The Official Salk Sound Owner's And Discussion Thread - Page 265

A group of us have heard them in direct comparison, yes. It was at a GTG event we held in April of this year. To summarize, the HT guys thought the high sensitivity designs performed as well as the rest of the speakers for music, while the 2-channel guys disagreed. People like what they like and biases can be very influential in our decision making (unfortunate). The JTR comparison has to be taken with a grain of salt, though, as Jeff (the designer) chose not to run them with subwoofers (they were designed to be paired with subs), thus they didn't perform to their full capability. As far as my opinion, almost every high sensitive design I've heard compromises in music reproduction, which can usually be heard within the midrange frequencies. The instruments usually have poor tone/timbe and body. Also, soundstage size believability is flawed due to the controlled directivity design. Most HS speakers are designed to be used in a pro audio or HT environment, so these are compromises the designers are willing to make. Speaker design is all about trade-offs...

With that said, if you're focusing mostly on HT and TV I'd go with a high sensitivity design considering you said you watch/listen pretty loud. Your room is also pretty large (you have to take into account the entire size of the space, not just the 14x15 section). Jim doesn't have a high sensitive design on his website, but he'll build you anything you want. If you're interested in his work then definitely give him a call and discuss your options. He has been working with an individual on a hi-fidelity high sensitivity design for a while now, so I am sure he'd have a couple suggestions/combinations for you.

No. He knows there is a demand for such, though, and has been working with at least one person to find a hi-fidelity HS design.

Call or E-mail him. Jim is smart and likely knows that engaging in a public discussion about HS vs. non-HS designs and their hi-fidelity musical reproduction capabilities would just start a war, no matter what his opinion is.
Edited by Nuance - 12/5/12 at 8:01am

Sure thing - here you go (that is where the comments from that particular GTG start):

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1324185/se-wi-tower-speaker-gtg/840

By the way, I edited my previous post to share my own listening impressions, but you're going to read about them in the thread, so it's no big deal. These GTG's are very difficult to coordinate, set up and actually run; someone is always unhappy with the results. Listening for yourself is the best way to determine what will suit your needs, of course. With that said, you can get an idea of what people thought from the comments. The only one I'd take with a grain of salt is the dude's who sat on the floor in front of the left speaker; that's no place to sit while auditioning speakers and will introduce all sorts of issues. My comment is not meant as an attack on this particular person, as I respect him a great deal - I'm simply just starting the truth (you should always be at ear level or slightly above. He was also way too close to the speaker).

^ I forgot about that. Thanks, Curtis.

^ That's very cool. 10 minutes away - easy as pie. It doesn't get much better than that. Happy auditioning.

^Heck of a list. I hope you're able to hear them all sometime soon.

That's awesome - hope it was worthwhile for purbeast.

^ I completely agree with this post. Well stated sir.