Energy RC-70????

sooner, i'm confident you'll be pleased. energy doesn't get a ton of play on these pages, perhaps because they market heavily to the ht crowd, but their stuff is consistently solid--their parent, which I believe also owns Klipsch, is a big corporation which spends a ton on R&D (partly subsidized by the Canadian government)and puts forth a high value product. let us know your reactions.

Thanks again, I'll let y'all know!

Got to listen to B&W CM9 pair and was impressed with their detail and clarity. I could get into these used with a CM center and ds3 surrounds for about the same price as the rc70/rclcr/rcr setup new. I'm still waiting to hear the rc's, hopefully the dealer will have a set to demo soon, but I'm tempted to just get the CM9's.

Do you guys feel that CM9's would compare to rc70's?

While I have not heard the RC-70's, I would suggest you move up the line and try to find a pair of Veritas 2.3i's. I auditioned last year next to Paradigm Studio 100's and S8's. To my ears, the Energy's were far more resolving and better integrated than the 100's. While the S8's--at more than double the cost-- had the slight edge in treble refinement, they could still not top the expression of the Veritas' dome midrange.

The Energy Reference Connoisseur line offers a completely different presentation of that to B&W's CM series. As you'd come to expect from Energy, the RC-70s are smooth but also extremely rich and detailed. The high frequencies are some of the smoothest I've heard at their given price point. I've read that the RC series is designed with the usage of home theater in mind, but I strongly disagree with those statements. I'm using the RC-70s in a two-channel system and they sound equally impressive, if not more, with music. Both imaging and soundstage are very solid with these speakers. They are on the warm side of neutral, which isn't a bad thing at all since you could listen to them comfortably for hours and hours. It seems that Energy isn't a well known name in audiophile circles, so it always grates on me I hear people tell me to "upgrade" the RC-70s with B&W, JBL, etc. John Tchilinguirian, the engineer behind Energy's highly acclaimed Veritas line, designed the RC series and also incorporated the former's aluminum-dome tweeter and tapered crossover into the series. Unfortunately, Klipsch acquired their parent company, API, and discontinued with the brand's cherry and rosenut finishes.

I haven't had a chance to listen to the CM9s, but I did hear the CM7s and thought they were overpriced IMO. While they did offer extremely good bass response for such a small enclosure, I noticed the tweeter had a metallic harshness to it which I didn't enjoy.

You can't go wrong with either, but it depends on what kind of sound you like. As long as you're using quality components, you'll be happy either way. If you decide to go with the Energy's, you won't get the snob appeal of the B&W's. But what you will get is impressive performances that rivals that of much expensive speakers.