Cambridge soundworks tower bi-polar floor speakers

Cambridge SoundWorks (CSW) has earned a solid reputation for the quality and value of its loudspeakers during the eight years of the company's existence. This reflects the technical expertise and quality standards of its co-founder, Henry Kloss, who has been responsible for many advances in consumer audio products, especially speakers, over the past four decades. He was also founder or co-founder of several other companies noted for significant advances in consumer electronics, including Acoustic Research (AR), Advent, and Kloss Video. For most of its existence, CSW has been known primarily as a manufacturer of compact and inexpensive loudspeakers and music systems sold by mail order. A couple of years ago, however, the company began opening retail stores and now has a chain of outlets in New England and California. CSW recently introduced its first floor-standing speakers, which are described as being equally suitable for music and home-theater applications. There are currently three models in the new Tower series: the Tower ($1,500 a pair), a three-way bipolar system; the Tower II ($1,000 a pair), the front-firing three-way system reviewed here; and the Tower III ($600 a pair), a front-firing two-way system. The Tower II is a columnar speaker whose drivers are vertically aligned on the front panel. At the top is a 1-inch soft-dome tweeter, and under it is a 5-1/4-inch polypropylene midrange driver operating in a sealed subenclosure. Below that are two 8-inch polypropylene cone woofers operating in a vented enclosure whose port is near the bottom of the back panel. The four drivers are concealed by a removable black cloth grille that matches a small cloth-covered section at the bottom of the front panel, which is 1 inch thick. The cabinet has 3/4-inch-thick side and back panels and internal cross-bracing. The two sets of gold-plated binding posts on the back, which are linked together by removable jumpers, accept wires, lugs, and banana plugs (single or dual)....