The Official Salk Sound Owner's And Discussion Thread - Page 13

I will think positive thoughts for you buddy. Where there is a will there is a way

Fair enough comment. I was a little surprised the reviewer used a company plot, but so far there haven't been any independent mesurements. I cut that plot off at 200 Hz because my measurement equipment switches from anechoic to room response at that point, and what you see is a bunch of dips caused by floor and ceiling bounce, as well has some room modes. It's very hard to interpret unless you can compare it with lots of other speakers measured in the same room. The simulations show that the woofers will be down about 2-3 dB at 40 Hz, not including any room gain. I think that's pretty accurate, and you can certainly hear (and feel) a clean 40 hz on a tone sweep.

Great review! Congrats Jim and Dennis. I'm looking forward to getting my ST's, which should arrive this Thursday. My SongCenter is coming later. And I just placed an order for the SongSurround I's yesterday to round out my 5.0 system (no sub since I live in a townhouse).

I also decided to upgrade the rest of my system. I'm making the plunge into separates by getting the NHT Power5 amp (arriving today) and the NuForce AVP 17 pre-pro. I'm also thinking about the Oppo DV-983H. I'm still a novice but am trying to learn what I can from this forum and by going to audio stores. I welcome any opinions on anything I may be doing wrong that could prevent optimizing my Salk experience.

BTW, I was auditioning the NuForce the other day. And the one I checked out was connected to a pair of Dali Helicon 400 MK2s. Those are some great looking and sounding speakers. But I'm sure I'll be more than happy with the ST's.

Dennis, thanks very much for the response. Excuse my ignorance as I have very limited knowledge of speaker measurements and the equipment used. Are frequency plots then typically done anechoic (I hope I used that right )?

A solid 40 Hz will definitely satisfy my needs, so that is great to hear. BTW, I already have a pair on order so this is all just curiosity on my part.

bahorn,
just read your post on going to separates. Good choices. I previously owned the Nu Force AVP-16 and while I enjoyed it very much I moved on to the new Integra DTC 9.8 and it is now hooked up to the new OPPO 983. Awesome is the result. If you are going to go with the OPPO you should really hook it into a processor that accepts HDMI. Unless I am mistaken the AVP-17 is identical to the AVP-16 but in a different cabinet. No HDMI.
You will be very happy with the OPPO 983 music and video.

[quote=idiotec;13521818]Dennis, thanks very much for the response. Excuse my ignorance as I have very limited knowledge of speaker measurements and the equipment used. Are frequency plots then typically done anechoic (I hope I used that right )?

I guess the technical term is Quasi Anechoic. A true anechoic measurement is done in a specially treated room that has virtually no reflections. The Canadian testing laboratory has one of those, but most real people don't. If you didn't use a room like that, or computer software that approximates it, the frequency "plot" would be a maize of jagged virtical lines caused by all the thousands of reflections. My computer software feeds the speaker with a very brief impulse signal that, when transformed mathmatically, contains all of the frequencies within human hearing. The computer then processes a very short "window" of the speaker's output that captures the direct sound before the reflections arrive. So you see what the speaker is doing, not the room. As you go down in frequency, there is less and less information available to the computer becuase the sound waves are longer and take longer to complete a cycle. Eventually, around 200 Hz, there just isn't enough info to process within the short window. Praxis (my program) gradually widens the window below this point to give you some idea of what the speaker is doing, but it does include some of the cancellations and peaks caused by the early reflections. Now, what was the question?

Thanks again Dennis, a very thorough explanation. As I look through other reviews now, I notice some label the measurements as "in room" and others as anechoic. Makes sense now! I also noticed the line "with the complex sum of the nearfield responses plotted below 350Hz." Is that a technique of averaging of sorts in-room measurements?

Sorry, I know we are way off topic now to this thread

Without getting too technical and off-point, near-field measurements are pretty much the exact opposite of room response. They are made with the mic within an inch or two of the woofer dust cap or phase plug. These plots must be spliced with the one-meter anechoic measurement above 200 Hz, and with a separate measure of the port output (if there is a port), and adjustments made for differences in output level result from differing measurement distances. It can all work if done expertly (although room gain effects won't be factored in), but I can learn what I need to know much more quickly and I think accurately by looking at the Praxis plots with the room response option activated. And, of course, nothing can beat actual listening tests with appropriate broad band source material.

Please no offense intended I was just merely making a suggestion that changed my life. I've seen you mention it a couple of times, and you should get the speakers you're after I don't have mine yet, but mostly because I want to get out of my apartment first! Small place over here and I'm running a 2.0 setup quite comfortably as it is.

-Chad

Thanks once again Dennis, great information.

here's what i want to know - how are salk's hts speakers compared to the STs. anyone did a comparison?

Best to just call Jim and inquire.

These are my HT3's
Lee Pence

Nice speakers, but I have to say I really prefer the silver woofer. Beautiful veneer though! Jim always does quality work. Are these the ones where the baffle was made special to be flush with the rest of the speaker? I think I saw these on Jim's Veracity of the Month gallery.

Those are beautiful!! - what finish is that? I'm too lazy to look on Jim's website to check. Are they lighter or darker than the picture, higher gloss??

As difficult as it is sometimes to ascertain how much a reviewer 'really' liked a given pair of speakers (have to read between the lines sometimes), I can't think of a higher recommendation by a reviewer than to actually purchase the speakers he/she is reviewing. Seems like a pretty solid recommendation with no ambiguity!

Congrats to Salk Sound on the rave review. Long overdue.
Ever notice that none of the "established" print magazines or even websites will touch speakers like Jim's or any of the other ID manufacturers, except the ones that advertise?
I'm sure it's just coincidence.

I really can't blame the standard print rags like Stereophile for not reviewing ID speakers. Yes, they're beholden to established dealer-oriented companies for advertising $. But there are almost no such magazines left. It's a very rough go for them, and they have to stay afloat somehow. And most people aren't speaker junkies like us. They want to walk into a dealer, listen, and buy. They don't want to wade through a maze of blogs, buy on faith, and wait for a month or two--or longer. I think we should be careful not to lose the forest for the trees. The forest is that the Internet has opened unbelievable opportunities for people like Jim Salk (and even me). I for one am very thankful.

I hear what your saying Dennis.
I don't blame the print mags, I just ridicule some of them
A good part of the situation they're in is of their own doing, imo.
Again, kudos to Jim, yourself and the talented team at Salk Sound.

I am thankful for the internet, too. Without it, and this forum (and a couple of others) I would have never heard of Jim Salk. Nor would I have heard about or taken the time to listen to so many other speakers. The whole process of selecting a speaker has changed because there is so much information and so many unbiased opinions available. I started my search by buying some HT magazines and reading through them and they gave me a general idea of what was out there. Funny thing happened though, I saw some advertisements for Def-Tech ST's and thought they might be cool. I read some rave reviews in those magazines about them, but the only place I could actually hear them was on the crowded and noisy floor of my local Best Buy. As I learned more about what else was out there, I very quickly forgot about the Def-Tech's, and still have never given them a proper audition, but I don't care. I know that I am not missing all that much. They are a "big business" speaker, spending a lot of money on those slick ad's that I saw. I will go out of my way to support small businesses, and I really dread a future where everything is big business and homogenized, and nothing has any personality anymore. I would rather pay a couple of cents more at a "mom & pop," and deal direct with the shop owner than some pimply faced teenager who could care less about taking care of their customers. I am so glad that I found out about Salk Sound and Jim and Dennis. They have impressed me, as human beings (even though I have never met them in person) and they have created a fantastic product. Jim could easily sell his speakers for more money, but he seems to be more interested in producing a superior product than making a huge profit. The fact that you can customize your speakers by choosing your own veneer, among other things, makes them an ideal choice, for me (apparently, for many other people as well). And the fact that they look and sound amazing (way better than the similarly priced competition) makes them a no brainer. It is obvious to me that Jim and Dennis enjoy what they do, and I hope that they continue to enjoy it for many years to come. Thank you Jim, and thank you Dennis, I am looking forward to the day when my HT3's are complete and arrive at their new home.

-and thanks Brandon (Nuance) for putting the SongTowers on my radar. Without your thread I wouldn't have sought out an audition of them, and they led me to my perfect speaker.

Cheers,
Greg

To the right of my right front speaker will be a large room opening to an upstairs and downstairs staircase and another room. What challenges might this pose for the SongTowers?

Good thing you guys haven't met me. Scary stuff. But thanks very much for the kind words. I really do enjoy designing speakers--that's the only reason I do it. As I've said before, there's very little that's more rewarding than helping Mozart emerge from a little box (or a tall skinny one) more or less in tact.

I'll be off line for awhile starting next week--I have to go under the knife to get a defective heart valve replaced. But after that, I should have plenty of time at home to think about imaginative ways to top the HT3.

Dennis

Good luck next week and best wishes from all of us "fanboys" here.

While the surgeon has the cabinet open, you should ask him to upgrade all those capacitors with some Sonicaps or Mundorfs .

Richard

My room may be similar. I have an entry way, open kitchen, and 2nd floor balcony, all opening to the right of the living room listening area. The SongTowers do give a wide and easy to listen to soundstage and aren't greatly impacted by room shape. I have found I like the SongTowers toed in a bit for a more precise soundstage in the listening area and less focussed/pronounced sound information reaching the kitchen.