Cerwin Vega! CLS-215 Dual 15" 3-Way Tower Speakers

by Cerwin-Vega

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 51.5 x 16.5 x 19 inches ; 162.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 125 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000EHWDQS
• Item model number: CLS-215
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,605 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

500w 6.5" Midrange With Fiber-Impregnated Cone 1" Soft Dome Tweeter With Ferrofluid Dual 15" Cast-Frame High-Excursion Woofers Freq Resp: 24 Hz 20 Khz Sensitivity: 97 Db @ 1w/1 M Proprietary Mid- & High-Frequency Waveguide Fuse Protection Black Ash Enclosure 5-Year Warranty * Each

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good - all things considered, August 3, 2007

By 

M. Baxter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cerwin Vega! CLS-215 Dual 15" 3-Way Tower Speakers (Electronics)

These days small effecient loudspeakers are the trend and there are few choices if you're old school and believe that size really does matter. Even though I was unable to find a dealer close by where I could audition these speakers, I gambled by going ahead and purchasing a pair anyway.

All things considered, I think they sound very good and believe that 8 out of 10 people would agree with me. The 2 that would'nt agree with me are most likely to be the super hi-fi connosisseur types with inflated egos and bank accounts. If its true that you get what you pay for, then I know that you can buy better sounding speakers. But I'm satisfied with the speakers performance.

The manufacturer doesn't state the minimum power requirements to drive these speakers, only that they handle 500 watts peak. Sensitivity is 96 db 2.83v/1m so they are fairly efficient 8 ohm impedance speakers. Keeping to the rule that its better to have more power than you need as opposed to not having enough power will cause you to drive your amplifier into a clipping wave signal, I would warn against driving these speakers with anything less than 100 watts rms per channel. Having said that, I am only using 120 watts rms per channel to drive my speakers and it seems to be sufficient power. (a little more would be better) Sometimes I like it loud and I never have to push the volume past the halfway point to reach the THAT'S LOUD ENOUGH level. Even at that volume the music is clear and pleasant sounding. The two 15 inch woofers don't seem to over power the midrange and tweeter, they just share the low frequency load equally so the bass isn't over worked where as one 15 inch woofer might start to distort and break up a bit when pushed. The speakers can be biamped, seperating the tweeter and midrange section to be driven by one amp and the two woofers by another amp. The enclosures have rear facing ports in a bass reflex design that help achieve a stated low frequency response down to 24 hz. That's almost impossible to accomplish in a box smaller than a double wide fridge. Even the single 15 inch woofer model CLS-15 is stated to have a 26 hz low frequency capability.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars These monsters ROCK!, April 23, 2008

By 

T. Khandelwal ""music junkie"" (Corona, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cerwin Vega! CLS-215 Dual 15" 3-Way Tower Speakers (Electronics)

Order
Ordered two of these together actually just based on the reviews I had read on various websites. I am glad I decided to take a chance on these monsters. First of all, be prepared to deal with the size, these speakers are 4" tall and deep, not to mention the weight; each one coming in around 110 lbs.

Installation
Carried one of these home since both would not fit in my car and hooking up to my Marantz SR8500 was a breeze. These speakers can be biampd so somewhere down the road, the preamp out from Marantz will drive couple of Crown amps. These speakers are rated 500W and the Marantz is capable of 175W per channel so I will be clipping the amp much sooner than these speakers. I ran out of space to put my subwoofer so temporarily placed it on top of these speakers..i know..not the best thing to do but I thought I will be replacing my sub with a Cerwin Vega as well.

Sound
Now for the first test, I played some Mozart just to get a feel for the midrange and tweeter...yes Mozart...it will sound strange to hear classical music coming from speakers that look like they want to be driven hard. The tracks were played "Pure Direct" without any preprocessing. Surprisingly the sound was clear and much better than a pair of Bose 701 that I replaced. Couldnt wait for the next test which was a track most of you may not have heard of [Group - Babble; Track - Tribe]. Slowly opened the volume from -40 db moving up -2 db at a time to -15 db. Let me tell you, these speakers played that track flawlessly and the bass was tight and the bottoms were low. Slowly moved from -15 db to 0 db and at this point every object on the mantel piece was vibrating. I decided to go to + 5 db (amp max is +20 db) and I must have triggered another amplifier stage..the sound jumped like turbo was kicked in a car and these speakers were pounding and replaying the track perfectly. Yes, serious audiophiles may disagree with me but I have not heard such serious bass from residential rigs. My couch was giving me a massage and I remember feeling that I was sliding off. I thought I would try the same without the sub turned on and see how much bass these speakers could muster and to my surprise I realized that the sub was not even playing, it had been off the whole time! At this point I have disconnected my sub because with the bottoms this speaker can hit, a sub is just a distraction.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars They are Large and LOUD, May 12, 2007

By 

James Dulaney - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cerwin Vega! CLS-215 Dual 15" 3-Way Tower Speakers (Electronics)

Sound great, they need to be powered by more power than most home stereo
receivers have. I recomend a solid 250 rms to make them sing. A standard 100-110 rms receiver will not do these speakers justice.