Originally Posted by
omerome
So here are my thoughts. Now, it may sound like I'm going all over the place as you read on and it's because I am! It's hard to put these thoughts in order because I didn't have any! The speakers arrived on Thursday afternoon and I greeted the UPS guy before he even ran my doorbell lol. I immediately grabbed them and started to unbox them and put them together. I originally mounted the 2EXs on my old SF30s just to try them out, and yes, it was a little too high so I just ordered the SF26s to bring them to ear level. And I think that was probably the reason why my initial impression was mildly impressive. Once I got past the boring assembly of the SF26s when they came in on Saturday, it was back to listening. Now to be fair, my old Energy speakers are still in their own right very good at what they do, but I have to say, the 2EXs have detail that I didn't expect and I was seriously impressed as I listened to more content. I mean, how in the world are the 2EX speakers outputting so much sound?! I mean, it is really something else. I started to hear what it is hard to explain, but in my opinion as more detailed bass in some songs in the mid-range and I hope I am explaining this right. But I found previously in some songs where the bass from the mids have sounded like one note - almost muddy. But I was hearing several different thumps - like I was hearing more of the notes I should be hearing - and in some cases, quick thumps, instead of everything blending together as one. So I started listening to different albums in my music collection (Mariah Carey, Tamia, Usher, etc., and even some Jazz) and I was just impressed with parts of the song I don't remember hearing even after having many of those songs on repeat over the years! Also, what I really like about these speakers is that I can actually see myself falling asleep while listening to music! It's so relaxing and not fatiguing. Now I see why my dad used to do this while I was a kid.
Anyways, it wasn't just in music. I also listened to some movies, watched some TV shows, and played video games and like the 2EXs, I was mildly impressed with the Duo center at first. It sounded thin, but started to sound clearer with the more content I started to play through it. Call me crazy, but watching Dunkirk even at -16 was more than audible for me and that movie if you haven't watched it really can shake a room and these speakers did that with my SB13 Ultra sub. It really makes me wonder how some of you all listen to reference levels!
The HTM 200s as my surround speakers were every bit as good as I hoped. I just had a bit of an issue unrelated to the speakers themselves, in that I had to extend my speaker wire a bit more because it was about 4-5 inches too short to connect to the new surrounds since the RC-10s were a direct replacement and they were deeper. But once I got over that problem, I loved the smaller stature of these speakers while at the same time liked just how well they blended in with everything. Playing FF7 Remake and panning the camera side to side to hear the voices change from left to right so seamlessly without sounding overbearing was amazing.