Speakerquest (so far...) - Page 61

Jim, better start some cabinets! An order is just days away.

I was thinking he should call before he goes. Shorten the wait. Maybe post his VA's on audiogon as well.

Keep us posted.

haha oh no i dont have that kind of money at the moment...

But my buddy is wanting to start a kick ass 2-channel setup in the next few months. We still have to listen to a few things, but he really wants to hear some of these HT3's and also give the AV123 LS9's a shot (whenever they come out...). He also really likes the Wilson Audio Sophia's. We'll see how everything turns out.

And the audition will be done locally from some guy i found on the Salk Forum. You know what makes me think the Salks are fantastic? You never see used ones, Ha!

But yeah i'll give me and my buddies thoughts after we give them a thorough listen

^ I think he (and you) will love the Salk's, but there is no one speaker out there that will please everyone, so I guess we'll see.

If he's not happy with them, tell him to add Revel, Dynaudio and Kef to his list.

Forget the 9's. And the Sophias are nice but when you compare prices the Salks win. We keep them because it's too darn expensive to try and replace them!!

haha well Sophias used are not badly priced. at least compared to new...

Sophias are great for imaging but lack a everywhere else compared to my F2.2's. If you can find someone that has a flagship series swan you should take a look at those as well. I would love someone to hear both them and the H3's. My opinion would be biased so I haven't bothered to look for an H3 audition, however I'm very curious.

well i listend to an entire salk surround setup tonight.

It consisted of HT3's as mains, HTC as center, and HT1's as surrounds.
It was being driven by processor: Denon AVP-A1HDCI and the amp: Denon POA-A1HDCI
here is a link for those unfamiliar with these new components... http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/AVReceivers.asp


He was also using dual JL F113 subs

This was an awesome setup to say the least. It's a bit late right now and i do have class in the morning so i will post my thoughts back tomorrow, but i figured i would at least let everyone know that i did actually get to give these a listen

+1

+2 We anxiously await.

+ 3. And pictures! Something to keep us occupied while we wait for our HT3s.

Well folks i did finally get to audition the Salk HT3's.

Remember the audition was really not for me, but rather for my buddy wanting to start his own "reference" 2-channel setup. But anywho, we made our way to a very nice gentlemans home. He was a great host! He had some awesome equipment i will say...

It consisted of HT3's as mains, HTC as center, and HT1's as surrounds.
It was being driven by processor: Denon AVP-A1HDCI and the amp: Denon POA-A1HDCI
here is a link for those unfamiliar with these new components... http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/AVReceivers.asp
He was also using dual JL F113 subs

First time i have actually seen these Denons in action. That amp was pretty darn good, but wow is it expensive...

Now for the good stuff. I wasnt aware he would have a full Salk surround setup, but it was a rather impressive sight to behold. Unfortunately i have no pictures to share since i would have felt awkward snapping pics of his place lol. oh well. The HT3's were about 9ft apart with a large 70" TV between them. Obviously not the best enviroment. The room was also very open.
We listened to several Demo CD's my buddy put together. It was a mix of everything from Counting Crows to Tracie Chapman to Dave Grusin to Mark Broussard. First thing i noticed was the incredibly tight bass of the HT3's. I acutally expected it to extend lower, but it could have been the room. It was tight and very very accurate. To me this was a more forward speaker. Although to be clear i am used to my Viennas which are a very laid back speaker. But my friend felt the same way (he currently has MA RS8's). The highs were so very very smoothe and detailed. Very much to my liking. The mids were also very exceptional, i dunno about the best i've heard but non-the-less very good. At low volumes these speakers just freakin excelled. Everything was so clear and still prominent. They continued to sound awesome as the volume was raised, but i felt like it became strained at really high volumes (92-98dbs very loud but obviously not normal listening levels). Im the type for easy listening and these are the perfect speaker in that realm. Dont get me wrong these guys definately would rock out, but i felt they excelled at the lower volumes which im more fond of.

We also did some HT tests. I think i was more impressed with the HT performance to be completely honest. But thats probably because i never expected it to be so spectacular in movie setting. With Dual JL F113's going and watching the Open Range gun fight scene i was literally left with my jaw dropped...One of the best experiences i have had in a HT setting...which is probably why im so impressed with this aspect lol.

Overall the HT3s are an incredible speaker set. Anyone to get these is a very lucky individual. These are absolutely beautiful in person. Would i buy them right now? honestly im pretty content with my Viennas, but these speakers did make up for the shortcomings of my speakers. My buddy had the same thoughts as i did. I think he still cant get over the first impression that the Wilson Sophias left on him...then again that was a $50,000+ setup...lol

Anyway thats the mash of my thoughts i've had. Im not the type to go into extreme detail and what not, but i still thought i would share my great experience.

-Steve

Thanks for the review Bigred!

Your friend likes the Sophias better than the HT3's??? I've heard the Sophias and the Watt Pups. Wouldn't trade them for my swans if you paid me. To each their own. The more I audition and read peoples opinion about speakers I think it's more a personal preference. I like how a BMW drives but I know a lot of people that say it's too rough of a ride.

I'm hoping the same. I'm checking this and the Salk Sound thread twice a day just to see if there is any news, in addition to checking my email!

It's great to hear reviews like Bigred's - keeps me occupied while i wait. Great honest review Bigred!

Darren A.

I guess it's my turn then! I am torn between emailing Jim and knowing versus waiting on the email to give him more time to work on the HT3s. Maybe I could ask for a picture of my (mostly) empty boxes? Then I would have something useful to post on the forum while we wait!

Darren Antoniuk

Strong anticipation is normal guys; I doubt you'll be annoying Jim. I e-mailed him a bunch and he never seemed annoyed. Just give him a shout.

Great write-up, Steve! Thank you.

No offense, but it seems clear from your constant posts about the Swans that there is no speaker on the planet you would trade them for.

Today I got just a little closer to getting my surrounds up and running.

I've have the rear channels for a few weeks now, but because I like to wall-mount the speakers a couple of feet above seated ear height, and I'm only a few feet from the back wall, I needed to come up with a way to angle the speakers down. The brackets that are sold for the speakers, as beautiful as they are, only allow for swivel but not tilt. It's funny because each time I've switched out speakers, I have to get creative with wall mounting. The last time I did this, I used two modified flat panel TV mounts as speaker mounts.

Because the speakers use first order crossovers, it is even more important that I aim the speakers so I'm not sitting in the off-axis suckout that happens at the crossover point with all such designs.

Knowing that Greg (Funk) is a carpenter, I shot him a couple of PMs to see if we could come up with a solution. I already had an idea in mind, but as is typical of my thinking, it was unnecessarily complex.

Funk's idea involved just cutting a couple of wedges of wood and drilling a few holes. It did turn out that this idea was a little harder for me to execute than I would have thought. but about a half dozen tries latter, I got the holes that needed to be drilled close enough to work.







The speakers are upside-down in case you are wondering what it is your are looking at.

I'm sure there is. I am just sure I couldn't afford to. There is always a bigger fish. It's why I'm afraid to audition the Salks.

I discovered something interesting playing around with the graphic EQ in iTunes again tonight. One of my favorite speakers has always been the Dali Helicon's, specifically for the detail they have in the treble. So I looked up the stereophile FR graph on the Helicon 400's and noticed that the treble is a little hot in the very top octave (10-20KHz).

I went to the iTunes EQ and adjusted the 16KHz band up 3dB and the 8KHz band up roughly 1.5dB. Low and behold, this added a nice level of detail to things like cymbals and a breathy quality to vocals without making the overall sound bright, edgy or sibilant. I listened to several tracks toggling the EQ on and off, and I consistently preferred the EQ on--even on some of my brighter recordings. As far as I understand, there are no fundamental frequencies in the high treble, just harmonics which seems to correlate with what I heard.

Now my informal testing of my own hearing leads me to believe that my hearing tops out around 16KHz, so I may be compensating for a shortcoming in my ability to hear high frequencies, or it could be that my speakers are a little weak up high, but either way, I seem to like the change so I'm going to program an EQ filter into my prepro to make a small bump between 10 and 20KHz.

Depending on your hearing, speakers, room, etc., you may prefer a different adjustment, or none at all, but it sure does feel empowering to be able to tweak the sound of my system on this level and it greatly lessens the compulsion to keep searching for the perfect speaker.

Tim,
glad the surrounds are coming along now, will be interesting to see your views on surround films and the ssp800 capabilities with surround music.

Hey very interesting work with regards to the equalizer, its a good experience to do and food for thought.
Mine is messing around with the acoustic room treatments to see the differences in sound - I guess we all have something with regards to audio to keep us from being bored eh

BTW this is a very interesting paper that goes into detail about understanding acoustics and psychoacoustics in an easy to read and follow manner.
http://www.billbuxton.com/AudioUI02acoustics.pdf
Bill is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research.

Its a good read for everyone interested in audio, especially understanding complex waveforms, fundamentals and harmonics, etc.
Cheers
DT

So many people consider EQ taboo, and I just don't feel that way. If one can be conservative with the notch settings and very slightly bump or reduce certain bands sparingly I find no problem with using it.... obviously some EQ's will be better then others and the amount of distortion can and will become a factor, but if your not listening at extreme volumes, I can't find anything wrong with EQ.... I have mostly used it to reduce certain areas like my Sigs in an untreated room need that tweeter attenuated, and it works great for me....

The good thing with today's EQ's, as I understand it, is that because the changes are done in the digital domain, it is purely mathematical and is not corrupting the sound. Unlike the old analog units that would shift phase and add distortion. I could be oversimplifying things though, as I believe that the Audyssey guys have said that anything but FIR filters do some alteration to the signal other than just adjusting the level of a particular frequency.