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Does anyone have any info or brochures for the CR series?


bassment142

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I heard my friend's CR7's and they sounded absolutly stunning considering their size. I accuesed him of having a subwoofer.

Now there are some newer versions such as the CR75 etc. Upon trying to do research I have gotten quite confused.

From what I gather..

First was the CR4 CR5 CR6 CR7 then came CR55, 65, 75 85, 95 (tower) and then CR57 67 77??

Agh! I give up!

All I want to know is which of these models go down to around 50hz like the CR7s.

If anyone has anything they can attach I would be thankful. Thank you

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  • 1 month later...

I was the Director of Home Audio Product Development at Boston Acoustics from 1992-2003, so I can tell you something about these speakers. The original CR series (Compact Reference) was introduced in Dec 1994, as the replacement to the HD series.

That first CR family consisted of the CR6 (5 ¼” 2-way), CR7 (6 ½”), CR8 (7”) and CR9 (8”). They were all ported speakers, because BA was being hammered at the time at retail in A-B comparisons by companies like PSB and Energy. Those companies had ported speakers, which gave them a little deeper -3dB point—at the expense of a very rapid 4th-order rolloff beneath that—but in a retail A-B (especially without efficiency compensation, which most retailers no longer used), they sounded like they had “more bass” than the sealed HD5, HD7, etc.

They were received very well by dealers and they sold quite well. The 6 and 7 used a cheap Tonegen hard dome, while the 8 and 9 used a BA-built 1” soft dome, that we called “Kortec.” Totally nonsensical, made-up name, meant nothing, but it sounded good. The tweeter itself was superb, as was BA’s 1” aluminum dome (used in the VR20, 30 and 40 floorstanders), also built in-house in Peabody MA.

The CR7 was a favorite of BA’s president, Andy Kotsatos. For an inexpensive speaker using pretty ordinary components, it sounded truly excellent, with great balance and a very smooth FR. My favorite in the line was the CR8, which really did do the “where’s the sub” trick pretty well, especially for a 7” woofer. That 1” tweeter was smooth as could be and that was a great speaker. The CR9 was a “big bookshelf” (by 1990’s standards), but it was full range, with solid bass down into the mid 40’s.

The front baffle and rear panel were reinforced molded plastic and the four panels (top, sides and bottom) were MDF with 45-degree cuts and connected together by their black or woodgrain vinyl wrap. We had a special jig that held the front and rear parts upright, applied the glue and the inner MDF wrap just fit right into slots around the outside of the plastic panels. There was also a big internal MDF U-brace, and the legs of the brace fit into receptacles on the backside of the front plastic baffle.

The resulting cabinet had the look of a traditional wood bookshelf speaker with the smooth details (terminal well, port flare, driver recesses, rear-panel wall-mount keyhole, etc.) that could only be done that nicely as a one-piece plastic molded part. Add to that nice metal-perf grilles, and the CRs were lookers, that’s for sure. Made ordinary bookshelf speakers seem like 1950’s relics. At CES in January 1995, it seemed like every high-profile competitor was in our booth, examining the CRs. I remember the head of one of the major Canadian companies (probably Energy) was there with their head Eng person, and their President was admonishing the Eng guy, shaking his finger at him, saying, “This is how you build a bookshelf speaker!”

The CR4 and 5 came quite a few years later, very small sealed speakers, using 4 ½” drivers—a full-range driver in the 4, a 2-way with that cheap Tonegen tweeter in the 5. These were nothing special.

The second-gen CR bookshelves—the CR55, 65, 75 and 85—used all BA-built tweeters, even in the lesser models. The little hard-dome Tonegen was gone, replaced by a far superior BA ¾” dome. But even though the 55, 65, 75 and 85 were truly good speakers, by then—around 2001—the market for “real” audio was starting into its downward spiral and they were not as successful as the previous CRs were.

Steve F.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks!

I found a pair of CR75 locally and bought them. They sound great, but I actually went back to using my smaller advents instead for their wonderul bass response.. even though they look like they belong in a wood paneled 1982 green shag carpet raised ranch...

They are such a handy speaker, I am always going to hang on to them because you never know when or where you might need some nice little speakers. My kids are toddlers now, but soon they will have a nice setup in their rooms.

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  • 3 months later...

Thanks for the terrific overview, Steve! I am looking for background on my T830 and A60-II, but there is nothing in the CSP library, and including "brochure" as a search term revealed this thread.  Any suggestions?

Interesting: Ken Kantor posted, "I had a pair of T830's in my stable of "competitive samples" for several years... a very nice speaker for the $$."

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  • 2 months later...
  • 7 months later...

Hi I am new to this forum but have been reading the comments here with great interest. I have owned a pair of Boston Acoustics CR9's since the 1990's. I like them but wondered if I would enjoy the CR8's more. Can anyone (particularly Steve F if you are still following this thread) compare the Boston CR9 and the CR8 and what you think about the CR9's? Thanks!

 

 

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The CR8 (7"woofer) and CR9 (8" woofer) were voiced very similarly. The CR9's bass extended about 10Hz lower, enough to be audible to a meaningful degree. One of our engineers (Gerry S, also a poster on this forum) used the CR9 as reference speakers in his lab, to compare new speakers to as a benchmark. They had a very smooth and level frequency response and plenty of bass. It was an absolutely terrific speaker.

The thing to remember was that in 1995-ish when it was introduced, "bookshelf" speakers had already started to shrink. The CR9 was almost identical in size the the AR-4x of 1965, yet the 4x was tiny by the standards of its day, while the CR9 ended up being too big to be a really good seller. The CR9's bass response was easily the equal of the AR-2ax and 5, and far superior to the 4x.

I liked the CR8 the best of the CR line, because it used the 'good' 1" Boston-built Kortec tweeter (as did the CR9), but the CR8 was smaller and better-looking, while still having a completely respectable low end.

But if you currently have the CR9's and like the way they sound and look, I see no reason to change.

That was a fine series of speakers.

Steve F.

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Very interesting to come across this today as I was looking for a 2nd set of speakers to compliment my CR6's.  I've got a pair of Boston Acoustic A70 speakers, though they've been placed in an American Acoustic d3550e enclosure.  They don't come close to matching the CR6 which led me on the search for CR8's or CR9's.

Certainly the enclosure would hurt the sound of the A70's, but could someone help compare the CR8 or 9 to the A70? 

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  • 4 months later...
  • 9 months later...

Help please. My aunts moving. Selling belongings from the house shw doe s nt use so I offered to help. Im stumped. I have a tamaha reciever model  and 8 bost acoustic CR4s plus a remote and sps speaker selection system. I was a freshman when component in disk mode were five hundred bucks a piece and been out of the surround sound world forever my research is done nothing but confuse me I have no idea really what I have because it doesn't seem to be surround sound system and I have no idea where a good place it would be to maybe sell it if anyone is out there that has some compassion for this 44 year old to who bit off more than she can chew I need help and advice

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  • 1 month later...

I know the CR8 had the 1" Kortec, but I thought the smaller CR6 had a 3/4 inch Kortec.... I could be mistaken though. I agree with the other poster though that the CR8 was more esthetically pleasing to look at than the CR9 and to my ears was more for lack of a better word precise. Also I thought the cabinets on the second generation CR series were kind of cheap looking in comparison to the more solid looking and sounding first generation CR's....

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  • 1 year later...
On 11/1/2015 at 10:17 AM, Steve F said:

I was the Director of Home Audio Product Development at Boston Acoustics from 1992-2003, so I can tell you something about these speakers. The original CR series (Compact Reference) was introduced in Dec 1994, as the replacement to the HD series.

That first CR family consisted of the CR6 (5 ¼” 2-way), CR7 (6 ½”), CR8 (7”) and CR9 (8”). They were all ported speakers, because BA was being hammered at the time at retail in A-B comparisons by companies like PSB and Energy. Those companies had ported speakers, which gave them a little deeper -3dB point—at the expense of a very rapid 4th-order rolloff beneath that—but in a retail A-B (especially without efficiency compensation, which most retailers no longer used), they sounded like they had “more bass” than the sealed HD5, HD7, etc.

They were received very well by dealers and they sold quite well. The 6 and 7 used a cheap Tonegen hard dome, while the 8 and 9 used a BA-built 1” soft dome, that we called “Kortec.” Totally nonsensical, made-up name, meant nothing, but it sounded good. The tweeter itself was superb, as was BA’s 1” aluminum dome (used in the VR20, 30 and 40 floorstanders), also built in-house in Peabody MA.

The CR7 was a favorite of BA’s president, Andy Kotsatos. For an inexpensive speaker using pretty ordinary components, it sounded truly excellent, with great balance and a very smooth FR. My favorite in the line was the CR8, which really did do the “where’s the sub” trick pretty well, especially for a 7” woofer. That 1” tweeter was smooth as could be and that was a great speaker. The CR9 was a “big bookshelf” (by 1990’s standards), but it was full range, with solid bass down into the mid 40’s.

The front baffle and rear panel were reinforced molded plastic and the four panels (top, sides and bottom) were MDF with 45-degree cuts and connected together by their black or woodgrain vinyl wrap. We had a special jig that held the front and rear parts upright, applied the glue and the inner MDF wrap just fit right into slots around the outside of the plastic panels. There was also a big internal MDF U-brace, and the legs of the brace fit into receptacles on the backside of the front plastic baffle.

The resulting cabinet had the look of a traditional wood bookshelf speaker with the smooth details (terminal well, port flare, driver recesses, rear-panel wall-mount keyhole, etc.) that could only be done that nicely as a one-piece plastic molded part. Add to that nice metal-perf grilles, and the CRs were lookers, that’s for sure. Made ordinary bookshelf speakers seem like 1950’s relics. At CES in January 1995, it seemed like every high-profile competitor was in our booth, examining the CRs. I remember the head of one of the major Canadian companies (probably Energy) was there with their head Eng person, and their President was admonishing the Eng guy, shaking his finger at him, saying, “This is how you build a bookshelf speaker!”

The CR4 and 5 came quite a few years later, very small sealed speakers, using 4 ½” drivers—a full-range driver in the 4, a 2-way with that cheap Tonegen tweeter in the 5. These were nothing special.

The second-gen CR bookshelves—the CR55, 65, 75 and 85—used all BA-built tweeters, even in the lesser models. The little hard-dome Tonegen was gone, replaced by a far superior BA ¾” dome. But even though the 55, 65, 75 and 85 were truly good speakers, by then—around 2001—the market for “real” audio was starting into its downward spiral and they were not as successful as the previous CRs were.

Steve F.

Can you tell us what the difference was between the CR8 and the CR8c ? Thank you. 

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To the best of my knowledge, there was no such thing from Boston Acoustics as a "CR8c." Definitely not while I was there, and I was there for the transition of the CRx series to the CRx5 series. Are you sure you're not looking at the serial number label and perhaps the 'c' is part of the s/n string? If "CR8c" is an actual model number, my suspicion would be that it's a knock-off made somewhere else. As I said, not from when I was at BA and I was there for the entire life of the CR8.

Oh, BTW, to answer TWB's question above--the CR6 had the small Tonegen hard dome tweeter. The next-gen entry-level CR's--the "x5's" had a BA-built 3/4" Kortec dome. Much better tweeter.

Steve F.

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