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Energy's theatre package
Similar speakers make for better sound
By Michael Jones
July 2001
Energy home theatre speaker package. $5800
When it comes to creating a great home theatre speaker system, there's a lot to be said for keeping everything the same. Same brand, same drivers.
A home theatre system should do more than just have sounds coming from odd directions. Instead, a good home theatre system will produce a cohesive soundfield. That's a lot easier to achieve when all of the speakers have similar sonic characteristics.
The
Energy system assembled here matches these requirements and makes for
an excellent home theatre speaker package. I understand that many sales
for this Energy range are for complete packages - it's not hard to hear
why.
The commonality in the drive units used in this Energy system plays a large part in the success of this system. Starting at the top, each speaker incorporates a 19mm aluminium dome tweeter with a cloth surround. The midrange and bass on these speakers are handled by injection-moulded mica/polypropylene cones.
The front baffles of each speaker are interesting. Energy use a material called Spherex (basically a plastic) that is injection moulded into the required shape. The e:XL-26 uses two of these mouldings, the bottom one rotated 180 degrees.
The suspects
The main speaker were the e:XL-26, a larger floorstanding speaker. Some
914mm high but only 175mm wide, the 26 is 378mm deep. This is a big speaker
by today's standards and in the black finish can look somewhat imposing
in many rooms.
The 26 uses two 165mm woofers and one aluminium tweeter on the Spherex baffle, loaded by a reflex port on the front.
Many people skimp on the centre channel of their home theatre. Big mistake. The centre channel is arguably the most important speaker in a home theatre system.
Of
the the two centre speakers in the Energy range, I had the larger (e:XL-C2
$999) with this system, as it matched the drivers in the other speakers.
There's a smaller model, the e:XL-C also available.
The C2 centre has the normal centre speaker layout of two woofers flanking a tweeter. The C2 is fairly large, at 476mm wide and 178mm high, with a depth of 289mm.
I used the C2 on top of my old Sony TV and was initially disturbed by some thickness in voices. Isolating the speaker from the resonant TV cabinet (using either sorbothane feet or blutak) helped a lot. Many TV cabinets are very resonant and will vibrate along with the speaker, so that's a trick you may want to try.
The C2 was very well shielded. There was no disturbance to the TV picture at all from the C2.
The surround speakers seem surprisingly small compared to the other speakers, being 254mm high, 152mm wide and 168mm deep. The e:XL Rears are $999 for the pair and are available in Black Ash finish or White.
I've found in the past that white surround speakers can visually "disappear" in a standard New Zealand cream-on-cream lounge, so you may want to consider a pair in white. The black finished e:XL Rears on the wall stick out like the proverbial dog's balls. The Rears include keyholes for mounting on the wall or on the ceiling.
Although classed by Energy as a dipole speaker, only the upper frequencies are a true dipole. While there are two woofers, only one is driven by the amplifier; the second being a passive radiator (a form of bass loading).
Rounding out the bottom is the Energy e:XL-S12 subwoofer (previously reviewed by Max Christoffersen). The S12 ($1799) includes a 305mm fibre-pulp woofer driven by a 150 watt mosfet amplifier. For the purposes of this review I only used the low-level input fed from the sub-out of my Denon 2801 receiver.
I used the Pioneer 535 DVD player into my Denon 2801 AV receiver. Bass management was via the Denon, with a feed via a Monster subwoofer cable going direct to the subwoofer. The dipole surround speakers were mounted high on the walls directly to the sides of my listening and viewing couch, while the e:XL26's were just over a foot from the rear wall.
Immediately I noticed that the Energy system had a big, solid and meaty sound, without being overblown in the bass. This helped give movies a sense of scale that can often be missing in some home theatre systems.
I particularly enjoyed the movie Heat (starring Robert de Niro and Al Pacino). The soundtrack for this movie was very well put together with excellent dynamic contrasts and very realistic sounds of everyday life. It proved to be an excellent test for the Energy system.
The opening of Toy Story 2 proved again to be an excellent test. The high level low bass in the opening sequence was handled without a care, while the clever surround sound mix moved sounds along my back wall.
Conclusion
This is an excellent system for home theatre use, and at a very good price.
For $5800 complete we have a system that can pound away on the biggest
action "crash bang" movies, yet create a subtle atmosphere for
movies that rely more on plot and character development.
Highly recommended.
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