If you want to give your home theater sound system an intense workout, nothing packs more sonic muscle than a Blu-ray Disc. Most people are aware of the picture-quality improvement you get from a BD’s 1080p lines of resolution, but the jump in audio quality is equally impressive. A DVD cannot hold the uncompressed and HD audio tracks that a 50GB Blu-ray Disc can, and the difference is ear-shattering if you have a speaker setup that can take it. We put Cerwin-Vega!’s CVHD 5.1 system to the test to determine if the aural candy it produced from a Blu-ray Disc was as sweet as the look of the setup’s sleek, modern speakers.
The CVHDs use something called Linear Dispersion Speaker Technology (LDST), which is supposed to maintain a constant sound level at different distances and locations in a room (You know, for those of you who don’t live in a perfect square and have not measured the distance between each speaker to the nearest inch).
Who better to call up for a workout than actor-cum-Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger? His underrated cloning-gone-bad action flick The 6th Day just debuted on Blu-ray on April 8 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and features a robust Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack that is excellent demo material for the Cerwin-Vega! system, especially the scene where Arnie races his futuristic helicopter-jet through a tight canyon.
The sound of the whooshing engine comes at you from all directions, the score booms, and the laser-gunfire noise is piercing. What is amazing is how crisp and distinct the dialogue is amidst the bombastic sound effects throughout the movie. Also impressive is how there isn’t a bunk seat in the house when it comes to sound quality from the CVHDs—the LDST technology really does keep the audio fairly uniform even as you play musical chairs in your living room.
The CVHDs will run you about $1,000 for the five satellite speakers, wall mounts and the 48-pound subwoofer. We think it’s a lot of badabang for your buck.
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