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Thank you for the update. I have a couple questions for you.What is the sensitivity of this speaker (I'm assuming it's 87-ish).How heavy is the flat pack?Regards,Michael
Great pics/flat packs. Any suggestions (links) for finishing the cabinets (from veneering, to automotive paint, to roughened texture)? I'm not one who wants to spend more on finish than the working parts, but if there's good advice out there I'm sure we'd all like to have it.
Are you doing the flat packs in house?Do you have a show room where your products can be heard?Thanks,Bob
Wow, those are REALLY beautifully finished. What is the price for a set like that?
On February 3rd three of my friends and I from one of my audio clubs visited Kerry Armes (new co-owner of CSS) at his nice home to audition some CSS offerings. His living room is roughly 16ft x 24ft with 9ft ceilings with connecting kitchen/dining room and a double door opening to a front office (in total about 7,000 cubic feet). The space is untreated. Speakers were centered on the long wall and placed on the corners of his A/V credenza. Associated gear included MacBook Pro equipped with iTunes, wirelessly fed to a Marantz SR5003 receiver.We first listened to his P215 speakers (the white ones pictured above in replies #9 and 28 with raised wood veneer side panels and aluminum trim). They use in-house LD22 soft dome tweeter and Satori MW 13P-8 (5 inch) woofers in a 0.3 cubic foot ported cabinet. This pair had the standard crossover. Performance specifications are: 87 dB/w/m, 8 ohms (reportedly benign), F3 = 52 Hz, crossover roughly at 2,100 Hz (different order crossovers used for each driver to improve integration). Overall impression was a detailed presentation with very good depth of soundstage, but output was limited in that large space. Note that these speakers were estimated to 30 hours of use on them. Based on modest cabinet size and woofer size I’d recommend them for small rooms or desktop use. Obviously a subwoofer would help. Pricing shown on the website is per pair for drivers and crossover. CNC flat packs add $100. Plan on $40 more for stuffing and binding posts. Next we listened to the Criton 1TD, another 2-way monitor that uses the same tweeter but with an in house 7 inch LDW7 woofer in a 0.5 cubic foot ported cabinet. This pair had an upgraded crossover. Specifications: 87 dB/w/m, 8 ohms (again benign), F3=39Hz, crossing over around 1,600 Hz (again different order crossovers for each driver). This pair were deemed to be fully broken in. These speakers were much more comfortable at filling the large space (felt more at ease), were much more musical, more mid-bass body, of course more/deeper bass, and again wonderful soundstage depth. Kerry then pulled out examples of CNC flat packs and crossover back plate. Pre-rabbited, holes cut for binding posts/drivers, perfect workmanship in HDF panels (see reply #20 above). The back plate (pictured in reply #19 above) was a wonderful example of “why didn’t we think of this before”, made of heavy inert plastic, pre-formed/drilled (including zip tie holes), all wiring holes and component positions labeled. He also brought out a massive 46 pound in-house SDX12 (XBL^2) 12-inch subwoofer driver before we listened to a sci-fi movie with a sub using this driver with (2) in-house APR12 passive radiators. The sub delivered lots of clean, deep bass. Note that Dan Wiggins owns the royalty to the XBL^2 technology which basically is a mechanical servo (deemed superior to electrical servo found in many subwoofer amps). I happen to own the 10-inch version with matching plate amp in a 14-inch cubic sealed cabinet and love it in my audio system.In summary CSS caters to high-end audio/HT customers with their current offerings, and especially the timid DIYer who seek quality components and high value content. Thanks so much to Kerry for inviting us into his home and hope to see CSS around for years to come.
I bought a number of things from the prior iteration of CSS when it was (like me) in Canada.I am still using the LDW7 woofers in a DIY speaker. I had purchased a 1TR kit (in house developed ribbon tweet based off Aurum Cantus I believe) and enjoyed it, but ultimately went DIY for a 2nd set of speakers.In my experience, all the products from CSS were always excellent!Glad to see the new US owners up and running around here. Best of luck with the venture.
