Customer Reviews

Boston Acoustics SOUNDWAREW Soundware 4.5-Inch Indoor/Outdoor Coaxial Speaker (White)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These "anywhere" speakers look great on our bookshelf, but clearly suffer from their small size. The bass effect is weak at best. We got them at less than list price, so I guess they were a decent buy. However, at full price they just don't deliver the quality I would expect.

I actually tested these in Circuit City and they sounded great then. I bought them here due to the price difference. For the price, these are a great deal and they were easy to install.

It took me a while to find the right set of speakers that wuold drive a common area in the basemant that we just finished. As I spent a good amount of money in the home theater section of the basemant I wanted something more economical for this area. At a $100 list price and $80 purchase price these speakers are great. The mounting mechanism allowed me to put 2 in the corner of the room and the other 2 in the face of an area where I needed them. Once I made the right adjustments on the receiver (lowered the treble, increased the bass) the sound is really good for a set of speakers in this price range.

Okay this is my first ever Amazon review. I first bought one at Frys just to see if this was what I was looking for and between the install and set up it hit the mark, replacing a 20 or even 30 year old speaker (anything would be a upgrade from there). Got the second from here and since I still have more power going out to the backyard I am about to buy two more.

I gave this product 4 stars instead of 5 because I think the description and photos make the speaker seem smaller than it really is and because I think the natural tone of the sound is too high for someone to use these as all 5 (or 7) of their speakers. For my purposes, which is that I wanted rear speakers that disappeared into the walls, I'd give it a 4.5 because the sound is good for surround speakers, the white color helps it disappear, and even though the size is larger than expected, it has a cool shape.

SOUND: I am using these speakers as my rear surround speakers in a home theater setup (5.1) that I also use to play music sometimes. The sound is very clear and the white color makes them blend into my walls nicely. The speakers tend to transmit more treble than bass - this is fine for surround speakers, but I am not sure that I would like to use these speakers for my fronts - it might depend on the subwoofer I use and what bass/treble adjustments I can make at the receiver/amplifier level - and I am almost positive that I would not want to use this as my center-channel speaker.

SIZE: The shape of the speakers are really interesting and allows you to lay it on a surface at different angles, which is useful if this will be used as a bookshelf speaker. The attachments make installing the speakers very easy (I installed mine on the wall). These speakers are small, but I was surprised that they weren't even smaller - the photos make them seem smaller than they really are. The title calls them 4.5" speakers, but that refers to the main speaker driver (the larger circle under the grill that gives the mid and bass sound - the grill is not removable, by-the-way), not the size of the speaker casing. I cannot securely hold the speaker with 1 hand, but it should still be considered as one of the smaller speakers on the market. It is just not amazingly small.

SIDE NOTES: This speaker comes in many colors. For those of you (like me) with white walls, if the speaker wire is going to show, it is worthwhile to spend a little more money to get "in wall" speaker wire even if the wires will not go in the wall. Most "in wall" wire that I have seen only costs a little more and the wire casing is white, so it looks better. You can still differentiate the positive and negative wires by patterned markings that are only noticeable close up.

Don't know if this matters to anyone, but on this setup, I am using Klipsch Quintents as my center and front speakers. I also have a Klipsch powered subwoofer. The reason I didn't use the Klipsch speakers for my rears is that they are black. I took the 2 Klipsch rears that came in the package to upgrade my speakers in another room. The Klipsches are better speakers than the boston acoustics - the sound is richer and fuller and the size is similar.