B&W cm6-02 book shelf speakers

[fixitornixit]

How does everyone feel about these Bowers & Wilkens cm6-02 speakers? My son was given a pair for helping a girlfriend move into a new house. One tweeter was blown, but the other is working fine. He has since ordered the replacement tweeter from B&W and installed it. Both work like new now. He has an Onkyo HT-r550 receiver with only these two speakers hooked up to it. He only uses for listening to music in his small apartment.
My questions are: Were these speakers designed for HT use as front or rear speakers in a surround type set up? They are pretty darn heavy.
Can they produce enough at the low end to provide good listing stereo music? He listens to reggae mostly. Thanks for any input in advance......

 

[zaibatsu]

Guessing you mean CM6-S2.

They are good speakers and can be used as stereo mains, the key to getting best performance from these is to find the matching B&W stands, fill them with something heavy (dried sand etc) and bolt them to the mounting holes on the base of each speaker. You can also make your own stands, the key is still to ensure they are heavy and match the factory mounting holes so that they can be bolted down securely. The intent is that the mass of the speaker and stand become one. Bass performance then becomes impressive for the small driver/cabinet size and imaging tightens up.

The downsides are that they can be a little treble-heavy and the mids are not as full / well-integrated as the 805 series. The tweeters/drivers in these speakers are exceptional (superior to those of past) and are not to blame for this. The treble is just a result of B&Ws modern crossover tuning, if the level is too high for your tastes it is very easy to tweak with a 1Ω - 2Ω resistor replacing the jumper between the two positive speaker terminals (speaker wire goes to mid/bass positive post, then resistor from there to the tweeter's positive post; stock jumper remains between the two negative posts). If pursuing this path the choice of resistor is critical and audible - I'd only use Caddock MP9100 - expensive but worth it. The mids being less full are a function of the speaker design - the front-ported 805 series sound better to my ears, but it's not a deal breaker.

Basically if you're willing to put in a little time and effort, they can be a great stereo pair.