Digital Trends

Orb Audio Classic Two

February 3rd, 2005 | by Ian Bell

Installation

Orb Audio does a great job of packaging their speakers, every component is well protected and we did not see any signs of damage that could have occurred in shipping. We were disappointed to see that a manual did not come with our review samples. Instead, you are forced to go to their website to download the manuals. So make sure that you have Acrobat Reader installed and get ready to download and print. Their instructions are very detailed and well written and should answer any questions that you have.

We used the following components in our testing:

- Yamaha RV-795 5.1 receiver

- Yamaha CDC-955 5 disc CD changer (using digital optical connection)

- 20ft by 15ft living room

Because we are testing their 2.1 Classic Two system, we did not use them in a home theater setting and strictly tested these speakers using music samples. We set the crossover to 160Hz which lets our receiver control the bass management of the subwoofer. If you have a THX enabled receiver and will be using one of Orb Audio's 5.1 systems, you will probably want to move the crossover setting to the recommended THX setting of  80Hz. If you are switching from a large speaker setup to this one, make sure to change the speaker type to small speakers in your receiver's setup menu.

HOSS floor stands

We tested our speakers using their Hoss floor stands. Assembling the floor stands is very straight forward, just be careful not to bend the metal pipes. In a Mod 2 setup, you will have two satellite speakers you will need to mount to each stand. It is important to remember that you want the two satellites mounted very close to each other, but not touching, or it will ruin the sound. Orb Audio includes two small speaker wires measuring about 5-inches long to connect the two satellites. It is important that you have the biding posts facing down when the speakers are attached to the stands. Use the included wires to connect the two speakers and then plug your speaker wire into the lower satellite speaker. We had a problem getting the satellites to look straight on their floor stands, but after some adjustments, they looked right. If you have particularly thick carpet, you can purchase a metal floor mat to set your speaker stands on to give them an even flat surface. You can also purchase wall mounts or desktop stands making it a very versatile system.