You were all wrong

VR3 · January 2005

My friend has some Cerwin Vega speakers and subs and runs them on a yamaha amp and a kenwood receiver as a preamp...

Any company that can put a ! at the end of their logo with a straight face deserves the status they get.

They are definetely nothing worth posting about. They are loud though, and can shake foundations. Fair enough?

outlander · January 2005

Im not here to bash anybody but speaking from experience you just cant compare the D9s to a good pair of Polk, theres just no comparison. The 9s are OK if you want to play loud booming music. But if you could A/B the 9s with say a pair of Monitor 10Bs I think you would agree. But as they say beauty is in the eye (ear) of the beholder. If your friend likes them, then buy him a bottle of aspirin and let him enjoy them.
O

opus · January 2005

I haven't been around here long but even I can see the pattern....

Somebody comes in with guns ablazing taking shots at eveybody,
Gets called to the carpet by the Polks and then starts to whine how the Polks are rude, elitest and he was misunderstood.

Listen Jerks...Have no attitude, Get no attitude.
I've seen people come in with questions about $400 HTIB and get sincere and thoughtful answers. The key is not questioning everybody's manhood when you do it.

And BTW, who the hell are you to determine when this thread is finished. It will be done when we are done with you.

PolkThug · January 2005

Spent some time with some old school Cerwin Vegas this weekend. They had some tremendous bass, no seperate sub needed. I didn't check what model they were but the woofers were either 12's or 15's. Midrange was lacking.

Loud & Clear · January 2005

Good home theater mains, just an incredible amount of bass and no sub needed. Wouldn't run them in a two channel setup, though.

polksda · January 2005

The resident advisor for my college dorm (well, not really a dorm, it was a falling-down house named "The Annex" where the transfer students stayed) back in 1986 had a sound system that included a big honking pair of Cerwin Vegas. Huge brown woofers with orange rims, if memory serves. No clue as to what the model was. I remember them being.... loud. And loud. And on occasion they were quite loud. About the only worthwhile part of his sound system was a high-current Harman Kardon integrated amplifier. It didn't matter what the source was, as the sound was ultimately coming out of the Cerwin Vegas.

Then a couple of us living in the basement ended up buying our first Polk monitors. I had a pair of 7s and the kid across the hall had Monitor 10s. Ours weren't as loud, but man were they sweet!

I remember hearing Phil Collins "Hello I must be Going" CD for the first time on those monitor 10s, and the crispness and force of the percussion attacks was just incredible.... one of the memories that still sticks out to this day.

The Cerwin Vegas? Landfill fodder long ago...

EricH · January 2005

The Kawasaki in the picture is an original KZ1000R Eddie Lawson replica, and is a collectors item. The Cerwin Vegas may or may not suck, but the bike is a classic.

RuSsMaN · January 2005

Who cares about the bike. Hopefully he rides it without a helmet, and has his organ-donor card with him.

EricH · January 2005

Obviously not you. The bike was the most interesting thing in this little catfight thread.

F1nut · January 2005

YAWN!

Tropic-Al · January 2005

For what it's worth...you veterans on this forum rock.Other than the fact I have always liked POLK speakers, it was your comments and suggestions that led me to my recent purchase.You guys give sound unbiased advice- don't let one person ruin it for you. Keep up the advice!!:p

Pines · January 2005

Being new to the forum I wouldn't like to waste any time on such a dumb matter but the harley bashing comment stuck with me. A man who rides a bike that looks like that just shouldn't say much. Collectible or not that's one ugly **** bike.

Kevinvb11 · January 2005

If you were to buy a Yugo and put a race engine in it in the end it's STILL a YUGO. Yes it may be a fast one from one light to another but when you consider a Porsche, equally as fast if not more, it will out perform that Yugo in EVERY ASPECT, on a road course or not.

Also if the dude is happy with the way his Vegas sound, then fine. But don't come into an fairly experienced forum and shout out "you are all idiots and I proved you wrong"... Because I think there are a few folks out there that have finely tuned systems, that took hours upon hours to setup BTW, and they wouldn't waste thier time doing the same to a pair of CV's and you know what..... I wouldn't do the same to a Yugo, because in the end it's still a Yugo.

Happy Listening!
Kevin

polksda · January 2005

Originally posted by Kevinvb11
If you were to buy a Yugo and put a race engine in it in the end it STILL a YUGO. Yes it may be a fast one from one light to another but when you consider a Porsche, equally as fast if not more, it will out perform that Yugo in EVERY ASPECT, on a road course or not.

Yeah, but you can still dress 'em up purty!

Another anecdote following your Yugo comparison.: Back in '88 or so I remember seeing the most gawdawful waste of a verhicle ever: A rear spoiler and a monster-sized racing hood scoop... on a puke-yellow Chevette! (No, not CORvette, CHEvette).

I never laughed so hard in my life... it's amazing what the trailer park crowd will do.

TroyD · January 2005

In the end, personal preferences are subjective. That said, if you like something, that's fine and if you want to tell others you like it, that's fine too. Where people run into problems is when they start questioning the integrity of other folks.

Look gang, this ain't rocket science. If you mind your manners, you most likely aren't going to have any problems. Your mom was right, you know.

BDT

Toxis · January 2005

Originally posted by Pines
Collectible or not that's one ugly **** bike.

good, so I'm not the only one thinking "Are you serious?" I'm not a harley fan by any means (The V-rod looks bad **** but I'm not a bike guy) but you have to have SOME respect for it...

kevinfc · January 2005

Come now gang, the cv's arent that bad...lol. He is probably the same guy in the dodge hemi commercials. Plus if you want a real kawasaki to be proud of try a zx-10 and be a real man. But since you love cv's then i guess you would be happy with a sub par bike as well. But that bike and cv's do match....alot of noise and nothing else behind it.

I am a bike owner and polk audio owner as well.

Hond CBR1000rr
Yamaha R-1

brettw22 · January 2005

Originally posted by Tropic-Al
You guys give sound unbiased advice- don't let one person ruin it for you.

Many have tried, and many will fail......miserably I might add.....;)

rskarvan · January 2005

I used to have a 1999 ZRX 1100A in green/purple/white.
Awesome bike.

I traded it in for a 2000 ZX12-R. A much better bike.

My other bike is a CBR600RR. Another great bike.

Nice ride you got there. Kawasaki is king ! ! !

George Grand · February 2005

C-V's are loudspeakers for children. There is NOTHING sonically redeeming about them. Nothing. Whoever thought they heard deep bass while listening to them was fairly well overcome by accentuated mid-bass. The low-end coming out of those things (15" woofs) is easily outdone by any competently designed 10" acoustic suspension design.

They suck, plain and simple.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

quickr1 · February 2005

that bike is wack. u aint nuttin if u dont ride a yamaha.

Loud & Clear · February 2005

Originally posted by George Grand
C-V's are loudspeakers for children. There is NOTHING sonically redeeming about them. Nothing. Whoever thought they heard deep bass while listening to them was fairly well overcome by accentuated mid-bass. The low-end coming out of those things (15" woofs) is easily outdone by any competently designed 10" acoustic suspension design.

They suck, plain and simple.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

Well, I think that's a bit overstated.

F1nut · February 2005

GG's comments about as accurate as possible concerning this matter. As far as speakers go, they don't get much worse, IMO.

Loud & Clear · February 2005

Ok, so you're saying that those 15" woofs don't produce deep bass, but instead are tuned to accentuate midbass?

I used to own Cerwin Vega's AT-15's, which ran from '87-'97, I believe. I really, really think that these speakers achieved deep bass.

I'd be interested to see the specifications on these. I mean, who knows, maybe they only produced midbass and rolled off in the forties somewhere.

TroyD · February 2005

The size of the woofer isn't really the issue.

I've got a pair of Pioneer CS-88's that have a 15" woof and my LSi9's absolutely dust them in terms of bass response as do my Large Advents...yada yada yada.

What happens a LOT is pump up the midbass a few db (like hitting the loudness button on a boombox) and it sounds like there is more bass than actually exists. Bose is famous for this.

BDT

Loud & Clear · February 2005

I think I'll try to get some specs on those old AT-15's to see if in fact they didn't produce any deep bass, but instead were eq'd empty suits. It would seem strange though, that a cabinet that size with a woofer that size didn't produce deep bass.

ninerbj · February 2005

I have a set of C-V AT-8's sitting in the corner of my basement. My buddy was ...WAS a die hard CV guy for many years.
One night while attending a party at his house, he asked for my most honest opinion on what I felt about his current "system". Of couse I took the polite avenue and told him if he was happy with it then that was all that matters.
Things were fine up until he said..."I love my Cerwins...and I think they sound better than your Polks"
DOH! With my ears bleeding from the crap that had been pumping out of those boxes all night I thought at first I was hearing things until he said it again..."they have great bass and are soooo loud...lot's better than your Polk's"

Them bees fighting words!

Now let me explain something. I have a degree in recording engineering, (although I don't pratice it anymore) I have heard speakers from Wilson Watt Puppy all the way down the line to Bose and boom boxes. Does this make me an expert? Hell no! But it does give me a little credibility to say I have heard enough different set ups to understand what is out there and what compares to what.
I own a pair of Polk S-10's...I have had them for years. If anyone that understands staging, highs, mids, lows has ever sat down and really listened to the S'10s, they would know that these are NOT the best sounding speakers Polk has ever put out. The highs are shrill, the midbass is lacking and the bass response is flat. Imaging is the strongest point these speakers possess.
With this in mind, I still did not hesitate when we made a date for a true A/B comparison the following week.

I could go on about how the above comparison went, but I will cut to the chase.
A week after our little get together, he went out and bought himself a nice pair of RTi8's (what his budget afforded him) and told me to keep the CV's for my garage or something. And I quote..."You keep um, I'm too embarrassed to even put them up for sale".

I could put them in my garage like he suggested, but I honestly think those speakers have never sounded better sitting in the corner of my basement, unhooked and used for a make shift plant stand.

Brad

dorokusai · February 2005

Right on Brad!

George Grand · February 2005

When I was being paid to demo Carver stuff in 1991, I was also being paid to demo C-V. This was at military BX's.

The two C-V flagships were the MX-250, and MX-400. MX stood for Military Exchange. I am convinced these were nothing more than re-numbered models that already existed in C-V's line, but couldn't be sold as those by the BX because of local distributor problems (If the military guys know they're the same, why should they drive out the base gate to spend twice as much money on the same speaker).

The MX-400 had a 15" woof, one or two 5" mids, and a tweeter with resettable circuit breaker protection. The speaker weighed 90lbs. I couldn't listen to them for thirty seconds they were so offensive. I would venture the -3db point on those was in fact somewhere in the low 50's, high 40's.
At the time I had a pair of AR-5's, a 10", three-way, acoustic suspension legend.
There was so little comparison, a 5 year old child could have noted the glaring differences. The AR-5 was about half the size of those nightmares.

I demoed C-V alright. I demoed how well they worked as a stand for the little Infinity SM-80, a ported 8" two-way which was bad, but not nearly as objectionable as the C-V's.

And that's that.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

hotwheelman · February 2005

Cerwin vega is best suited to producing speaks for sound renforcment such as nightclub and larger venue......anything produced for home just aint up to the plate.

You were all wrong

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