Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew miskovic from cnet and we are taking a look at the speaker craft cs3 this is a high-end sound bar that's currently selling for around six hundred dollars the speaker craft uses a pedestal design which means it's designed to sit under your TV rather than in front of it that gives you a really nice look as a sound bar tends to just blend in with your TV cabinet plus it avoids the problem that some sound bars have of blocking the TV's remote sensor the cs3 is also well designed otherwise with nicely curved edges on the front and a nifty removable speaker grill that's held on by magnets underneath the grill you can see the cs3 has quite a few drivers including 21 inch tweeters in 43 inch mid-range drivers plus there are two subwoofers on the bottom the one thing you'll notice that isn't on the front panel is any sort of display so you're not going to get any kind of visual feedback when you're adjusting the volume which can be a little annoying unfortunately the included remote is pretty lousy it's just a tiny cheap feeling remote with mushy buttons and a confusing layout now you can always get around that by using a good universal remote but you really do expect better on a product that's expensive on the back there are just a few inputs one optical one coaxial and an analog input that's not much but it's really not an issue since you can connect all your devices directly to your TV and then connect your TV's audio output right to the cs3 the real standout feature is built-in Bluetooth connectivity that makes it possible to wirelessly stream music from just about any smartphone any ipad and many other tablets you'd think that Bluetooth would be a standard feature in sound bars by now but it's frequently missing especially from high-end models so it's nice to see it here now as much as I like the way pedestal sound bars look they generally don't sound as good as systems with the separate subwoofer but the speaker craft cs3 is an exception as it's one of the best sounding sound bars we've reviewed even with its pedestal design resident audiophile Steve Guttenberg listened to the system and he was really impressed at how well it handled both high impact action movies and to channel music which most sound bar straw with it's not quite as good as Atlantic technologies PB 235 but it is pretty close and it this looks a heck of a lot better the real sticking point with the cs3 is the price budget-minded shoppers will do better with the three hundred dollars evox Z base for 20 which has a very similar design but it doesn't quite sound or look as good and it's also worth pointing out that at six hundred dollars you could get much better sound with a cheap AV receiver and some separate tower speakers but the speakercraft cs3 is for those that want a simpler unobtrusive home audio system that still delivers excellent sonics and on those counts it's a real winner you'll have to pay a lot for its combination of talents but the speakercraft cs3 is a worthwhile investment for a great-looking sound bar that will serve you well for years I'm Matthew miskovic and this is the speaker craft cs3