchase my HT system based on HT performance only. Due to money (what else) I had originally settled on CSW for HT because they were cheap, and I already had a great system for critical listening. I should mention that up to this point I had not even considered CSW's Newton series, mainly due to the experince I had with their bass cube and ensemble sats. Sure they made Home Theater sound good, but music fell flat. To my ear they sounded boxy, boomy, and not at all refined. Alas most of these systems were not meant for music listening. Along with those brands I also figured I would try out a couple of Internet Retailers (Home Theater Direct and Edge Audio), but the size of the Level 3 HDT sats were too large (my wife did have a say in how the system would make the family room look), and the steep shipping charges for Edge didn't sound all that attractive if I had to eat the charges- $80.00 for shipping was the cost of some good interconnects, DVD's or a gift for my understanding spouse. I was going to listen to Paradigm, but even though the price was right reviews said that the bass articulation was a weakness. So I went out to Tweeter, and a few local audio shops and listened to multiple sub-sat systems from Mirage (AVS 500), Boston Acoustics, Anthony Gallo Acoustics and PSB. I found that most HT Systems in the under $1000.00 dollar range were either deficient in midrange articulation, or too big and imposing for my family room (17 x 12). I had no false illusions, I knew that in my price range finding a system that did justice to music as well as HT was going to be a tough. So I decided that if I couldn't find a set-up that gave me a good mixture of listening and DVD watching quality I would keep my stereo set-up. My wife thought I was crazy, and questioned whether I really wanted to sell off my stereo set-up- she knows that I find great pleasure in listening to music, so of course she had some concerns about whether making such a move would be a good idea. With a new baby and a house of a limited size I could no longer rationalize taking up two rooms with my "hobby". Up until the beginning of this year I had two discreet systems- one for Home Theater, and one for critical listening. I have sold as well as loved audio since the late 80's and believe I have listened to some of the best (Thiel), and worse (Bose) loudspeakers out there.
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