Well it’s 2011 now, and I’ve had my mod2 system now for about 5 years. The Orb modules have been flawlessly reliable. I also had the gen 1 sub go out, and did the drill to get a new “BASH” sub from Orb. It has been working now for better than 1.5 year, and I hope it doesn’t go out! But, I have to say, these guys have been good to me, and, as I see the junk being sold at retail, even with the sub issue this is the best solution I can have for HT speakers. I’m amazed the world has not caught fire over these “American Made” wonders. And, I’m an active shopper for “Made in America”!

What this is, is a single mid range speaker with a funky round enclosure. Your speaker box or enclosure effects the sound as it resonates, so this thin metal does not create a deep sound as you would with a heavy wood speaker case. This is why you get more clarity in the mid range and people say wow what a great speaker I hear more. You hear more because you don’t have 1/2 inch of wood around the speaker.
When you isolate you mid, tweeter and woofer it create a fuller stereo sound and more mids you get more ‘stereo.’

James, I’m looking at Orbs and also KEF Eggs. Do you remember which model of the KEF speakers you were looking at? I’m trying to get a sense of comparison between the Orbs and the KEF KHT-1005.2.
Cheers,
Adam

My general quick thoughts go like this:
- Ordering, packaging and arrival was very quick even to Europe with customs being a doddle.
- Chaps at the other end of the phone were helpful throughout & polite – that helps a lot!
- The simple, slick attractive design manages to be discrete amongst our living room.
- I love the look of them before I bought and still do 7 months later setup in our room.
- Easy to setup, but the basic low cost (white) wall / roof brackets supplied are complete rubbish, they struggle to cope with the weight and over time have drooped. I would have bought the more expensive brushed stands, but I needed them to be white which they don’t do sadly.
- Upon arrival I had two speakers which were faulty. The rivet type rear thread to screw the speaker to the bracket spun meaning they could not be tightened and secured properly. I phoned the guys up and they sent new items out asap. The replacements were fine and the faulty ones were returned. My customer service experience throughout has been perfect despite the 2 faulty speakers.
- The sub certainly works well, but i agree with the comments above, it looks dated and not a show piece to look at. The aesthetic design could do with a revamp. That said it works perfectly and performs nicely (deep and rich base).
- Regarding the sounds quality, I’m pretty impressed considering the size of the speakers and very happy with the overall range when playing music or watching blue ray dvds. The sub has to work hard though to make up for the loss low frequency in the smaller speakers and sometimes gets caught out on quiet film scenes. I’ve tweaked and twiddled with settings and struggled to find an optimum solution. This though for me is a minor, minor quibble as all the competitors above suffered similar things and you will always have this issue to a degree when going for smaller discrete speaker surround packages relying on the sub to make up the difference.
- The KEFF Eggs do sound slightly better in my opinion. The Bose stuff being bottom / far too overrated and expensive. The Mission M Cubes had the best build & most attractive design, but the sheer size of the sub put me off and they also struggled with the low v’s high frequency cross over from speaker to sub etc.
My conclusion, super happy considering the amount they cost and would only change the wall bracket mounts if buying now 7 months later.

Since you’ve reviewed Orb and you get all sorts of toys, perhaps you could tell me how it stacks up against your other toys (e.g. Bose, if you’ve got any).

Yes, I do remember talking to you about these exact speakers ) Trust me, you NEED these speakers! You won’t be sorry. I can’t believe how good they sound.