We’ve always been rather fond of Boston Acoustics speakers. They provide reliable musicality in designs that are not necessarily spectacular but can always be counted on to be enjoyable. The Boston Acoustics CS 23 isn’t an unpleasant bookshelf speaker by any means but its quest to be economical causes too many shortfalls to make it particularly desirable.

The sound quality of the Boston Acoustics CS 23 is good for music as long as it’s not challenged too much. This bookshelf speaker is more at home in a home theater environment in which other speakers can share the workload, but even there, we found it pretty easy to exceed the modest capabilities.

Bass response from these speakers is the shallowest of any bookshelf speaker in our survey. The low-end drop-off goes down only to 120Hz. That means sacrificing the lowest octave and a half of musical content. Of course, a good subwoofer solves that problem, as with other bookshelf speakers, but these need it even more than most.

High-frequency response is much better, attaining the all-important 20kHz benchmark. Even still, and as we’ve pointed out when evaluating competing bookshelf speakers, reaching only 20kHz doesn’t allow for sonic overtones that add inaudible but discernable spaciousness to great music. Whether in the bass, treble or mid-ranges, overdriving these bookshelf speakers is rather easy. When reaching their limits, response becomes uneven and unpredictable.

These bookshelf speakers are rather efficient producing 89dB of output sound with the input of a 1W input signal. That’s about average for bookshelf speakers in this price range. The manufacturer recommends amplifier power of at least 10W but not more than 150W so there is a very wide range of electronics that can meet the requirement. Magnetic shielding will prevent video interference if the speakers are placed in close proximity to a CRT television or monitor. Cable connections are facilitated by five-way binding posts which are gold-plated to prevent corrosion.

The Boston Acoustics CS 23’s design is similar to most of the bookshelf loudspeakers we’ve evaluated pairing a single low-frequency driver with a tweeter. The low-frequency driver has a cone made of graphite injected polymer which makes it quite rigid. The result is very clean, fast response. It employs the Deep Channel Design that is well known in Boston Acoustics speakers. The manufacturer claims that the channeling produces more bass with less amplifier input and, as we noted in our review of the excellent Boston Acoustics CS 26, it seems to be effective. The notable performance difference in the two speakers seems to reside with the size of the driver. In the CS 23 it measures a slight 3 1/2-inches in diameter. That just doesn’t seem to be adequate to push the amount of air needed to create great sound. The tweeter, on the other hand, is the same 1-inch Kortec soft dome driver that is featured with the CS 26. The crossover is set at 2,700Hz.

The bass reflex design enclosure of this bookshelf speaker is available with either black ash or cherry finish. The bass reflex port fires rearward which we believe makes wall-mounting inadvisable despite the inclusion of a keyhole mounting bracket.

Customer support is available via email or telephone, though the phone number isn’t toll-free. The manufacture’s website has a good FAQs section and the owner manual and other information is available online.