CERWIN-VEGA! XLS-15 15" 3-Way Home Audio Floor Tower Speaker – Powerful Bass, Clear Highs, Premium Sound for Home Theater & Music Systems

Go Big...or...Go Home! I am tired of all the mamby-pambies out there telling us small speakers and sub-woofers are the way to go. These are definitely the monster truck of home speakers but, while they are speakers designed for a man, they can play delicate like a woman. I am an Amazon Prime member but, I purchased my speakers new in a private sale and mine were packaged way beyond excessive so, I did not encounter some of the issues mentioned in other reviews. The speakers weigh 116lbs a piece and have thick rubber feet on them. I used furniture mover pads to slide them around my room. With that said, let's get into the meat of the review. Build quality is really good. Quality metal speaker grills, gold binding posts with gold bi-amp connectors for bi-amping if desired. Speaker comes with a owners manual and an additional "party" fuse if the built in overload circuit is blown. A nice touch to have an overload circuit built in to the speaker to protect it from an overload of wattage...admittedly, that might be hard to do though. The front of the speaker features a 1" soft dome tweeter with ferro fluid, set in a waveguide for increased sensitivity, dynamic response and lower distortion. The waveguide config results in near-perfect integration for a supposed seamless convergence of midrange and high frequencies. More about this later. There is one 6.5" fiber impregnated midrange cone and two monster truck like cast frame woofers. The back features the nice gold binding posts, fuse holder and two ports. Specs: 500 watts peak power, rated frequency response of 38hz to 20khz. Speaker sensitivity is 95.3 dB. That is a nice number especially when comparing them to higher priced speakers with a rating of around 86 dB. What that means to the layman is that this speaker will require less power to have the same volume level of a speaker with a lower sensitivity. Personally, I have always found speakers with higher sensitivity ratings to fatigue my ear less because they require less power to drive them. Let's talk briefly about the set up, the room config and the equipment I used. My test centered around my home theater which I primarily use for movie watching but, also have set up as a two channel music room. I played both movies and music on these and had very good results with both. Here is the equipment I used for testing: Emotiva UPA-700, Emotiva UPC-200 (thanks to the folks over there), Oppo BDP-103 Darby Edition, Monitor Audio Sliver 8 center channel speaker, AR Series 303 12" sub woofer, PSA XS15 sub woofer and audiophile grade interconnects and speaker wire. My room is rectangular with Auralex sound deadening pads on all walls and about 19' wide and 15' with my set up on the long wall. This puts my listening ear about 13' from the speaker. I set the XLS-215's about eight feet apart and toed-in slightly to my listening position. With my room depth, I could only get them about 12" away from the wall. They really need to be about two to four feet off the wall to the get the best bass response out of them. I started out with watching the second Transformers movie with both subs and the XLS-215's firing. I thought I was going to split the house in two. After getting my hearing back, I calibrated everything and gave a more careful listen with the dual subs shut off so, I was using only the Cerwin's subs. What I found was quite a capable and able speaker. The sound was never distorted and was always smooth even when it was played at earthquake levels. The sound stage was very broad with superb spatial detail. The stage was spread out very broad and blended well with the rear surrounds with a seamless motion and no variance in detail and did I mention the BASS? Yes, there is bass in these speakers. Response was stellar and faithfully rendered as the sound engineers would want it to be. Folks, this is better than going to the movies. The XLS-215's are speakers with cajones! Next up was the mostly dialog driven American Psycho from 2000 with a stellar 80's soundtrack. The scene where Bateman is getting ready to axe Paul while Huey Lewis was playing is as just crisp and life-like as can be. The music sounded much like it was recorded and intended to be heard. The dialog through out the whole movie was clean and every little subtle nuance in Bale's voice was easily rendered perfectly by the XLS-215's. These speakers have oodles of dynamics. Okay so, we know these big dogs can destroy a real movie theater but, what can they do with two channel music? I used the Emotiva UPC-200 in two channel stereo mode since I did not feel like setting up a separate two channel amp. The first test was the Huey Lewis CD Sports! On the opening cut the "hearbeat" rhythm of the bass drum kicked out with clarity and punch. The guitar had great width and depth while Lewis' voice was dead center of the soundstage. The saxophone solo was full and warm and filled the room nicely with great detail. The driving keyboard bass line of Walking on a Thin Line that plays through the whole song is just a room destroyer with that deep driving bass. I could feel it in my chest and on the chair cushion. Next up was the Dee Snider solo CD called "Never Let The Bastards Wear You Down". On Dee's version of Dion's "The Wander" I was blown away. Listening to the song, it was like I had been transported to a small, private venue to hear the song live. The XLS-215's ability to reproduce the recording material gave the impression that Dee Snider was belting this out live. If it had been a blind listening test, it would have been very difficult to tell if it was "live or if it was Memorex" so to speak. It was as if Dee was standing 15 feet from me singing. While his voice proclaimed he was the type of guy who likes to run around, the drums kicked out directly behind him as if nailed to the center of soundstage while the bass filled the bottom end and the guitar filled out across the whole room. I had to step away after that...I am a believer now. Folks don't get these confused with the reviews stating that Cerwin-Vega makes nothing but frat house speakers. It's just not true. I have been listening to audio for almost 40 years and while this isn't the highest end pair I have had they are very damn good and can compete with those costing twice as much. To pack this much performance in at this price point, I do not know how they do it. Okay, so earlier I had stated they these were gentle like a woman. What speaker review would not be complete with some Norah Jones? On "Don't Know Why", Norah's graceful smoothness played so gently and smooth with warm timbre. The XLS-215's create a great ambient feel and have an uncanny knack of duplicating the ambiance of the recording studio or venue as if the artist was playing live. Detail is remarkable at all listening levels which is what I meant by gentle like woman. Final thoughts and wrap up: My one nit-pick with these speakers is there is a VERY slight directivity with the horn-loaded tweeters. During a few listening sessions when I got up from my chair I noticed a very slight change in the high frequency response. Due the tall 49" nature of these speakers, the highs could be blown over your head and you would not be catching all the detail. To resolve this I put two small one inch thick blocks under each back foot to cant the speaker front downward aiming it towards the listening ear. This resolved that minor detail for me. YMMV. If you want monster truck performance on a Ford F-150 budget then these speakers are for you. If you are fanatical about watching movies at home and refuse to hit the theaters, this could be the ticket for you. Just remember these things are monsters and you'll need help moving them unless you have furniture slides. Spend the time for proper set up and calibration for your room. Most of all, enjoy them. I had to give them five-stars. UPDATE: It's been almost six months and these things have only gotten better as I have made adjustments to the listening area. The sound stage is now 12ft wide between the speakers vs. the 8ft. I had previously. The improvement was very good. I left them slightly toed-in. I streamed up some Diana Krall and gave it a listen. I used an Oppo BDP-103 which does such a fantastic job rendering mp3's over the network and the mighty Cerwin Vegas are so wonderfully neutral with out any discoloration of bass or treble. There is a slight hint of a bright presence in the mids but, it is really only noticeable when playing that type of material such as rock music with a crunchy electric guitar. They really do need a big soundstage. I have them 12ft apart and that seems just right. The vocals were imaged so precise that I thought the center channel speaker was playing! They easily perform just as well or better than speakers north of $2k. Bring your Paradigms, Klipsch and Polks - The 215's will eat them for breakfast. UPDATE 03/2016: These speakers are still amazing. They sound great with all types of music and equally with home theater content. Do yourself a favor and find a pair if you can. You won't be disappointed in them at all. I've done varied listening from rock, metal, jazz, blues, country and movie content along with the series matched center channel speaker. One good track that spans a wide frequency range would be Halie Loren's rendition of "Ode to Billie Joe". The low end guttural bass is smooth and well defined that can be felt as well as heard. Halie's vocals are precise, well defined and defined so well you can hear her delicate pauses between each verse. The soundstage is well balanced and it sounds like she is standing there in front of me on stage. Bottom line: I love these speakers!

So... I love these speakers. The bass is crazy! I am currently bi-amping these speakers do to the power required to drive the two 8-inch sub's and my walls are shaking! I was going to purchase a separate sub however don't think I need to anymore! The High and Mid range drivers (Two upper speakers) are crisper then my vintage speakers ($500 each)! Those are my pride and joy and now... These things are my favorite things in the world! When I pop the grille's off of them and show my friends the woofers flex and the beautiful red rings their jaw drops. The low's are super crisp and the mid and high's are breath taking. Honestly, they are some of the best speakers out there! I love my Cerwin-Vega's! (Note: Screws hold the grille on the speaker, hidden under the rubber flap at the top and bottom of grille) UPDATE: (July 1st, 2012) My speakers are about fully broken in now, I had the speakers wired for bi-amping, however recently switched to a single speaker wire (+/-) to the terminal and using the bridge provided with the speaker. I have an ear for how well my speakers sound and it sounds like the tweeters pick up some distortion from a lower frequency... On some songs this is bothersome. So I have concluded, if you are spending the money for these bad boys, BI-AMP THEM. The lows are louder and the mid's and high's are crisper! No joke! If you don't know how to bi-amp a speaker, Bi-amping in a nutshell is one channel handling only low frequency sounds and the other channel handling high frequency audio sounds. I have my Power Amp driving the woofers (Bottom Terminal), and my receiver driving the mid and high drivers (Top Terminal). I have recently switched them back to this format. After the break in period, THEY SOUND EVEN BETTER!!! I love my CV's! UPDATE 2: (September 27th, 2012) I took out the bi-amping and just have my Equalizer and Onkyo m-282 powering these beasts, I think they sound better. I have them running through my computer acting in sorts like "computer speakers" but my computer has a cool sound card that acts like a receiver... So yea... I also bought stands but had to take the rubber feet off the bottom so they are now towering 8" off the ground! I love these things and they are fully broken in and sounding amazing. Best purchase I have ever made hands down. I ran down my street a good half a mile and can still hear them turned up to a reasonable volume... lol (My Neighbors HATE me) UPDATE 3: (August 9th, 2013) Its been a year and I still think these have been my best investment and purchase thus far in my life. They still sound impeccable and look amazing on the stands I bought, link in the pictures I posted. The Setup I'm running now I'm amplifying the Dual subs separately due to my receiver clouding the highs and mids when turned up fairly loud. The subs are connected through my Onkyo M-5010 and then connected to the pre-out's on my receiver. It now completely is done and sounds amazing. I don't use them as "computer speakers" and now use JBL speakers amped with my old Onkyo Amplifier. I still a year after having these amazing speakers would recommend them to anyone! If you have ANY questions feel free to ask away! UPDATE 4: (September 2, 2018) It has been 6 years. Six long years since I decided to make these speakers my primary drivers. I have gone through two homes, four cars, two girlfriends and now happily married. Can you guess what has stuck with me through thick and thin? The good times and bad times? These speakers feel more a part of my life then a purchase. From annoying my parents, to annoying my neighbors with the parties they brought to life, from listening to the breakup songs to playing my wedding songs, I continue to stand by them, and they continue to make me smile. Thank you Cerwin-Vega. For giving me something, I hope to one day give to my children. (Yes they are built THAT GOOD.)

The Unpacking: The cabinet quality and speaker quality is unmatched at this price range compared to other brands. After receiving the XLS 6C yesterday, I first removed the high quality metal grills (No cheap fabric or plastic like other companies use) to inspect the tweeter and woofer quality. Both looked well made from the outside. I removed the Tweeter and was very impressed with the very large driver motor enclosure kept cool with Ferro Fluid. Many other speaker companies cut costs on the tweeter and install cheaply made tweeters in this price range. I then removed one of the woofers and again was very impressed with the large driver, magnet, housing and build quality of the speaker. The inside of the cabinet was well lined with insulation and the frequency crossover looked like it was high quality. Sound Quality: My Pioneer A/V receiver has MCACC which basically syncs all your 7.1 speakers to the same volume, equation frequency, distance, etc., from your main listening position. My Left and Right speakers are 17 year old Cerwin-Vega E310. Over the years I have listened to many speakers and have never had the urge to replace them. They still sound fantastic. However, I have tried several other company’s center cannels and never got the seamless sound from left to center to right speaker. As actor’s voices in a movie scene travel from left to right, their voice should sound exactly the same moving from left speaker to center speaker to right speaker. (The Revenant has several scenes like this). The Cerwin-Vega E310’s always sounded clearer had more detail than the other company’s more expensive center channels that I tried. What a difference it made when hooking up the XLS 6C. All three speakers (L, C, R) worked seamlessly together like it was one speaker. I ended up spending hours watching movie scenes and listening to 5.1 music. I could clearly make out what the actors were saying even with the very loud background noise in Suicide Squad and other movies that are normally difficult to hear the dialog while the world is being destroyed in the background. In Summary: The Cerwin-Vega XLS line has been out for many years now and you hardly see any buzz on the internet anymore about the Cerwin-Vegas home speaker lineup. Well, I can tell you that the Cerwin-Vega home line of speakers are still one of the best sounding and best values in today’s vast market of speaker companies. I attended the 2016 RMAF (Rocky Mountain Audio Fest) in Denver and listened to many rooms of speaker configurations with prices up to $100,000 a pair. While the build quality of these speakers may last several centuries, the sound is just not that much better to justify some of those crazy prices. To my ears, Cerwin-Vera has one of the best Sound, Build Quality & Price Value combinations in today’s market.

Be prepared for some very large speakers. I knew they were going to be big but I was pretty shocked when they showed up. Unpacked they come up to my 5'4 girlfriends under arms. The weigh in at about 110 pounds so be ready with some help to move them around. My system is a Yamaha S-701 which is 100 watts per channel. I stream music as well as use my Technics SL-100 table with an Ortofon Black. The speakers are rated at 500 watts peak so I was concerned that my Yamaha was going to have issues pushing those twin 15" woofers. It doesn't..I have never had it up past 40% and the walls start shaking. These speakers will find bass where you didn't know there was any. Sound: I wasn't too impressed at first. To be honest, I thought I may have made it mistake in buying them. I have had them about 3 weeks now and they sound better every day. They really do need to break in. I can really tell their concert speaker heritage. These guys are brute force and won't shy away from Metallica, but can do Jazz just as well. Overall I am pleased with them and wouldn't dream of sending them back. Lastly and not product related.. the Amazon delivery guys literally dropped the first speaker out of the truck. It was a full sized truck with a lift gate but they didn't use it. It landed straight up and to my amazement, the guy on the ground pushed it over on it's side. WHAP! The 2nd one came out of the truck the same way but landed on top of the first one. I witnessed this all from the window of my apartment. When they came to the door, I told them that I witnessed their unloading procedure and if there was a anything wrong with the speakers it was on them. The speakers were good to go, but I called Amazon anyhow. Cerwin-Vega!

I went ahead and purchased two of these xls towers and they are my 1st towers ive ever bought. Mt front room is 28ft wide by 24ft deep I have a 70 inch LED Toshiba mounted on the wall..I set up my whole system im running a yamaha rx-v677 7.2 reciever with bose surround sound 161's for the side and rear suround and bose 301's for the front right and left. I have a pineacle front firing 10 inch woofer and a cerwin vega 18 inch intense series rear woofer (which is incredible by the way) The Front speaker is a CLS cerwin vega front speaker. I have 3 butkicker 1000 watt amps to push the two towers and the 18 inch bass. The xls towers are very loud and crystal clear when the bass runs through it. XLS's sound undestorted and very crisp and clean, A very pleasing sound when u try and push alot of bass through them and watts, Very pleased on how the sound and bass tranfers in the speakers. With all 3 amps at about not quite 3/4 of the way turned up and the reciever at -8 desables and the bass setting in the reciever turned downd to negative 4. My house starts to shake badly and the sound quality in just about perfect so pleased with the bass and the high quality sound. As for delivery on these items make sure when u order the XLS's that they get shipped in UPS freight not UPS ground. The first tower that arrived at my house I had to return cause it had speaker box damage on it cause it was shipped out UPS ground. Other than that delivery was great. All and all after spending 3500 dollars on a home theater system with the two xls towers being th brunt of the cost, I am especially pleased when I crank up the volume I feel like im literally at the movie theater. For being my 1st time setting everything up and doing everyhting myself I am very happy. And would reccomend this set up to anybody. CERWIN VEGA RULES. I gave these Speakers 4 out of 5 stars, which is mainly perfect rating only had problmes with the shipping. But as far as star rating on just the speaker itself 5 out of 5... A must buy..

I can't believe how fantastic these realatively small speakers sound. My old Advent speakers (remember them?) were over 40yrs old and the woofers were shot. After much researching on Amazon, I decided on these Cerwin Vega bookshelf speakers. I read all of the reviews and the vast majority were very positive so I was mostly confident that they would sound very good. I was worried as the size of these speakers are about 1/2 of the size of the Advents. My worries were unfounded as 40yrs of technolgoy far surpassed what I was expecting. The bass is very deep and low. There is an old Monkees tune (Randy Scouse Git) that has alot of tympani in it. The first time I listened to that song, I couldn't believe the sound I was hearing. I felt as if I could reach inside the speaker and pull out that tympani. It was practically chest pounding. Vocal clarity on these is also extremely good and I have no qualms about the mid range either. I am not an audiophile but do appreciate a good sounding system and these speakers do not disappoint. I find myself constantly staring at them and wondering how such amazing sound, depth and clarity can come out of something much smaller than what I am used to. I am thoroughly satisified and happy with these but can't help but wonder what the larger CV speakers sound like. Hopefully one day I will be able to afford a pair and find out for myself. My receiver is a Sony that is roughly 20yrs old and puts out 100 watts per channel. No problem pairing it with the CV's. The speakers can get LOUD if you so choose to play them that way and still retain their clairty, punchiness and definition of the different instruments. I was able to purchase these from Amazon after they had lowered the price a few times and bought them for a hair under $80 each. My goodness, such a bargain. If you are thinking and wondering how good these speakers will sound and if you would be happy with them, I would say just go ahead and get them. I can't imagine that anyone would not be delighted with these little beauties.

I bought these in early 2023. They are monsters! 105 lbs each, as I recall. They sound good at moderate volume levels, and *really* blow me away at loud volume levels. I'm currently driving them with a Crown XLi 2500 pro audio amplifier. At loud volume levels, I can feel the bass in my chest. It's actually a little scary... LOL! Eventually, I plan to restore a vintage Hafler 500 hifi amplifier to drive them. My audio snob friends scoffed at Cerwin-Vega, but I have no regrets. They do what I wanted! Eventually, I will probably buy a pair of "audiophile" speakers for listening to classical music. But for prog rock, hard rock, heavy metal, etc., I like these CVs a lot.

Purchased a pair of Cerwin Vega XLS-215 Dual 3-Way for my home audio system and have loved these since day one. Don't buy them if you can't feed them enough amplified power. They may not sound as incredible as I am about to describe. You will be rewarded if you invest in a high output audio delivering system. The largest and most powerful sound delivering tower speakers available short of building a custom set. Over four feet tall and weigh in at 116 pounds each. Well constructed of heavy tight dense material, proper proprietary crossover frequency filtering, compartmented for each woofer and mid/tweeter speakers with sound cushioning material giving you clean, crisp, soft, intense sound at any volume level. They are built like a tank and if needed will send massive amounts of sound waves that could potentially wreak havoc with your reputation as a civilized citizen. I have them connected to a very rare and custom restored vintage Marantz 2600 Stereo Receiver that puts out over 500 verified watts per channel of clean unclipped sine wave power which is right in their wheel house. At power levels this high you will feel like you are in the front row of a concert or inside a vehicle built for bass producing competition. I have played all genres of music from classical to dubstep and everything I throw at them allows me a wonderful fully submerssive sound experience. Literally home shaking sound producing speakers delivering guaranteed chest pounding sound. Incredible performers and well worth the asking price. Cerwin-Vega XLS-215 Dual 3-Way Home Audio Floor Tower Speaker (Each, Black)