So I have finished my current build of three Sentinels. I have not gotten a lot of time with them, and the temp setup while I wait for my house is far from the ideal room, placement, I applied no eq, level matching, etc. All that in mind, I could not wait to hear them, so last night I spent about an hour or so going through some movie clips. In short, I think what you guys are offering by designing and making these kits available to us all is incredible. For $400 one can build a really nice speaker, that otherwise would cost multiples of that to replicate in the commercial world. I will also say this...I had a local high end shop that was trying to sell me the CT8.4 cinemas by B&W about a month ago. I know that audio memory isn't the best, but I can confidently say this...after listening to the Sentinels last night, no part of me is thinking back to that experience and wishing I had bought those, and they were over $3k a peice, with discount. Just for referrance, I used my Denon 4520 as the processor and fead them just over a thousand watts each from one of my cv5k cerwin vega amps. When testing, I only ran left and right speakers in movie mode stereo, as I am space limited here. I think this factor adds to the impressive nature of the experience I had. In fairness to the B&Ws, they were run the same way, only two. The Seos build, and the experience it gave me were poison though ;D . I am already palnning another build to see how far i can push it.
So I wanted to post some additional comments, as I have had a bit more time to spend with these. I am going to copy in an email that I sent to Matt, the designer. Hey Matt, I just wanted to get back to you on the Sentinels...I plan to move these into the living room in a more well finished cabinet once we get the megas built because I like them so much. I watched Skyfall today on BluRay with the Sentinels. The setup is still less than stellar, but I did my best to get them in decent position. I can only run stereo because of space limitations in the temp spot. What the Sentinels are capable of with a thousand watts and even just in stereo is nothing short of incredible, especially considering the cost. The pair was able to set the soundstage so well, the sound came from behind the speakers and even out wider than the outer edges of them. The imaging was nothing short of impressive...movement from side to side was seamless and the image consistantly expanded outside of the two speakers. Moderate volumes sounded best due to the limited listening area and all other limitations of the crappy room. Dialogue was unbelievable, voices were placed exactly where they should be in the scene and they sounded "in the room". I guess what I'm saying is, great job on these things!! I am so encouraged about the SEOSR project based on what you have been able to do with the budget components of the Sentinel build. I can't imagine how good the SEOSR are gonna turn out! I am gonna stay up late tonight just to watch a couple more flicks So I guess you could say I really like them