Energy 5.1 Take Classic Home Theater System (Set of Six, Black)

I consider myself as a veteran home theater enthusiast. Having worked for 5 years part time for Circuit City before they went under as a Home Theater Sales Associate. I’ve had the unique opportunity to review and test a wide range of speakers. I owned high end Infinity Kappa speakers for the longest time, but ended up giving them to my brother-in-law when we moved to a new house. I went for over 2 years suffering with a cheap Sony home Theater-in-a-box that sounded muddy and downright….well….cheap. I finally saw Amazon put these speakers on sale for $299 so I bought 2 sets of them (I’ll explain why in a moment). A little about my system. I watch a lot of Blu-ray movies in hi-def surround formats and we have a PS3, Xbox One, and a Wii-U integrated into my system as well. There is also a Grand Videoke TKR371MP as a top of the line wireless Karaoke system that my wife uses that also outputs hi-def audio on certain song choices. I use Verizon Fios as my cable provider. I purchased 2 of these Energy systems because I wanted to do a 7.2 setup in my man cave. The extra speakers left over will hopefully someday be integrated into a 9.2 Dolby Atmos setup down the road. Here is my unbiased review of these speakers: PROS: a. The sound quality is much better than I had expected them to be. I have a slight hearing disability so dialog from the center channel is difficult sometime for me to hear, especially on cable TV. The Energy’s center speaker is crystal clear on all sources and I have yet to struggle with any dialog. Even my Infinity’s were not this clear and they cost thousands more! b. The blend between the subs and the satellites is the best I’ve encountered for a system in this class. I’ve tested similar sized systems from Polk, Infinity (TSS Series), Definitive, and JBL. None blended so seamlessly as this Energy system does. You must set your volume on the sub to the mid-way point and set the cutoff frequency to 110hz, then do the auto calibration with your receiver. I have an older Sony STR-DH-810 and I hate the auto calibration DCAC that Sony uses. I much prefer Audyssey, but had to use what I got for now. With the Sony DCAC I still had to do a few minor manual tweaks here and there, especially on surround levels (there was a bias of too much volume on the left side). I fully intend on getting a new Denon next year once they finally work out the HDCP 2.2 issues for 4K, so I can calibrate these with the Audyssey XT32 calibration system instead. c. The two 8 inch subs put out cleaner and tighter bass than my 12 inch infinity sub ever did. Put the new Godzilla in during the Honolulu airport scene and you will know exactly what I am talking about. d. The satellites are small and easy to position around the room. I recommend putting them on dedicated wall mounts so that the bass tube on the back of the speakers can breathe. You can wall mount them flush with a nail as there is a key hole slot on each speaker including the center, but for best performance, let them breathe a little away from the wall. e. They work very well for both music and movies! Something that many speakers can’t do (it’s either one or the other). I listen to a lot of 80’s metal so guitar work is the focus when listening to music. I listen more for the guitar work from the likes of Randy Rhoades, Zakk Wylde, Jake E. Lee, and especially George Lynch, so I wanted speakers that could handle this type of music. The Energy’s did not disappoint! f. If you’re into the karaoke thing, they will pleasantly surprise you. We had my Karaoke system hooked up to an Onkyo system and a Bose Lifestyle system at two different friend's houses and my Energy’s smoked the competition on voice clarity and overall sound quality from both the background music and the singers voice (disclaimer: They will not make you a better singer. If you can’t sing, there is no speaker on earth that will help you….trust me, this is me! I don’t sing, remember, it’s my wife’s system not mine….see autotune for help on that). g. If you want that IMAX feeling in your man cave. Definitely do the 7.2 setup if your receiver will allow, you will be totally blown away! The 2 subs combined with the processing of the extra back channels of the 7.2 system will put you right in the movie, literally. h. Construction of the actual speaker modules (tweeter and the midrange) are superb and look and feel like they would last forever. The housing is ok but nothing to wright home about. It is durable enough that you don’t have to worry too much about scratches or peeling, but it is a laminate/pressboard finish so definitely not indestructible. My infinities were real wood so I guess I got spoiled a little. Energy does make higher end speakers with better material but you will pay an arm and a leg for them. Keep in mind these were only $299 for me on sale with Amazon! CONS: a. Fingerprint magnets. The high gloss finish will need to be cleaned after you handle them or anytime you touch them. This is a very minor gripe by the way. b. As other reviewers have noted, there is a break in period for these speakers due to the type of material they are made of so out of the box they may sound a little bright at first but will gradually become warmer sounding after a few days of using them. The manufacturer recommends 50 hours of use to properly break them in. Mine are already sounding much better than day one when I first hooked them up. Just be patient. Summary: I highly recommend this system to anyone wanting smaller speakers for a surround system. The performance of these speakers greatly, and I mean GREATLY outweighs the cost. It is money well spent because they perform like high end speakers allowing you to use the rest of your home theater budget on better equipment such as a higher grade receiver or that overly comfortable man cave couch. I would buy these again for another room without hesitation and I have already recommended this system to a good friend of mine who is currently in the process of hooking up his own new home theater system. Again, it is money not wasted….enjoy!

I can not believe how amazing these speakers sound! I have auditioned these speakers for the past three days. My first day, the center channel was not working correctly and I had trouble finding the right settings on my new receiver. This was all due to user error, I later realized. I was not very impressed and was ready to send these back. I eventually got the user error sorted out and these speakers just came to life. To give a little background, I had owned a Polk Audio 5.1 system in the past. It consisted of the M60s for fronts, M30s for surrounds, CS2 center and PSW10 subwoofer paired to an onkyo 606. It was a decent entry-level setup but not high fidelity by any means. It served its purpose but I knew I wanted more from my speakers. I ended up selling most of those speakers save the M60s. The PSW10's performance was probably the weakest link in my system, in my opinion. It produce muddy sound and did not have the tight attributes I was looking for. I went back to the drawing boards and did a lot of research on speakers for my search of the best system for the price and value. I figured my next system would cost about $2,200 in speakers alone. All the while, I was getting very antsy with just using a 2.0 stereo setup to watch movies. I was messing around on Amazon and came across the Energy Take 5 Classics. This system had me really intrigued. I proceeded with the research. I really had no intentions of purchasing these speakers, but I could not help reading all the positive and glowing reviews of the classics. I had my doubts and reservations about them being a "satellite" system. I rationalized with myself by saying, "how can a set of tiny speakers sound as great as everyone make them out to be?" My conflicting rationale paired with all the positive reviews of quality and performance left me at an impasse. So I finally closed my eyes and told myself I would try these speakers for $400 from Amazon. I ended up purchasing these to see how my standards were compared to all these reviews. As it turns out, I am completely blown away. For $400 and being a satellite system, you can not really ask for more. They really blow my old polk system out of the waters. The sound is crisp, clear, and accurate. I was not really expecting much from the 8in sub, either. I feel like foot-in-mouth for even doubting. The small beast outputs tight, accurate bass. I love it. I am currently using it in my bedroom that measures 14'x14' and it is plenty loud. I can imaging these speakers filling a larger room and faring just fine. These will definitely see living room duties until I am able to afford the full-sized speakers I am saving for. Then I will probably utilize these as bedroom speakers again one day. I asked my roommate if it would be okay if I cranked the system up for a while to test out its potential. I was very pleased. The volume was loud and accurate and I experienced no drop off in quality. I just really could not believe the kind of audio performance I was getting from these tiny speakers and for the price. I was in love. You would never believe these were "satellite" speakers. I was also very impressed with the physical qualities of the speakers themselves. I am not a huge fan of high gloss anything, but these little speakers are beautiful. They look and feel made of quality. The speakers, with their grills off, are beautiful. They also feel very solid for how small they are. They look and sound beautiful! My most favorite component of this whole system has got to be, hands down, the sub-woofer. I am still mystified how such a small sub can produce such big, bold and accurate sounds. Movies sound fantastic and music performance has taken my enjoyment to a new level. I am currently watching a lot of the bluray movies I have bought and never watched because I was waiting on my perfect system. I am having such a great time watching the blus and auditioning these speakers right now. I even played the part of a sales person and convinced one of my buddies to grab a pair. All in all, you can not beat the price and performance of these little speakers. They look and sound amazing. For $400, you have to do yourself a favor and at least give them a listen. I took the jump and am loving every moment of it. Get off the fence and just click "purchase."

We finally switched out our great room tv..good news there, bad news is there is no space for my old tower (Infinity IL50s). While we watch TV and some movies here we also listen to music (CD,s Pandora, Slacker, Palladia and music DVD's). Long story short: The speakers sound really good for TV and movies, clear, tight, plenty of bass...problem is the sound is not "full" for music. I read the reviews from others that have very good floor standing speakers and gave these rave reviews. I imagine they meant "great sound for the money" because it would be hard to imagine somebody used to hearing great sound could deal with missing the "full" sound. After the break in period and listening to them for a week we almost got used to it..until we plugged in our old beasts and find the music we've been missing ( our old bookshelf speakers sound better). You really only notice this with music. The part I am talking about is the midrange. The highs are excellent and clear and the bass is also great..the fullness is missing in the middle. We have a 5.1 Infinity Modulus 2 (discontinued) system in our theater room and it totally blows these away...so I know small satellite speakers can give me the sound I want, just not these. Important to note the Modulus 2 retail was $2K. Having said all that, These blow away the smaller Klipsch sats and Bose, maybe even better than the small (600 series) Definitive Tech we listened to at Abt. If you love music, like to watch Palladia or music on TV (there is so much on TV now..Slacker, Pandora) my suggestion would be to save up and get a better system..A great set of speakers will last you many years. Energy makes excellent speakers and they have excellent offerings... for more money. If you cannot see yourself spending $1200 + on speakers or must have small ones, these will be a great choice. I give these 4 stars for being a great speaker for the money and great with movies. I give them a 3 for music. My search continues. MISC: I use an Onkyo HTRC260, kept the speakers about 10 inches away from the wall (they have rear ports), set up audyssey a few times including after they broke in (noticeable difference). Speakers I have and love: Infinity: Modulus 2, Interlude IL50's, Overture 1s.

I have been researching for a 5.1 or 7.1 home theater speaker system for over a year ago. After reviewing online resources/forums for hrs and hrs, I finally decided to buy this handy 5.1 speaker set. Now, I have been using these nearly for a month. This is why I like these speakers. note that I am using a Pioneer VSX 1020-k AVR. My TV is Sony 46" LED NX711. - Excellent sound quality. For 400 bucks, you will be amazed once you hear these. The only thing I am not really being able to hear is the mid frequencies. They are good but I felt I should hear more mids. Again, I am pretty sure; I have not fully explored the pre set EQ options yet. I was watching American idol recently and I felt I did not hear the voices as I expected. Anyone who has seen this or who has any suggestions, so I can experience this better. - Reasonable price (I bought this from Amazon for 399 USD. There are many expensive speakers out there in the market but when you compare the cost and the quality; to me they are not worth. - Good size satellite speakers. These are not as small as the Energy RC micro speakers. But I was not really looking for really small speakers either. So this satisfied my sizing needs - Elegant finishing. They are glossy. Have a nice look. - Easy to mount on the wall. All I did was bought a pack of hooks for <1$ from the local LOWS store. That is it; all my 5 speakers including the front center speaker are hanging nicely on my walls. So, the above explain what I experienced. But I thought I will share some info I read online related to this set up and its technologies - This subwoofer is 8 inches in diameter. As far as I heard, 8" is a good size in order to generate good low frequencies at home. This system can generate as low as 33 Hz as far as I rem. That is good enough for a home theater. - There are no gaps between the frequencies that are supported by these 6 speakers. I know some speaker sets does not have a continuation of frequencies from lowem30-40Hz up to 20 Hz. Basically, you are not going to hear some ranges of frequencies - so in other words, you lose some sound when watching :D. Other factors. - These speakers have avg 4+ user reviews from nearly 100 reviews. For me that is a good factor for me to buy these. - Customer support for ENGERY. I had a good experience. I called them few times to get some questions answered; they were friendly, very polite and explained what I asked. Also note that this system (Take Classic) is no longer in production but they were not hesitant to give me info I asked. My sincere thanks to folks those who spend their valuable time on sharing their experience in the internet. Those really help ppl to buy good equipments.

So I'm new to the whole home theater realm, but I have plenty of experience in film and sound (graduated in film) and these things are excellent for the money and size. The speakers and crisp, clear, clean and LOUD if needed- I don't hear any feedback at all from them (other than what I should be hearing). My wife and I are enjoying movies like we've never experienced them before as we're hearing things we never have, even in the theaters. Every sound is emphasized and nothing gets lost in the background. Finally, all my blu rays are getting the attention they deserve. I've had an HDTV for years, but the key to a great home theater system is truly the sound- and these live up to the hype. Some reviews have complained about the bass, others have raved about it. I'm going to side with those that rave about it. I have a 17' by 13' room and it fills the entire room, cleanly and powerfully. I recently watched Tron: Legacy which is very bass heavy and had to turn the bass down (it was only halfway up) because of how much I was getting from it... but it never fizzled, sputtered or dropped out. It BOOMED and shook in all the right ways! I want to watch it again now... just for kicks and giggles. Funny thing is, I had never heard of Energy before. I did TONS of research before spending the money on these (it may not be a lot for those of you that get way into theater systems, but for me this was a big investment) and I wasn't sure how I felt about the simplistic look of the speakers or the 80's feel of the logo (because I'm weird like that)... but I took the plunge based on the positive reviews ALL over the web sites and various forums. I'm about 20 hours in and they are amazing. I have been excited to review these since the moment I plugged them in and listened and I still feel like I'm failing in explaining my happiness. SIDE NOTE: The company suggests 50 hours of use to break them in before they really shine. Like I said I'm only 20 in and I'm thrilled... and YES, they have gotten better already. Can't wait for that 50 hour mark... and the 5000 hour mark too. (Edit: I have now had months of extensive testing with these bad boys. These things are still the very best in my opinion. My brother has spent so much more on other speaker systems for his house, and I personally feel like mine still sound better. I don't know if it's just my imagination or what, but they do seem to sound even better than when I reviewed these the first time around. The train wreck scene in Super 8 blew me away and I have played many games on this where the character to my side will be talking and it freaked me out because it sounded like someone else was in the room sitting next to me. I will never trade up... Love 'em!!)

It has been a long time since I have been inspired enough to actually sit down a write an Amazon review for anything and I feel like I spend half of my life buying stuff on here. Also seems kind of pointless to chime in when there are 800+ essentially glowing reviews. But this system is just that good. I am compelled to write this review by the silky smooth buttery warmth that emanates from these bad boys. I am not gonna sit here and list some silly amount of gear that I have owned or systems that I have heard. I have been a DJ for 12+ years and am obsessed with audio technology, whether it's speakers or headphones or receivers or DJ gear. I'm not a rich man so I am always on the lookout for the best bang for your buck. I had this Energy 5.1 system sitting in my "Saved for Later" bin for about 5 years, no joke. That's when I first read the review and was intrigued and as I have monitored, they still have not lost CNET's recommendation as the best budget sound system that was first given in 2009 and the positive reviews are still pouring in here at Amazon and elsewhere. Decided to take the plunge on a Samsung 4K TV with some Best Buy financing and that led me to replace my ancient Onkyo with a Yamaha RX-V675. All of a sudden my Tannoy bookshelf speakers I've had since 1998 lost a bit of their sheen knowing what kind of power I was sitting on with the new Yamaha. So, as one thing tends to lead to another with audio gear purchases, I waited until I saw another of the seemingly regular $299 price drops on the Take Classic (down from $399) and decided to take the plunge. Like a good Amazon fanboy, I went ahead and got the RCA 16 gauge speaker wire and whatever mounting system Amazon says are "frequently bought" with this system. So, if you've made it this far, $350 Yamaha receiver + $300 Take Classic system = $650 that sounds like $5,000. And this is without a proper subwoofer cable (in the mail, using a janky RCA in the meantime), no YPAO mic calibration (accidentally tossed it with the box) and only a few hours of break in. As soon as I played a song with all of the settings on the receiver punched in correctly, my jaw (and those of three friends who were there who helped me install, more on that later) hit the floor. We were all stunned. I never knew music could sound so good. A little background on my listening environment: I live in an old 1920s Los Angeles hotel that has been converted into apartments. I have 9 foot ceilings and concrete walls in a living room that is about 12 x 18 feet. My couch is up against the short wall with the TV opposite so no way to put the surround satellites behind. I remembered a friend with a Polk 5.1 system who had mounted them in the upper corners of his living room and it sounded phenomenal so I decided to go the same route, angling the fronts down and toward the couch pretty much at 45 degrees in the corner. The rear satellites I mounted probably more at 70 degrees toward the couch so they have that rear channel position but still are angled enough toward the rest of the room to compliment the fronts when listening to music. The center channel is mounted at the same height...but in the center (duh). I measured 4 inches out from the wall on all them before drilling in the mounts to give the speakers some breathing room as others have suggested. About the mounting: the VideoSecu Universal Satellite Speaker Mounts / Brackets for Walls and Ceilings are the one thing I would take back in this whole setup. They don't mount completely flush with the speaker (despite some reviewers saying so), they're plastic and they do not come with the alligator wall brackets they claim to in the instructions. I had to hit Home Depot to get some for a dry wall ceiling. I can verify that the 5/16" drill bit they say to use is the correct size, so make sure you get brackets sized for that bit if you go this route. All things considered, they're fine, they seem like they will hold. In hindsight, I maybe would have sprung a little more for something else, but this really isn't the point of the review. What you absolutely must do is mount your speakers in this fashion if you are able to. There is a reason why clubs do it this way: so that people are IN the sound instead of jockeying to find a sweet spot. The way that this system fills the room with such superbly warm sound is something that anyone who enjoys music or movies needs to hear. It's one of those transcendental "wow I have never heard this song sound like THIS" experiences. I know the Yamaha receivers have a great reputation for surround sound processing so this may be contributing, but we just sat there picking different favorite songs of ours from all genres and listening in awe with big goofy smiles on our faces. In Pusherman by Curtis Mayfield for example, the percussion was crisp and clear out the back channels while the guitar was sparkling from the fronts. The bassline...THAT bassline sounded so fresh and so clean. Played a few tracks off of Puffy's (criminally under-appreciated) Last Train to Paris album as I know the mastering is top notch on that one and it sounded fantastic. Then went for what is my de facto audition album of late for anything that reproduces audio: DARKSIDE. Listening to the songs "Heart" and "Paper Trails" was sublime. If you haven't heard these guys (they only put out one album) and you're looking for what Pink Floyd would sound like if they were a band now, do yourself a favor. The mastering is impeccable and the Take Classics did not disappoint. I then threw on the end of the Portland/Golden State game to get a feel for sports and both the surround stage in the arena and the announcers were both pronounced without interfering with each other. Then went for Pacific Rim on Netflix and the opening fight scene really had nice spatial depth to it. People weren't kidding: this system really does handle movies and music equally well. I have read that this is an impressive feat for a 5.1 satellite system. I've never been disappointed by others that I have heard, but I have never been blown away as I was by the Take Classic. So there you have it, a review 5 years in the making. It was worth the wait. If you're a normal Joe with a normal sized living room and you like knowing you're getting the best sound that $300 (and probably $1500 or $2000) could buy, don't think about it anymore. I can't recommend these paired with the Yamaha RX-V675 enough, although it sounds like they have been doing any receiver with enough discrete wattage justice for years now. I had my Tannoy/Onkyo combo for a solid 10 years, pretty sure I'll have this one for at least that long.

Bought this set not for a home theatre, but my gaming PC, and it has been amazing for about a year and a half now. I use an Asus Xonar D1 sound card to run an optical cable to my Sony STRDH520 receiver, and I have the speakers arranged all within a few feet of my sitting position. Words can't describe how this changed the way I experience my games and music. I spent a lot of money and time fiddling with the lousy headsets sold for PC gaming. None of the headsets, regardless of price, sounded good, and anything less than exorbitantly expensive was shoddy and built out of lousy materials. Mics were a constant issue. Either they sounded like garbage, were unreliable in their pickup range, broke easily, or were just very meh. Wireless headsets meant battery issues, wired headsets meant that the cord was typically the first thing to go bad. I was on the cusp of buying a really nice set of headphones and separate mic when I came across these, and decided that I'd rather give 5.1 speakers a run instead of stereo headphones if I was going to be working with two devices anyways. No regrets, best PC gaming purchase I could have made, recommended 10/10 etc.... Sound quality: I'm no audiophile, so I won't pretend to be a great source of information here. I can just nail down a few distinct qualities that these speakers have for anyone looking to do something similar to what I've done. 1: No muddying of separate sound sources. If you've got music playing, gaming sound effects going off, voice chat grumbling away, and anything else you wish to do on the same set of speakers you will be able to distinguish between each audio channel perfectly. I have not been able to create any noise or garbling by having too many active feeds, and if you experience any of this I'd suspect the hardware you have running the speakers before I blame the speakers. I didn't have to do anything special to ensure this quality of performance. 2: Enough bass for any type of gaming experience. I used to play a lot of Planetside 2 and rotate a bunch of other FPS's on a regular basis. I have to turn my subwoofer down for PS2 when I'm in an area experiencing a lot of bombardment because the nonstop explosions just drown everything out, and the only thing I hear is the sub whomping away. When I'm set for watching movies I have a few in my collection that will cause the air exhausted from the port to flutter my denim pants legs from a couple feet away in some of the more interesting scenes. Loud volumes are painful for me, by the way, so I'm not listening at some crazy high volume setting. 3: Only drawback I've found: These speakers can cause some fatigue, especially when they're as close to you as I have mine arranged. This is not entirely the fault of the equipment, however, as I've noticed that it has a lot to do with the quality of the recording. Only time I've experienced fatigue is when watching podcasts, youtube videos or low production quality shows on the internet. I have never experienced this listening to anything with quality sound engineering or superb recording equipment. I only mention this as a drawback because I understand that some of the much higher quality speaker sets will not cause fatigue even under these circumstances, and I do not deduct anything from my rating because this is not a result of poor craftsmanship or faulty product design, it's just a by-product of a certain set of circumstances. 4: Some people didn't expect the small size of these speakers upon unpackaging. If you're looking for some PC speakers, the size of this set is a huge bonus. They're not much larger than the average set of cheapos that you'd get from Dell or Logitech, but the audio quality is next to flawless. Positioning them around your monitor or hanging them on the wall behind the monitor is simple, the subwoofer fits under most desks with plenty of leg room unless you're an ogre, and the staging they can provide when positioned and adjusted correctly is mind blowing. Can't recommend these enough for the price, and for the application that I have used them for. I will never use a headset for PC gaming again. Edit: 6 years later and they still sound like the day I bought them. They're now paired with an Asus Xonar Essence II sound card which only made things better. You just can't get better for the money.

I have to say despite all the good reviews, I was pretty disappointed in this speaker set. I wouldn't buy it again and I wouldn't recommend it to others. Maybe it's the larger room with a 120" projector screen, maybe it's just I had high expectations going in given the reviews, but I found the speakers to be pretty mediocre. They lack depth, without pro tuning tools they feel like the speakers don't really cover certain ranges between the mids and subwoofer, they definitely don't particularly get loud, and despite spending hours tinkering with my amp (I've used them with a Yamaha and with a higher end Marrantz) I never could quite get a full sound out of them. The subwoofer was the first thing I got rid of. From the box I always had a faint hiss you could hear only when there was silence (which btw you can't warranty if you buy this as a Amazon Warehouse deal, support will tell you to fly a kite, but not a huge issue since I wanted something better anyway). I replaced this with a nice 12" Polk and that really helped. It added a lot of the low end this set appears to miss. And it allowed me to use an easier crossover freq closer to 120hz (which the stock sub couldn't handle at all at normal movie volume and the satellites can't get the low either so there is normally a dead spot in the 100-200hz range on the stock speakers that really bugged me). Then I replaced the fronts, I went with a Klipsch Reference series set. SO MUCH better. So much more depth and filling in the missing ranges from the Energy speakers. After I did this, it wasn't long until I replaced the center and got the matching rears all of the same Klipsch set. And now I have none of the Energy speakers left and overall I quite like my sound system now. Much fuller sound. Handles the volume much better. I just really for the reviews and the price expected something much closer to this and it wasn't. As they say in cars, there is no replacement for displacement and these small speakers live up to that. For a few hundred more buying a quality subwoofer and speaker sets with more traditional sized drivers you can do a lot better imho. The used market is great as well, you can score some real deals on mid level speakers from any of the major brands without breaking the bank, but overall this set even giving credit for the low price was just very mediocre in both sound quality and build quality so I wouldn't buy it again at all. And if I did I would not buy from Amazon Warehouse since the audio industry is so stingy with their warranty policies and I don't have faith that I'd guaranteed get a good set out of the box especially after the Subwoofer hiss problem I had (although if I actually liked the sub replacing the built in amp for cheap is doable, but I didn't).