floresjc,
How was your visit with Dennis?
GREAT visit. I went over Saturday morning for a few hours and got to see the wizard's laboratory. I had my Rocket 760 in the backseat of my wife's car, so I had to go up first thing when I arrived and grab Dennis for a little help. He wasted no time, he had the SongTowers powered up and ready to roll in his living space upstairs. Nice big room, with wood floors and an adjacent room with his piano and so forth. He didn't start out slow either, he cranked those things way up and let fly with very aggressive orchestral pieces. Just floored me on two counts. One, he was very upfront with the fact that his were not production model ST, the cabinet was slightly smaller, and they hadn't been finished by Jim. So he said the bass response probably wouldn't be quite as good as the production model, but darn close. Two, I had heard people talking about ST in a big room and maybe they aren't loud enough. They are plenty loud, IMO. Bass response was excellent. I've played in a few orchestra's in my day, and I rarely have heard speakers capable of reproducing the experience, which the ST do in spades.
He pulled the power out of one of the ST and hooked up my Rocket, we did a few A/B tests with the mixed pair. The midrange on mine was quite recessed and he offered a few guesses as to where exactly it was messing up and what could be done to make it better. So we grabbed the Rocket and went down to his workspace. Hooked up the Rocket, did some testing, we had variations in the curve right where he thought it would and explained quite a bit about how he uses these tools and what he's aiming for.
The last part was the best. He has a pretty fancy switchbox set up to where he can A/B four speakers using a remote. He had an HT4, HT3, HT2, and ST hooked up to an AVA rebuild (I think 125wpc) and he demonstrated a few things, pointing out what differences there were to him, and I made a few comments as well. He started out with a tone generator and showed the comparable bass output of each speaker in the Salk line, we started at 30hz, and went up to 40Hz and down to 18Hz. So for about 15 mins, we listened to the variations of his house shaking. We pulled the HT2 out of the setup and plugged in my Rocket and played around with all them for quite some time on real tracks, I can't go back to the Rocket now that I have those beautiful sounds in my head.
I also took a trip up to RSwerdlow's house afterwards, he only lives a short drive from Dennis. We took longer than expected, and I hope his wife didn't give him too much trouble, since he had plans that evening. He was also a great host. His setup was more indicative of mine, room was about the same size, and he had a production pair so I could see the satin finish in cherry. Beautiful speakers, I had been kind of wondering how the satin finish looks, and it has plenty enough shine and depth for me, the Rockets are finished pretty matte comparatively. First thing we checked out was Jim's demo cd, really amazing stuff. Bass response in his room was more than plenty as well, he put in a copy of Fanfare for the Common Man by Copland, and we about blew our ears out with gongs and bass drum. I had brought along a few CD's of things I was familiar with, and we messed with that for quite some time. One particulary impressive track was an old Grateful Dead live CD he had, amazing playback out of the ST and quite impressive recording quality for the era.
The Rocket is a fine enough speaker, and at the time, it was one of the best offerings in my price range. But now that I can go out and buy ST for the same price, it wouldn't have been even close had they come out 3 years ago. In general, at the end of the day, there are 3 notable differences between my Rocket and any of the Salks. One, the midrange is so clear on the Salks, there are no recessed instruments or voices. Two, the bass response of the Salks is musical and not boomy, and there's plent of it. The Rockets have good response, but its in no way near the same quality of bass extension. Three, the ribbon tweeter really opens up the top end. Cymbals, snare drum cracks, everything sounds so much more real. In short, the Rocket sounds like pop music EQ, artificial high end, boomy low end, recessed mids.
So after that, the real adventure begins. I want Salks, but I'm unsure what to get. I'm narrowing it down to HT2-TL and ST. I went in there very much hyped on the HT3. The HT3 is a great speaker no doubt, but the price differential is quite large, and would require quite a bit more investment in power to drive that huge woofer. I would be quite happy with HT2-TL or ST and put the rest towards a center/sub etc. for a really killer setup. The other thing about the HT3 is I don't have a lot of placement flexibility, and the TL designs will allow me much better use of my space.
And, as Jim will tell you, I am trying to figure out what I need to get for custom cabs. So many beautiful choices. I'm particular to the waterfall bubinga, and I found quite a bit of good choices out there on the market, some pricey, some not so much. I'm also leaning towards wooden baffles instead of satin black, so I'm hunting the web for that as well. It helps alot that the ST and HT2-TL are close in size, since I'll need about the same amount of veneer and wood for each.
