Tell me all the bad things about Cornwalls..

20Hz

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.....aside from the fact that they're huge. because I'm going to look at a record collection I may buy today, and the person is selling some cornwall CWOs which I really don't need, but I have heard so many glowing reviews (best speaker I ever heard, stopped chasing the dragon when I got these, tossed my Wilson's after hearing these etc etc) that I'm worried I may come home with them. I'm restoring some ESS AMT 3s and some DQ-10s at the moment so I'm not sure I need another set of big speakers. But like I said...I've heard these are special.
So what's not to like?



I
 
No complaints about the CW IIs other than, as you mentioned, they are quite imposing. They can overwhelm a small room, they need room to breath.
 
It is Big.. and no WAF ( But ironically only speaker my wife said looks good is cornwall, and she hates Aerial Acoustics)
 
I honestly can't think of any apart from size. ..As I mentioned in other threads, I've been lucky to own many great speakers before these (Spica TC-50's, PSB Stratus Minis, Vandersteen 3A Sigs, then most recently, Paradigm S8 v2's) and my new Cornwall III's are better than all of them (and 1/2 the price of the Paradigms) in several key respects. Specifically, wonderful full-range sound even at whisper quiet volumes, extreme efficiency (which means easy to drive w/ affordable amplification) and limitless dynamic range (they can play louder w/out any distortion than any speaker I've ever HEARD, let alone own).

As for WAF, I kinda disagree :) ..You just need to make sure you have the room for them. ..My wife is totally fine w/ mine. Admittedly, she much preferred the look of the Paradigm S8's. She hated the Vandersteens; she said they looked like coffins :(

bothcornwalls.JPG
 
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No complaints about the CW IIs other than, as you mentioned, they are quite imposing. They can overwhelm a small room, they need room to breath.

I totally agree. If your room isn't sufficiently large I'd consider Fortes or even Heresy's. ..I've seen pics of setups on many forums where they are shoehorned into tiny rooms. ..Not sure I'd go that route. Would probably chose a different speaker in such cases

btw, I'm a HUGE RT fan! ..Seen him many times live. "I misunderstood" and "Tam Lin" (Fairport Convention) sound simply awesome on my CW III's!
 
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Well this forum is a terrible place to go to have people talk me out of gear, I’ve found :)

I think I was optimistic in thinking I could blend these in more with our decor but once I heard them I couldn’t say no. They’ll probably end up downstairs in my listening room but for now I tucked them away as much as you can with giant square boxes and if my wife says “what the hell is going on over there?” I’m just going to play dumb. She works in another city during the week so i’ll Just act like they’ve been there all along. Think i’ll get away with it?

—btw I know the placement is not ideal. Don’t care, they sound glorious and full the huge open area effortlessly with beautiful music
 

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There just hard to get your arms around to pick up and move from the car to the listening room. The set-up is essential. They can be a bit bright.
 
I know the placement is not ideal. Don’t care, they sound glorious and full the huge open area effortlessly with beautiful music

As you said, placement may not be ideal but it's a large enough space for sure. ..Beautiful room, btw. ..Love the blue chair. Congrats! I'm sure it sounds great!
 
I honestly can't think of any apart from size. ..As I mentioned in other threads, I've been lucky to own many great speakers before these (Spica TC-50's, PSB Stratus Minis, Vandersteen 3A Sigs, then most recently, Paradigm S8 v2's) and my new Cornwall III's are better than all of them (and 1/2 the price of the Paradigms) in several key respects. Specifically, wonderful full-range sound even at whisper quiet volumes, extreme efficiency (which means easy to drive w/ affordable amplification) and limitless dynamic range (they can play louder w/out any distortion than any speaker I've ever HEARD, let alone own).

As for WAF, I kinda disagree :) ..You just need to make sure you have the room for them. ..My wife is totally fine w/ mine. Admittedly, she much preferred the look of the Paradigm S8's. She hated the Vandersteens; she said they looked like coffins :(

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Damn ODS123, that is one fine looking system. :trebon:
 
As you said, placement may not be ideal but it's a large enough space for sure. ..Beautiful room, btw. ..Love the blue chair. Congrats! I'm sure it sounds great!
Thanks, it does! The room is actually open to the kitchen/dining area where I stood to take the shot, and I wasn’t prepared for how much more really big speakers fill the room with sound. When I’m working in the kitchen or at my desk it still feels like they’re playing in the room, not in the other room :)
 
—btw I know the placement is not ideal. Don’t care, they sound glorious and full the huge open area effortlessly with beautiful music

If you want to play around, you could remove the right speaker, scooch the couch and rug over where the speaker was, and put it up against the right wall. And, I can't tell if there's enough room left (you'd need about 20") you could then lay them on their side to they would be more the same height as the bottom of the windows.

Or, you could just leave them where they are!!:thumbsup:
 
haha my dumb plan seems to be working so far. I put Lyle Lovett
If you want to play around, you could remove the right speaker, scooch the couch and rug over where the speaker was, and put it up against the right wall. And, I can't tell if there's enough room left (you'd need about 20") you could then lay them on their side to they would be more the same height as the bottom of the windows.

Or, you could just leave them where they are!!:thumbsup:

Yeah the sectional and the rug are not moving. They're centered in the other side of the room, with a whole wall of built-ins and a big steel fireplace. The console table in front of the right speaker is at a perfect level for bouncing the mid's output in all sorts of crazy directions, the windows are a terrible place to put speakers next to, they're in corners--it's a mess. Really though, when I want to listen critically I'll go downstairs, right now I'm so happy with the way these sound when just living life with them on- for some reason they sound great (throughout the entire living/dining/kitchen area) despite the crappy placement, and stereo imaging isn't even that bad (when I drag a chair to the listening triangle). Love them so far.

My sneak them in plan is working so far. I put on Lyle Lovett's Pontiac (a great hi-fi show off record) this morning and my wife was like "This sounds awesome I love this album" and came over right in front of the stereo to see who was singing backups. Didn't notice :) We'll see how long it lasts.:rockon:
 
They don't like a lot of power.

Hmmm. Not sure what you mean by this. They certainly don’t need a lot of power because they are so efficient. My Cornwall iii’s play absurdly crazily obnoxiously loud with less than 20 Watts. I suppose if an amp is very powerful and has a very high noise floor, then a lot of power may be a disadvantage. . Thankfully, my 200 W amp produces very little noise. With no source playing and the amp turned all the way up, I have to put my ear right next to the tweeter to hear any sort of hiss
 
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