Cerwin Vega! VE-12 12" 3-Way Tower Speaker
Review by Benjamin : VE-12 
I have had these for about 15 years, they are the cleanest, clearest, FULLEST speakers I have ever heard. That being said, I am a audiophile, and a bit jaded one at that. I have an amp that is 1200W RMS X 2 for them (waaaay too much power) and have blown them out more times than I have care to tell, but they always sound incredible, I have since upgraded the components as I go along,(or as I blow them) I melted the crossovers the last time, and blew both woofers before that, pushing about 1000W RMS through them with some bass heavy material loud enough for a Michael Jackson concert. I replaced the woofers with some 1000 watt Cerwin Vega Vmax 124 subwoofers. My roommate was walking to the house a block away and thought some car was parked in front of our house booming when he came inside to find out that it was me. MY GOD do they sound great! They play loud solid and tight down to 20 hertz all the way up to 20K. Crystal clear bass mids and highs. I have some pro-audio 3 way 700watt selenium crossovers in them now and they sound soooo clean now, with the subs in them I have the receiver bass eq on negative -6! Pioneer Elite THX. I have to take out the bass because of my neighbors pictures come off the walls even if I play it very soft- soft enough to talk normally over it. It's hard to describe how complete the sound is, it never leaves me wishing that it had more anything, I just want to turn it up louder. It's NOT boomy at ALL. Just 10 mile deep bass tighter than spandex on a 300lb man. The deepness of the bass will shake the whole house even at volumes you can whisper over them. It's the weirdest thing to have deep deep bass that is tight, artriculate and clean, no notes standing out or louder than others or louder than the mids or highs, completing the sound rather than playing over the sound of the mids and highs.
Some of you reading this will think me putting 1000watt subs, acoustifill polystuffing, Selenium 3 way 700w xovers in a 300w 3 way tower is overkill, and I am some punk basshead with no respect for sound quality. I will tell you I am a bona fide audiophile, listening to stuff regularly like Krell, B&W, Meridian, Lynn, PSB, Martin Logan(not that good IMO)B&O, and many other VERY high end systems like Genisis, Legacy, Mirage, KEF, Jamo, and many others. I have heard all that stuff, yes it sounds more neutral at whisper volumes, BUT when you play that junk next to my custom Frankenstein LS12's, that other stuff sounds like a tin can because of the FULLNESS and CRISP CLARITY of my sound, My speakers will turn off that other stuff at even low volumes due to how full the sound is.
Loudness is one thing; can be measured with a SPL/db meter. Fullness or Volume is something completely different. As far as I know there is no "fullness" meter. You can have a boom box playing music at 100db and my system barely turned up to 100db. The Fullness of my system is so incredible you wont be able to hear the boom box over my system even at the same loudness. That is the same analogy to these LS12's to the other high end stuff, yeah at whisper volumes they are more neutral, but when you turn it up even a little, the fullness of this system takes over and drowns out those prissy systems that are over these. Not to mention they are very sensitive @ 97db/1watt.
I can say just about everyone on here won't push these as hard as I have, they can handle waaay more power than the 300 they are rated for. I got to ~about~ double that before I had any problems. I kept blowing fuses was the only drama I had even at 600WRMS going through them. Anything over that, the woofers will give out on you and the xover will melt the coating over the wires. As long as the power is clean as a whistle they love power. My Frankenstein LS12's can handle about 1000wrms per speaker now, deep, clean and clear as any speaker on the planet- I would bet my speakers against any other speaker pair out there including pro-audio for clarity, deep tight articulate bass, and overall sound! The only time I would back down if I customized the new Cerwin Vega CLS-215 with the same mods as this one. That is my next set of speakers!
I have used these residential speakers for live events and pool party's, and they rock. I have never seen anyone, Woman or Man, listen to my system and not smile ear to ear when they heard the clarity and fullness from the tight deep deep deep bass to the crystal clear highs and sharp mids. I have had older 50's-60's men come over and be smiling ear to hear hearing this wishing to get back into being an audiophile, all the way through the ages to a punk teenager freaking out for an hour on how awesome my system sounds.
I would recommend these VE12's on a condition. Get a clean pre-amp and an amplifier that has at LEAST 300watts RMS per channel. If you under power them, they will disappoint you. I 100% GUARANTEE IT. A friend of mine heard my system and immediately went to go buy it the same day. I recommended a certain system to power them, he bought what the salesperson recommended instead of what I recommended, and he wanted to take back/sell the whole thing. He bought a top of the line Yamaha receiver. 100% guarantee 100% promise you are NOT getting a Cerwin Vega system pushing these through a Yamaha. I put my word on it. He almost didn't listen to me, he traded the Yamaha for some Sony crap, and it was a little better but not enough to keep the Vega's. I told him how much it matters to buy the right system and convinced him to trade it one more time to the one of my choice. To this day he has his Cerwin Vega RE35's with that receiver I recommended. That was over 14 years ago. He has had many a block party and couldn't be happier with his system. I had that receiver and gave it to my brother, and regret giving away that receiver, my Pioneer Elite THX doesn't really sound as good as that old receiver.
No, It really does matter what you hook it up to- like there is a difference in vehicles from a pinto to a F-15 jet. They are not all made the same. Or sound the same. My $0.02 is get the right equipment to power it or don't buy these at all.
31 reviews
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Robert R. Desautels "Zack": THE BEST