CMT-340SE vs my old Apogee Centaurs
Just some quick first impressions should any potential buyers be looking at the CMT340's for LCR home theater application:
Transparent. I thought my old Apogee Centaurs were transparent, but these 340's are up there. I'd been wanting some M&K's for years, well, decades, and after discovering Ascend's engineering connection to the old M&K, I decided to look into it some more.
Placement insensitive. Hopefully later this year I'll have some remodeling done and a dedicated HT room and maybe some of the deficiencies in the current listening area (living room open to the kitchen/dining room) will be gone. The Apogees are far more sensitve to wall (or lack thereof) placement. The CMT's do quite well with one speaker pretty much in a corner, the other with an open side wall.
Price. Noting that the Sierras are probably going to have a closer sound to the Apogees, I was intrigued, but at the moment, there's a drag car in my garage that is sucking up most of my 'entertainment funding' and of course, there's that constant home remodeling that many of us seem to never end with.
Soooo, I decided to start with a CMT340 Center, and so I bought a b-stock, and after waiting a few weeks to get it, I noticed, well did "not" notice, any thing to lead me to believe it was a b-stock. As a rather old, grisly mechanical engineer, I definitely put "function" orders of magnitude over "form". And that CMT340 Center really impressed me with it's transparent sound.
So I ordered a matching set of CMT340 mains.
System is simply a Denon AVR-X1200W driving (thru mostly Blue Jeans cables) the CMT340's with SVS SBS-2's for surround and Polk T15 for top middle and SVS PB10-ISD and SB2000, all for a 5.2.2 Atmos configuration.
After going thru the Denon's Audysee setup, I went thru a few movies and some music and all I can say is the 340's provide a relatively uncolored, transparent foundation across the front. Eventually I'll get the Apogees rebuilt, but according to some REW measurements I've made, they seem ok. If anything, I think I'll relegate the Apogees to a 2.1 music-only room.
I would not hesitate to buy these CMT340's again. In fact, I'm contemplating replacing the old SVS bookshelf surrounds with CMT170's and maybe even replace the Atmos-duty Polks.
Re: CMT-340SE vs my old Apogee Centaurs
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psi416LS
Just some quick first impressions should any potential buyers be looking at the CMT340's for LCR home theater application:
Transparent. I thought my old Apogee Centaurs were transparent, but these 340's are up there. I'd been wanting some M&K's for years, well, decades, and after discovering Ascend's engineering connection to the old M&K, I decided to look into it some more.
Placement insensitive. Hopefully later this year I'll have some remodeling done and a dedicated HT room and maybe some of the deficiencies in the current listening area (living room open to the kitchen/dining room) will be gone. The Apogees are far more sensitve to wall (or lack thereof) placement. The CMT's do quite well with one speaker pretty much in a corner, the other with an open side wall.
Price. Noting that the Sierras are probably going to have a closer sound to the Apogees, I was intrigued, but at the moment, there's a drag car in my garage that is sucking up most of my 'entertainment funding' and of course, there's that constant home remodeling that many of us seem to never end with.
Soooo, I decided to start with a CMT340 Center, and so I bought a b-stock, and after waiting a few weeks to get it, I noticed, well did "not" notice, any thing to lead me to believe it was a b-stock. As a rather old, grisly mechanical engineer, I definitely put "function" orders of magnitude over "form". And that CMT340 Center really impressed me with it's transparent sound.
So I ordered a matching set of CMT340 mains.
System is simply a Denon AVR-X1200W driving (thru mostly Blue Jeans cables) the CMT340's with SVS SBS-2's for surround and Polk T15 for top middle and SVS PB10-ISD and SB2000, all for a 5.2.2 Atmos configuration.
After going thru the Denon's Audysee setup, I went thru a few movies and some music and all I can say is the 340's provide a relatively uncolored, transparent foundation across the front. Eventually I'll get the Apogees rebuilt, but according to some REW measurements I've made, they seem ok. If anything, I think I'll relegate the Apogees to a 2.1 music-only room.
I would not hesitate to buy these CMT340's again. In fact, I'm contemplating replacing the old SVS bookshelf surrounds with CMT170's and maybe even replace the Atmos-duty Polks.
Great review -- thank you! I remember those old Apogee's -- I was a fan of their full range ribbon speakers.
Re: CMT-340SE vs my old Apogee Centaurs
Thanks for your evaluation .... I have been considering a set of theses as a surround speaker to compliment my Raal Towers ... I like video concerts and I think it would work out well ..Maybe a little bit of overkill ... We have a few things in common .. I currently have M&Ks ( B-1600's) as my current surrounds, and I too have a Drag car ( NHRA SuperStocker ) in the garage that keeps getting in the road of improvements in our audio systems ...
