Emerald Physics CS-2, Opinions Please

What I find amazing with the CS-2's..Is that this is the very first speaker of many Ive owned that I listen to and DONT find myself wishing for a bit more of this or that..With one speaker..I may have liked the mids, but wished for more bass..another, liked the bass, but the highs were just to forward and bright..etc.. I liked the vertical imaging with one...but wanted more lateral imaging in addition... had room interactions that were horrible and were tough to correct..etc...

I listen and still find myself captivated. I am actually listening to spot the weakness ( of the transducers..and not the recording, which is easily and immed. recognized) or critically listening for the faults..The balance, tonal honesty, and uncompressed dynamics are spooky at times. I find that when Im done listening for the day...Im a happy smiling camper, and thankful I have such a nice sounding system!

Are the CS-2's critical or somewhat forgiving of the amplification that is fed to them?

IMO, they are no more or less critical than other high end speakers. I've used Conventional Class AB, ICE and tube amps to drive them. Ive also tried a few different IC's and speaker cables now...All the changes are readily apparent to my ears.

The DCX will allow you to change gain very easily from the front panel of the Behr. This makes them flexible enough to use with differing amps. In that way, you could consider them somewhat forgiving and flexible.

Taking into account that the Behr is a stock unit and not a high dollar component..You still need to put quality components in the amplification and front end as it will matter. Some guys have asked whether it matters what NOS tubes you use in upstream equipment as it seems that the DCX would be a limiting factor..BUT, it does make a difference..as said..these changes are easily heard.

What makes them more forgiving is their hi efficiency at 100 dB, thus you can use a wider range of amplification to drive them.

Nice pictures on your system pics. They look a bit lumpy back there but I guess that's the way it is. Mye stands or Sound Anchors (if available) would greatly benefit here.

I have tried a few different amps (both tubes and solid state) on the CS2's and while they have sounded good to excellent, I will say that your amps better have a low noise floor, especially tube amps.

While you don't need a lot of watts, at 100db (which I am honestly not sure how accurate that measurement is - I have a 96db pair of speakers and they seemed to play as loud or louder with the same setup), you do want to feed the CS2's as high quality amplification as possible.

The best combination I have found amp wise probably isn't the most practical, but for my tastes it is the cat's meow!

Atma-Sphere M-60's on the tweeter and Bella Extreme 100's run in pentode mode on the woofers. This four tube mono block configuration uses 38 tubes in total and I don't even want to think about my electricity bill. :-(

While I won't say the CS2's are the best speaker I have heard or owned, they are very good and hopefully they will be more than the flavor of the month.

George