I agree with Gonk about the subjective nature of speaker preferences, but as an owner of Ascend Acoustics speakers, I will say that they are a tremendous speaker at a great price. I have the CMT-340's for L,C,R and CBM-170's for surrounds, and don't think I could have done any better for the price. In fact, after listening to many other speakers, I would have had to spend quite a bit more.