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Product summary
The good: The Cambridge SoundWorks Newton Series P300HD is a beautifully styled, steel-paneled, high-performance subwoofer. Despite a slimline design that measures a scant 8.5 inches deep, the unit packs an onboard 300-watt amplifier that drives six 6.5-inch woofers. Innovative engineering completely eliminates cabinet vibrations, which may reduce floor-borne transmission to the room below the subwoofer.
The bad: This combination of power, style, and performance doesn't come cheap.
The bottom line: Cambridge's radical design in its Newton Series P300HD Powered Subwoofer delivers extraordinary performance.
Specifications: Type of speaker: subwoofer; Dimensions (WxDxH): 8.5 in x 17.5 in x 27.2 in; Amplification type: Active See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 10/19/2006
- Released on: 09/15/2006
The P300HD's steel-wrapped, medium-density fiberboard cabinet exudes high-end class; it looks like it would sell for at least double its list price. The steel panels are finished in a metallic gray, the top panel is gloss black, and the perforated-metal grilles are black. It's a fairly large design, 27 inches high and 17.5 wide, but its 8.5 depth makes for a less imposing presence than your average cube-shaped subwoofer. The P300HD weighs 70 pounds.
We'd guess almost every buyer will use one of the stereo RCA inputs, but--if your A/V receiver is old enough to not have a subwoofer output--you can hook up the special speaker wires that come with the HD P300HD to the receiver's left and right speaker connections. There's also an RJ-11 jack, which is for use with Cambridge's P500 and P1000 Sound Consoles. Controls are limited to a large, illuminated volume control that's conveniently located on the top panel.
Instead of relying on a single 10- or 12-inch woofer, the P300HD boasts a total of six 6.5-inch woofers (all powered by the sub's 300-watt amplifier). Actually, the P300HD deploys three speakers on each end of the cabinet; the design gambit effectively cancels cabinet vibrations. So if you place your hand on the P300HD, even when it's pumping out lots of bass, you won't feel it moving--not in the slightest. The subwoofer won't directly transmit energy through the floor to the room below your home theater (some of the bass will, of course, be audible in that room, but possibly less than that from a conventional sub). We also noted that even when we stood right next to the HD P300HD, we couldn't detect it as a source of sound--all of the bass seemed to be coming from the MC600HD speakers! We can pay no higher complement to a subwoofer. The only other sub we've ever heard that can pull off that trick was B&W's bowling-ball-shaped PV1 sub ($1,500), but the Cambridge sub is more powerful than the B&W which uses just two 8-inch woofers.
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