Customer Ratings & Reviews

The speakers are great for my tuner and dvd player

OK speakers, for the price. Sound just average. Being a Sony product expected more. Connected to a Sony AV system

Price good, not the sound I was looking for…or look

I wanted to use these Sony CS5 M2s as front speaker replacements for my aging floor standing speakers that are too big for the smallish 10 ft by 12 ft listening room allotted to them by the powers that be (my wife). Initially, I just moved out the floor standers and moved in the Sony's mounted on speaker stands, did a little manual adjustment to the calibration in order to accommodate the audio characteric differences between the different speaker pairs and started listening to different music sources and music styles while toggling between stereo mode (front speakers only) and surround mode (5.1 system). In surround mode, each piece of music that I played sounded acceptable, but in stereo mode, that same music sounded rather empty although the speakers delivered high highs and good lows, they lacked punch/depth. After some research, I relocated the Sony's to be further away from sidewalls and backwall and that marginally improved their sound. Then, I realized that the Sony's are 6 Ohm speakers while all of the rest are 8 Ohm speakers and that required that I reconfigure my Denon AVR for 6 Ohm usage (in order to protect the AVR) and rerun the Audessy room correction calibration which I did. Afterwards, the 5.1 configuration sounded really sweet while the Sony's in stereo mode sounded a little better but still lacked depth overall. The Sony speakers look good and seem to be be well built. They are fairly light, so you really could place them on a bookshelf - just keep in mind that a being rear ported speaker means they need some clearance behind them - probably at least a foot or more. Sadly, I will not be using them in the manner that I had planned. Perhaps they will work better in a different listening situation or in a different room.

I have the older version of these bookshelves and love them. The only problem was that I never bought rears and use some old speakers I pulled off of some old Sony Theater-In-a-Box set for the rears. Now, my use case is that I use these bookshelves for computer gaming and not as a home theater set up. You get better sound, bigger subs, and you get to take up more space, lol. I used to have a the Sony Center but I ended up returning it, not because it performed badly but more that games didn't mix their sound right and would have the majority of the sound coming from the center and ignore the left and right. So using a phantom center sounds more immersive to me. These bookshelves do need a bit of tweaking giving I'm using them from less than 5' away. The highs can be a bit bright and the lower frequency can be a bit boxy. Tweaking the crossover to keep the lower frequency out of the left and right helps a ton and dropping the higher frequencies a bit make the sound near perfect. And now that I have, nearly, matching rears...OMG the sound is incredible! If you're a computer gamer and have the space for a receiver, sub, and speakers I suggest slapping it all on your system and enjoying some powerful sound!

The basis of this review was using the Sony SSCS5M2 bookcase speakers plugged into a receiver and listening to vinyl on a high end record player. I listened to heavy metal, classic rock, rap, and hip hop. The songs ranged from delicate acoustic versions to heavy bass. I love these bookcase speakers. They sounded great through the entire range. The high end is clear and crisp but not too harsh. I could hear the mids well. The bass was punchy but don't expect it to shake the room. Everything was well rounded. I think these are great for listening to vinyl. I felt like I could hear all the nuances of the recording that you seek when listening to vinyl. These can get really loud without distorting. The enclosure feels strong, looks good, and well made. The screw connectors feel very durable and secure. These don't feel, look, or sound like cheap speakers. I think these would be a great addition to a home theater system to help round out the surround sound. However, for my use with their dynamic range and compact size I think these are perfect for listening to some vinyl even from across the room. I highly recommend.

They are very good speakers. They sound good and are so nice.

Used them for the record player and the audio is crisp! I love them!

These speakers work great with my cd player. Sound is wonderful.

They are awesome they sound great the looks are great