Carver Cinema 5.2 Home Theater Speaker System Review

Surround sound might be the future, but two-channel playback is not ready to go quietly into the basement. Instead, its proponents assert that while 5.1-channel systems can be suitable for movies, they’re inadequate for serious music listening. A speaker budget, they say, just can’t be spread over six speakers without fatally compromising the quality in the front two. And if the front two are good, the remaining four must suffer. In short, they argue that a 5.1-channel system can’t be good for both home theater and stereo music listening.

Carver Corporation takes the opposite stand. While not famous for its loudspeakers, Carver is no stranger to the business of stereo playback, and its Cinema 5.2 home-theater speaker system is designed to serve the needs of both two-channel and multichannel audio.

The perspiration on the brow of the FedEx man immediately told me that the Cinema 5.2 system was more than a bunch of itty-bitty speakers — the total weight approaches 200 pounds. Although weight by itself means little, the Cinema 5.2 speakers have robust cabinets that are designed to propel sound energy from five solid, unmoving platforms. That’s right, this system comprises five cabinets, instead of the usual six. Moreover, it provides two powered subwoofers instead of the usual one (thus the 5.2 in its name).

All five speakers share a similarly simple and attractive styling: front and sides covered by black cloth, and painted black particleboard plates on top and bottom. The front left/right speakers are 42-inch-high towers each housing a front-firing 5-1/2-inch midrange driver and a 1-inch dome tweeter, plus a rear-firing 2-1/2-inch driver supplying nondirectional, random-phase signals. A 10-inch side-firing subwoofer is also built into each of the towers, which are labeled “left” and “right” so that the subwoofers will fire inward (they can be reversed if your setup requires it).

The rear of each magnetically shielded cabinet sports two pairs of dual binding posts, one for the top section and one for the subwoofer. The terminals are standard banana-plug width, as are all the other binding-post pairs in the system. Nominal impedance for both the top section and the subwoofer is 4 ohms. Sensitivity is given as 89 dB.

When I first hefted the center-channel speaker I was surprised by its 30-pound weight. Then I realized that its cabinet houses the power amplifier that drives the subwoofers in the two towers (the center speaker itself is not powered). This is a logical place to put a mono amplifier. It would be more expensive to put a separate power amp inside each tower, and also more of a hassle to install the system with separate amps. The center speaker is magnetically shielded and has two 5 Vi-inch midrange drivers and a 1-inch dome tweeter. Its nominal impedance is 4 ohms, and its sensitivity is given as 91 dB.

The subwoofer amplifier is a Carver Lightstar monoblock nominally rated to deliver 300 watts. It can accept either line-level or speaker-level input. Signals below 80 Hz are fed to the sub amplifier, those above 80 Hz to the high-pass outputs. Accordingly, two pairs of binding posts provide speaker-level outputs for the subwoofers, and two other pairs provide stereo high-pass output for the top sections of the towers. Line-level high-pass-filtered RCA output jacks are also provided.

Besides a subwoofer level control, there’s also a Bass Tilt control, which varies the level of bass output only at frequencies below the crossover point. When the tilt control is turned down, the response below the cutoff is flat. As its level is increased, it “tilts” the response so that the lowest frequencies are given a greater boost. The amplifier has a crossover bypass that can be used if your preamplifier or receiver has its own subwoofer crossover. It also has a toggle switch to invert the phase of the subwoofers’ output as well as signal-sensing circuitry for its automatic power on/off mode.

Each dipole surround speaker contains one 5-1/2-inch driver on its front face and two 2-1/2-inch drivers on each of its side faces. Their nominal impedance is given as 4 ohms and their sensitivity as 87 dB. The cabinets have keyhole brackets for wall-mounting.

Installing the Cinema 5.2 system in my home theater, I positioned the main towers about 6 feet apart a little bit out from the front wall, slightly toed-in. 1 put the center-channel speaker on the floor under the screen and angled it up. Finally, I placed the surround speakers on the side walls, slightly behind the listening position.

Because the Carver Cinema 5.2 system lacks bass-placement flexibility, I was anxious to see how its bass response would compare with that of the corner-located bass modules I have used. I auditioned a number of movies with healthy low-frequency effects (LFE) channels (Das Boot has a satisfy ingly deep low end), and I was not disappointed. Even though the subs’ placement was not optimal in my room, the two Carver 10-inchers delivered at least as much bass as stand-alone subs with single 10-inch drivers, perhaps because of the very peppy 300-watt amplifier powering them — that’s double or triple the power of most subs.

Moreover, perhaps also because of the high-quality amplifier, I felt that the Cinema 5.2 system’s deep-bass response was more musical than most. That is, the bass was not thumpy; instead, the subwoofers provided good resolution with useful output down to 25 or 30 Hz. Aside from pipe organs, few musical instruments go this low, but movies often use this bottom octave for low-frequency effects; for example, you’ll hear engine noise, ocean waves, and explosions rattling around down there. Poor subs merely honk and rattle, whereas good subs like these shake the room without betraying that the energy is coming from speakers.

I also appreciated the Bass Tilt circuit because it let me dial in the right amount of low bass for individual movie soundtracks. Of course, the ordinary bass-level control was also useful in matching the bass output to the overall high-frequency level.

Next I turned my attention from the bass to the entire frequency range, sticking with movie soundtracks and listening for a smooth frequency response, crisp transients, and a realistic sense of ambience. I was very happy with what I heard. The Cinema 5.2 system reminded me how awesome a set of good speakers can sound. If you want to raise goosebumps on the back of your neck watching a movie, these speakers will do the job. This system proves that well-matched speakers is the most important criterion for a home-theater speaker system.

The towers provided clean movie sound with good dynamics, and their rear-firing drivers provided an extra sense of spaciousness. The center speaker achieved the difficult goal of providing highly intelligible dialogue while matching the timbre of the main speakers. The surround speakers sounded great, and they may have changed my thinking about using dipole surrounds vs. direct-radiating surrounds (which I generally favor). The Carver surround speakers seemed to provide the best of both worlds — the spaciousness of dipoles and the correct timbre of matched speakers. I give this system two big thumbs up for movie sound.

Of course, music is the acid test for loudspeakers, so I listened carefully to a variety of music from both DVD surround and CD stereo sources. With surround-encoded recordings the system’s strength in reproducing spaciousness was fully apparent and made them sound terrific. For example, on the Delos DVD Spectacular (DV 7001), the five-channel recording of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (by expert engineer John Eargle) gave a perfect sense of stage and hall ambience, the kind of natural surround that only a good recording (and multiple speakers) can convey.

Playing “old-fashioned” two-channel stereo music through the two towers alone, I was moderately impressed — maybe not as impressed as I would have been with a $2,400 stereo pair, but I felt their sound was quite clean and not excessively forward, with a smooth response and good dispersion. I used the Delos Surround Spectacular CD (DE 3179) for a number of tests, including imaging — in which the speakers managed the difficult feat of providing both tight imaging and spaciousness. Case in point was the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, in which the brass were clearly pinpointed in the stereo panorama, while the woodwinds were more ethereally spread across the stage — exactly the way they were recorded.

My only real concern was the midbass response of the tower speakers. Although the response seemed fine when I analyzed it with pink noise, it lacked punch when reproducing music. As a result, the overall sound quality was a little slender. For example, in Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Overcoat, one of my favorite recordings, the drum sound should feature both a very solid impact and a huge resonance. With these towers, the drum sound was pretty huge, but I felt the impact was somewhat hollow and soft-sounding, as if the recording microphone had been pulled away. The best speakers have better luck with these very demanding transients.

If only I could have played with the fixed 80-Hz crossover frequency, or relocated the subwoofers, I might have been fully satisfied. One more thought: The sub amplifier is mono, and that’s great for movies, but I wondered if the system would sound better if a stereo amp was used for music listening. Maybe, maybe not. Even so, I’ll give the system one thumb up for stereo music.

Conventional wisdom says that a home-theater speaker system has an easy job because the picture distracts us; the visual stimulus compensates for sonic deficiencies. That may be true, but 5.1-channel playback does demand that speakers provide an encompassing spaciousness that is often difficult to achieve. The Carver Cinema 5.2 system accomplished this task with great proficiency. The resulting sound field really was impressively enveloping. At the same time, the effect wasn’t overdone, which allowed the system to maintain the precise imaging needed for conventional stereo playback. Moreover, the rock-solid cabinets and high-quality drivers delivered neutral sound quality. In short, this system will feel at home in both the two-channel and multichannel environments. And that’s no small accomplishment.

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