AVX Audio 6.5 Inch Bookshelf Speaker Pair (Sound Appeal 6.5" Speakers)

Unfortunately I have to give a one to what was an average sounding speaker. For 60 bucks I could live with it’s lack of base and marginal treble. I was happy until one of the speakers decided to blow. I mean it actually tore away from the coil. It only happened to one speaker, so far. Please look at the picture with the red mark up. I contacted SA via email, but had no response. After pulling the speaker, I was happy to see that it at least had a crossover unit. The speaker does not look like it could handle 80 RMS, but speakers can be deceptive that way. As far as insulation, there was barely any as you can see. Because I need these speakers, I have ordered a set of Skars to replace them. BTW the cabinet is very cheap press board, but they do look nice. If SA service contacts me I will let you know. Picture 1 shows tear from coil. Picture 2 shows how it should be Pictures 3 and 4 are for your pleasure. UPDATE: 7 April 2018 So I contacted Amazon which gave me SA email address. I emailed them and had no response. Brian from AV Express the re-seller found my email and emailed me back to see what happened, this was about 10 days from my initial email. He asked if I wanted to return the bad speaker, but I told him I gave it to my kid to rip the magnet out of it. Anyway he offered to send me a new woofer anyway. This was a class act as many companies would accept the bad rating and just sell on. Sometimes we forget there are people in the middle of these transactions and Amazon should have given me AV-Express email instead of Sound Appeals. I am raising by 2 stars just on that merit alone. Av-Express is interested in serving their customers and I certainly will do business with them in the future just for that reason. Additionally if you let these speakers break in for about 30 hours of mid-range playing, the begin to sound much better. I say give them a shot, don't push them too hard initially and see what they can do. Update - Moved up to 5 STARS. I hooked them up to an older stereo amp I had (so much better than the new Yamaha Receiver I recently purchased), these speakers sounded great on the old system. The bass was unbelievable when I was finally able to exercise them with some vintage equipment. Definitely Buy These

These speakers are simply amazing - I'm still having a difficult time believing a pair of bookshelf speakers can be this nice sounding and cost only $59 for the PAIR. That is amazing. The sound is very detailed and the 1" silk dome tweeter delivers smooth, silky highs that blends in perfectly & naturally with the woofer. There is no harsh, noticeable audio separation of highs vs lows as found in cheaper performing bookshelfs. Smooth & articulate all the way with these. They are also a very pleasant looking set of speakers without the grills installed as well - which is how I run mine. The sound is very detailed & natural, very "flat" or "linear" would be the proper audio terms I believe. Reminds me of listening to pristine quality studio reference monitors. Meaning these weren't designed to have an overly-hyped bass response or other misrepresented frequency enhancements. Nor is there any particular or noticeable lack either, in any other areas of the frequency spectrum. Very natural and true to the quality & tone of source material. There are no mushy, boomy lows, but they do have good low end that is articulate. Those looking for big boom might consider letting a subwoofer do the low end heavy lifting. I use these in conjunction with a Pioneer home theater unit as my FRONT (Left & Right) speakers, a Micca MB42X-C center channel and a 10" powered subwoofer to round things out and shoulder the role of handling the really deep bass. These are fantastic sounding - do NOT let the low price fool you. I'm still amazed by the price vs. quality myself - in a very pleasant way! I cannot stress enough how these should be on your short list when looking for a very, very good sounding pair of affordable bookshelf speakers. Very pleased!!!

I stumbled upon these while searching Amazon for new cheap bookshelf speakers to review. From their outward appearance and the lofty claims made by AV-Express, I thought that Sound Appeal SA-vf6.5s coming in at $69.99 were the perfect budget speaker review candidate.I was hoping to be the first to jump on these, but I was beat to the punch by a few other hobbyist reviewers. So far the opinion seems to be split down the middle. First Impressions: Build All the pictures on the marketing materials show these speakers sans grills, as such they are as handsome as any other black vinyl fake wood finished speaker box. With the grills they become even more nondescript. The real problem with the grills is getting them off and just how much the plastic frame covers the tweeter. By far these are the most permanent feeling removable grills I have encountered, you really feel like your pushing the structural limits of the plastic while trying to pry them off. And those grills should come off because the black plastic covers so much of the tweeter and that is causes some nastiness in the measurements as you will see below. The cabinet of the SA-vf6.5s is a tad larger and better looking than its most obvious competition, the Dayton B652. (I'll be using both the Dayton B652 and the Pioneer BS22 for some comparisons) But not built any better; and as such rings pretty hallow sounding. I'm sure some internal bracing would do some good. Internal stuffing is abysmal with the thinnest egg create foam you can imagine, more and better stuffing would also probably help. Drivers looks nice enough for the price point. 6.5 inch mid and the claimed 1 inch dome tweeter looks to be built as well as anything else in the budget. There has been some questioning about the claimed size of the tweeter and if AV-Express is accurately representing it. I pulled out my measuring tape and got 1 inch from edge to edge of the tweeter driver. The diameter of the dome however is closer to 7/8 or 3/4 inch. Is this a case of exaggeration or using the wrong measurement I don't know. The tweeter uses a good size ferrite magnet. The SA 6.5 claims to have a 12db per octave crossover. And it does, but only on the tweeter. The woofer plays full range. The mid does a pretty good job playing out to about 3.5khz before it quickly drops of. Close mic measurements show some extra jaggedness but it seems to work itself out as you get a little farther away. I'm guessing the tweeter is crossed over pretty high, near 6khz would be my guess. Perhaps someone with cross over design expertise has a better understanding and can chime in. If we can get past some of the lofty claims, and compare them with speakers at the same price point. Then they do pretty damn good. I don't use any of these speaker in near field situations, but at 6 feet away I liked them a lot. Imagining was nice and wide. Going through my common listing tracks all came back with enjoying the music and not being distracted by distortion, harshness or tunnel sounding vocals. These ain’t no Daytons for sure. Voices are natural and smooth, but bass is a tad boomy and blah with the elevated mid bass region. There is a 5db dip in the response from 5.5khx to 8khz and centered about 6.5khz. At first I thought that this was due to just by the roll off of the mid and the crossover frequency of the tweeter, but upon some further testing of the other speaker (and seeing that the tweeter responses are different). I think it is due to a comb filtering or another form of cancellation. Will that be audible? I'm not sure. It's a pretty narrow region and the Pionner BS22's suffer a similar dip, though due to the grill and not any sort of cancellation. Off axis response seems pretty good on the horizontal plane. I had to get the speaker to 45 degrees off before the response changed significantly. So I don't think much toe in will be required for these. As you get father off axis, you can see what I think is the cone break seen in the driver measurements at 6khz becomes more audible. Tonally, I had a hard time telling them apart from the Pioneers during some A/B comparisons. Before anyone loses their mind, I am not saying that they are not better than the Pioneers. But at 1/2 the cost they do a good job competing with them. With products more in line with their price, (Dayton B652, Polk R150/T15/M10, JBL Loft, Insignia NS-SP213, Micca MB42x, Sony B1000), they become a good option to look at. They kill the Dayton, Polks, and JBLs; if any of those were in your short list of speakers, the SA-vf6.5 best them with ease. I wish I had the Insignia's again to compare directly. The Insignia's have a much better tweeter and crossover but are lacking on the bass response. If I was using a sub, I would take the Insignia's in a heart beat. I don't have the Micca MB42x, but I do have a pair of the MB42x-C. I found the Micca MTM's to be brighter, and without the lower mid range and midbass to filled out. Making me prefer the SA-vf6.5s with a lot of music. If you're looking to spend $69.99 or less on speakers, then these should absolutely be on the list to investigate along with the Micca MB42s and Insignia NS-SP213. Cheap speakers are getting better and better, but don't expect these to be giant killers. While I found them to be very similar in sound to the Pioneers, the Pioneer are better in every way. The Pioneers are also 2x the price. There maybe some QC issues here, in my experience both speakers measured a bit more differently than I would hope past 5khz. Though how audible it will be is anyone’s guess. And if the promotional materials could tone down trying to resurrect Billy Mays, I think we would have a potential budget winner.

ok so I'm not an expert in describing sound but these speakers sound great, really clear, the bass or low frequency seems to be handled well. minor issue with the woofer, mine had a tiny little part pealed off. No effect on the sound. so all is good. I use them as surround left+right with my pc setup connected to my RX-V990 and XONAR DGX sound card crossover set to 50 hz (the lowest it goes which is fine) ** TIP **: when you first get them the grills might be on tight or hard to get off, Take a butter knife that has a smooth handle, wrap it in a sock or something similar, use the handle to carefully lift up the grill, I sort of push down and lift at the same time so the Grill doesn't go flying or dmg part of the speaker if it were to come off quick.. hope this helps. ALSO great customer service from AV-Express, good video too. Thank you. UPDATE on my SITUATION: My RX-V990 states for the 2 rear channels "REAR, 1 kHz, 0.08% THD 8 ohms = 25W" so I Figured it was 25watt rms into 8 ohms, well, I Turn it up and there's some distortion or crackle sounds around just over 1/3 volume. Either this yamaha really is a beast or there specs are listed wrong, or.. something else. I had hoped that I Would be able to turn these up higher in volume when needed with my RX-V990 as rears. hmmmmmm.... [update]-[feb.21.2015] - Seeems it might of been the source material not sure yet, maybe they just need to be broken in. I dunno the distortion sounded more like tweeter issue. Anywho- if I decide I need to do something different I'm thinkin the " Chane A1rx-c " or " BIC Venturi DV62si " .. not sure. but, if these speakers, the Sound Appeals do break in more or don't distort with my RX-V990 after some time then these would be good. atleast for rears. Anyone feel free to comment or give advice. [Update]-[Feb.21.2015(later that day)] - I did some new testing, Ran them as fronts, more critical listening I guess you can say, tested multiple different audio, also upgraded to new speaker wire 14 awg monoprice. It seems there isn't distortion now. Who knows why there was, either way my final choice is to keep these as my rears, excellent pair speakers, perfect with my RX-V990 5.1 setup. I recommend these to anyone, I really like them they handle lower frequency's very well. Very happy now that I have it sorted out :) [5 Stars still!!]

Great price, average sound quality and poor construction. My set came with one speakser with a non functional tweeter. Quick A/B comparisons and whip out my SPL meter to confirm. I investigated and turns out it was a very loose tweeter spade lug. The lug is crimped onto an insulating plastic retainer and very loose. While I had it open I looked at the internal bracing, there was none. Internal dampening is foam pads not acoustic fill. The MDF cabinet is close to 1/2 inch on the caliper but not very good and vibrates with moderate volume levels. I played the same source material comparing it to Polk Audio, Jamo and Martin Logan speakers and without any break in I know it won't have a neutral cabinet. Maybe the cabinet is what helps it play low. Daft Punk solar sailor pushed through these speakers made them crawl around. Same material played hard on Polk, Jamo and ML speakers barely made the cabinet flex. So weight maybe another factor these are very light. I will agree the sound quality is good and price is great but there is no comparison to higher priced speakers. The amplifiers used in testing where Marantz SR7009, Denon AVR 4802R and Sansui AU-6900 fully restored discrete solid state and pure analog. These are low cost enough to be keepers but they are not entry level audiophile quality speakers.

They sound good for their size, thanks for making these speakers affordable. How'd they made a speaker sound this good while HAVING IT AFFORDABLE? I certainly didn't want to spend 300 dollars for something similar in sound and I needed the speaker to have some extra low 'oomph'. These go low enough for everyday listening. I am completely satisfied with my purchase. I will buy a second pair, if I get the chance to. Second pair now. First pair given away as a gift. Now I'm using my pair for my originally intended purpose -restroom duty! Oh wow. Because the port is on the front, I can keep the original position of the old set that was there, and they were 3" and 4" (Radio Shack carbon fiber with linaeum dipole), when the bass resounded in the restroom, there was a terrible resonance at around 120hz -200hz. Now I have some lower end without compromise of size. So much better especially with the 1" dome tweeters. If I could I would use these as dual side fills per side and rear speakers in a surround sound setup, but I am done with all that stringing speaker wires around my room. I'd easily use these as front speakers if I put 4 per side, but that'd be a lot of cables. I use professional audio that residential restrictions doesn't allow for the volume level that I'd like, to I'm just fine with the one hdmi cable whichever speaker bar I'm using and wireless subwoofer, I am not brand loyal, whoever makes a great set of speakers/smart phone /tv/vehicle is who I tend to purchase from.

One speaker sounds pretty good. I'd probably give this product 4 stars and a good review if they both worked. Unfortunately, one speaker is defective. The quality control on these seem to be pretty poor. I contacted the seller and they offered to replace them after I mail them back. To return them, I'd have to drive them about 12 miles to my local Fedex store, and hope that the next pair passed quality control. The time and travel requirements to return them are greater than the speaker's value. I would have bought them from a local shop if I wanted the inconvenience of driving. Looks like I'm going to eat my $50 on this, and I'll just invest in a more high quality pair of speakers to use.

Great speaker, especially for the price!! After a long run with a Yamaha receiver in my main living area, I decided to upgrade that and move the existing receiver to the garage. I had a couple of sets of old bookshelf speakers to hook up, but the resistance was wrong on one set and I didn't want to screw up a (still) great receiver, so did some shopping. Was looking at all the usual "big name" speakers..... Pioneer, Klipsch, Sony, etc, etc, etc.... and then saw these. Especially since they are going in the garage, I decided to give these a chance, and BOY am I GLAD that I did!! For the price they are great!!! Good base sound, small enough not to take up too much space, AND for the bargain price, such a great buy!! (ALmost good enough to think about replacing the KEF speakers that I have in my living area now). Sure, if you are an "audiophile" that has to have the best of everything, maybe you would be missing something with this set, but again, wow... for the price, these are great. For a office, outdoor around a porch (not in the weather though), pool area, dorm room or whatever, you name it for a great speaker at a bargain price, give these a chance!! Update - after running these things for a while I am still very happy with them. Especially for the price, they are still a grreat bang for the buck.