Parting / Random Thoughts
As stated in the Foreword, this written review is purposely a cliff’s notes version. For details about the performance (objectively and subjectively) please watch the YouTube video. But a couple quick notes based on my listening and what I see in the data:
This speaker shares a lot of similarities with the Jamo S803 I reviewed here. It has a midbass bump that isn’t displeasing but paired with the rising response above about 600Hz, what you wind up with is lack of midrange clarity and hollowness and instead get a very treble-heavy sound. I tried turning these speakers out by about 30° to tame the rising midrange/treble but thanks to the diffraction effects from the baffle and the tweeter “waveguide”, the nonlinearity was still too much and the sound was still far from what I find good.
Frankly, the overall performance is not much better than the much cheaper Jamo S803, either. And in some ways actually worse. Not to say that is a good thing for the Jamo S803. What you are paying for with this speaker relative to the S 803 is nicer design/aesthetic. At least in my opinion, this speaker just looks cooler. The C93 II will not take well to equalization so you won’t be able to get it to sound ideal (whatever you deem that to be; sans it being this particular speaker’s sound). Another common retort is “yes, but they’re cheap”. Trust me, I understand the need to find a speaker that is cost-efficient. This is not one of those. The Emotiva B1+ is approximately $250/pair and is a better performer in every way. In quality of sound, from linearity/accuracy of response, soundstage width/depth and output capability.
If you own these speakers and are thinking “dude, you’re wrong, these are great” then I encourage you to find speakers that have a more neutral character to them and give an honest attempt at demoing both side by side. Statistically speaking, you will likely prefer the more neutral speaker. If your goal is to get as much hi-fi or accuracy for your dollar, to hear what the media itself is or what the movie should sound like, then these speakers just are not up to the task based on their extreme non-linear response.
