JTR Noesis 228HT - The best speaker you never heard of for ~ $1200 pricepoint. - Page 6

Quick jump in for a few comments. There are most certainly cues for height. The shape of our ears plays a part in how sounds from different directions are heard slightly differently, and thereby there are some spectral (frequency response) changes and reflection interactions which we perceive to equate to changes in height. It is obviously a much weaker perception than our ability to distinguish lateral image locations. Some recordings will capture or manufacture aspects of this, and some setups skew images higher or lower, sometimes differently for different frequency ranges.
Edited by Mark Seaton - 2/27/13 at 9:53am

In addition to the actual science, there is a lot of "magical thinking" in audio.

Well there you go expecting specifications to occur simultaneously. A full range speaker driven with pink noise will probably see 1/10th-1/6th of that power in the range where excursion is an issue, where such a rating makes sense for musical power handling. The incorrect jump is the readers expecting a speaker will take a 200W sine wave at any frequency in the range, or even further expecting it to handle that within linear limits with no indication from the manufacturer that this is the case.

There are some distinct differences between the designs from JTR, Danley, myself and others vs. Tekton. Tekton has obviously made efficiency a priority in most all of their products, but the driver and physical layouts also make it clear that directivity, off axis consistency and power response are a very low priority. So while it is inevitable that they will be compared, remember they are contrasting approaches and alternates, and not equivalents.

Back to the sideline in this JTR thread...

Jonathan - We'll have to chat/catch up on more of your thoughts of the 228's soon! These do seem like a great buy for sure.

Thank you Mark. Your posts are always very educational.

This is the second time in the past 5 days you have used "ques" for "cues" and it is bothering me. You have used it as far back as 2001 in response to a post by Dennis Erskine in which he used "cues" four times. Now I'm curious if you are using "ques" for "cues" intentionally?

Wow, I missed that completely. Thank you so I can stop that. I suspect this comes from wrestling with suppliers and vendors all day to figure out where products are in the que to be built or delivered! I will be sure to take the cue and keep them sorted.

This is either pure comedy or I have to call you out one more time It is "queue" ...I suggest you stay with making fantastic speakers and leave the posting to the professionals

Both! I chalk it up to lazy/fast typing and a bad co-mingling of the homophones. At least I usually keep there, their and they're straight! Fortunately spelling/grammar is a lesser requirement in designing speakers and subwoofers.

Hi Everyone,

I have an opportunity to pick up a set of 2012 T8s that I could use for my LCR. The other option is to order 3 228s.
The T8s will be about about $1000 less since they are pre-owned.

Are the 228s worth a $1000 more? Willing to pay more if it is well worth it.

I have not heard these speakers yet and would love to hear everyone's opinions.

My room is 15 x 14 x 10 and it will be primarily be used as a home theater.

Thanks!

That's really a tough question to ask as there's only a very small handful of guys that have heard the new 228hts. And how speakers sound to one person compared to another is very subjective. Really the first page of this thread I believe has the impressions of how these compare to the Triple 8HT and those guys are the only people that have heard the new 228ht's as far as I know.

Basically, I think all the people who have listened to both speakers said that the 228's sounded better than T8's, but they had heard the T8's at a different time, and some in a different setting. 2012 T8's at $1000 less than the presale price for the 228's is a phenomenal deal.

Hearing both the 888's and 228's in my room (not at the same time unfortunately) I thought the 228's were smoother, less fatiguing, and had just an overall more pleasing sound than the 888's did. I'm not saying I didn't like the 888's, I just liked the 228's more. If it were me I would pay 1000 more, but I listen to my system all the time so for me it would be worth it.

However, you say music won't be played much and for me the differences between speakers become much more apparent for music than movies.

Reading your response again and looking at the specifications of some of the audiophile speakers that the reviewer from Hometheaterreview.com, I feel even more strongly that had the reviewer's first experience with high efficiency home speakers been with your designs or JTR's, he would have been even more impressed than he was with the Tektons.

I am sure that specifications do not tell the whole story, but it is amazing to me how much better speakers from JTR and Seaton Sound look on paper than speakers costing 10's of thousands of dollars. I wonder how many of these so called expert reviewers, have never really experienced what designs like yours can deliver.

The JTRs will be tough to impress Andrew as he has experience with the Meyer X-10s and JBL pro gear in his mixing room now lol. I'm sure he would still definitely be impressed by the costs of the JTRs; easily the best bang for your back imho. JTR should've gotten to him first!!

How do you guy's think these would compare to the Adam GTC 77's, which have a similar price point.

Going by specifications only, having never heard the Adam speakers, they are not really in the same league.

Jedi,

Why do you feel they are not in the same league?

Well for starters I would have to say with a sensitivity of only 88db and the JTR's would be a whole lot more dynamic then the GTC 77's.

Yeah, like jbrown15 said. While sensitivity isn't everything, without it, you will need more power and are likely to run into compression and distortion when turning things up. With higher efficiency designs, both the amp and the speaker are operating far from their limits, leading to distortion free sound, as loud as you would care to listen.

Ever though the review claims, "no dynamic compression"

I am sure Andrew Robinson is aware of JTR speakers. Has Mark sent in a pair for him to review ? What about sending a pair to other prominent reviewers ? I started looking at tekton after Andrew's review. After more research I ended up buying them and am very happy. I bought HSU sub based on expert reviews as well. For the ID speaker companies i would never buy their product just on AVS forum boards. I look at dozens of reviews from expert reviewers and see which person tastes in products are similar to mine. THen i also look at forum posts. It would be nice to get someone from audioholics, or home theater to do a review.

I would not be surprised if he has not heard of them. I think there are fewer out there than their presence on the forums would suggest. JTR is pretty much a 1 man operation and no matter how hard Jeff works, he can not equal the output of larger operations.

I have always wished that Jeff would send some speakers to a professional reviewer, but that may not be something he can do or even wants to do. Sometimes, growing too fast can be worse than growing too slow.

This is not a dig at Andrew Robinson because I have only read his review of the Pendragons which seemed well thought out, and I have no doubt that they are excellent speakers. However, I have stopped going to sites to read the reviews of "expert reviewers". This is because it is very rare to read a negative review, and they often seem to push things like overpriced electronic sources and cables. In any event, I think that there is an incentive to write a positive review, so that people will keep sending you gear to evaluate. Because of this, I actually prefer the opinions of fellow gearheads on the forums over the experts. Even with ownership bias thrown in.

Auditioning gear for yourself is even better, but, of course, it can be impossible with Internet direct companies.

Jeff comes out with different designs and upgrades to current designs so often that if he did send one out for review that by the time the review came out it would already be outdated with his latest design or upgrade.
Chris

Jeff has said he would like to have all of his products measured/reviewed by a 3rd party. It is a time and resource issue. It isn't like there are professional speaker reviewers out there who have the equipment and expertise to do this correctly just sitting around waiting for speakers to measure/review. They need to be paid for the service unless they are doing this for a magazine or a website and since these products do not have mass appeal that dog won't hunt.

Jeff was going to send a CAP1000 to Josh Ricci for measurements but I think there were bandwidth issues that pushed it back. I would have loved to have him send the OS just so folks would stop conjecturing about the OS's performance. Basically, it is a lot more complicated than folks think and that is why Seaton, Danley and JTR have not done it.

Andrew Robinson uses 14 dollar monoprice cables so I don't think he is one of those snooty reviewers. Tekton is no bigger then jtr . You call the number and you talk to the owner. If they wanted a review they could get one or take their product to a tradeshow. I am sure at some point they will and they will probably get a great review . Sounds like a solid product . I love internet companies because I think you get way more bang for your bucks.

Andrew Robinson uses 14 dollar monoprice cables so I don't think he is one of those snooty reviewers. Tekton is no bigger then jtr . You call the number and you talk to the owner. If they wanted a review they could get one or take their product to a tradeshow. I am sure at some point they will and they will probably get a great review . Sounds like a solid product . I love internet companies because I think you get way more bang for your bucks.

Again, I have nothing against Andrew Robinson. He has Crown Pro Amplifiers. clearly he is an exception.

I am making a generalization about the inherent conflicts in the review industry.

I take most "professional" reviews with a grain of salt, no one every really knows if someone is getting their pockets greased or not and I'd rather hear back directly from the people actually buying the speakers. I also know that anyone who buys a certain brand will usually have a little bias in regards to what they say about their speakers but you can get a pretty good feel how if one person thinks a certain brand is amazing and no one else does. One or two guys drinking that coolaid is one thing, but when end user after end user has nothing but great things to say about a specific brand they're usually onto something.