I have two rooms, one for music and one for music and movies. My main room has JansZen Valentina P8s and the other had Revel F206s. I love the JansZens. They replaced Dutch & Dutch 8Cs, not because I thought they were better, but because they got surprisingly close for a fraction of what I had into the 8Cs. The Valentinas are truly remarkable speakers and one of the best I’ve owned. I also really like the Revel F206. I think it is a landmark speaker and it does very little wrong. My problem was that I wanted something a little less sterile and more engaging. At the same time, I was worried I would go too far the other way and end up with a speaker that sounds exciting at first but becomes tiring after a few months. That is how I ended up looking at the Cambridge Edge S. I was also considering the Q Acoustics Concept 500. A dealer I know who sells both told me he thought the Edge S was the much better speaker, so I took a chance on them.
I have to say I am really impressed. They checked pretty much every box I was trying to check. They are more exciting and engaging than the Revels, they have much deeper bass than I expected, and they sound very different from the JansZens without sounding exaggerated or obviously colored. The thing I kept worrying about was whether I only liked them because they were exciting. I don’t have enough confidence in my own speaker knowledge to just say, ‘these are great’ when there are almost no reviews out there to back that up. I also know that some speakers can really grab you at first and then, after a year, you realize they are doing something to every recording. What has made me more comfortable with the Edge S is going back and looking at the measurements and reviews of the Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, which is the speaker the Edge S is based on. The Performance 6 measured extremely well. Stereophile described the on-axis response as impressively flat, the horizontal dispersion was very well controlled, and the decay measurements were very clean. The listening comments also described it as smooth, neutral and very low in coloration. Another publication praised the midrange and the way it reproduced voices. That last part is important to me. Treble and bass are the easy things to notice when you first hear a speaker. A speaker can have huge bass, lots of air and a giant soundstage and make a great first impression. Vocals are harder. The Edge S gets vocals right. Voices have body, texture and presence without sounding pushed at me or artificially warm. Cambridge also did more than simply bring back the Performance 6. The basic idea is the same, but Cambridge says it changed the internal cabinet structure, wiring, driver mounting and alignment, and redesigned the crossover. The crossover is also much simpler than the original. One criticism of the Performance 6 was that it could be a little restrained dynamically, so it is interesting that the Edge S sounds noticeably more lively to me than my Revels, closer to a Devore Gibbon X. That’s a hell of a comparison.
I think part of my concern was that I was equating neutral with laid-back. I’ve owned speakers that are very refined and very good but can also sound a little polite. I’m starting to think those are two different things. A speaker can be neutral and still sound alive. Real music is alive. A snare drum has attack, a trumpet has bite and a singer standing in front of you doesn’t sound polite and recessed. The test I’m trying to use now is whether different recordings actually sound different. If every female vocal eventually starts sounding a little forward, every male voice has the same extra chestiness, or every recording has the same sparkle on top, then I’ll know the speaker is adding something. So far I’m not hearing that. Some recordings are warm, some are thin, some are intimate, some are distant and some sound terrible. To me that is a good sign.
I’ve owned enough speakers at this point to have some decent reference points: Dutch & Dutch 8C, JansZen Valentina P8, DeVore Silverback and Gibbon X, Revel Ultima Gem, Spendor D7, Revel F206 and Dynaudio Contour 3.4, among others. I haven’t loved all of them just because they were expensive or well reviewed. I actually preferred some of the less ‘perfect’ speakers because they sounded more like music to me. That is where I am with the Edge S right now. I’m not ready to call them some hidden giant killer because there simply isn’t enough independent information on them yet. But I also don’t think I’m imagining what I’m hearing. The original Performance 6 was a very serious design, measured extremely well and was expensive for its time. Cambridge took that platform and changed quite a bit of it for the Edge S.
For now I’m keeping them. At some point I’m going to put the Revel F206 back into the exact same system for a full evening instead of doing quick A/B comparisons. If the Revel suddenly sounds more natural, that will tell me something. But my guess is I’m going to appreciate everything the Revel does right and then start missing the presence, immediacy and life of the Edge S. There still aren’t many Edge S owners or reviews out there, so I figured I would post my experience in case anyone else is considering a pair. I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has actually heard the Edge S or the old Performance 6.
