I had the opportunity to listen to both the ST (dome tweeter) and HT2-TL this weekend, and are struggling at which pair to buy. Below are some of my takes on the speakers. I’m not an audio expert, so I do not have all the fancy words to express my feelings. I will just try to articulate how I feel as straightforward as I can. What I stated below is just my personal opinions, and they might be quite different from other’s experience given the subjective nature of audio audition. Please feel free to disagree if you feel otherwise.
I called Jim last Tues. and expressed my interests in auditioning the STs. Jim quickly hooked me up with Bigload, who happens to live just 30 mins from me. I feel really fortunate to have a Salk owner living close by, and greatly appreciate the generosity and hospitality of Bigload and his wife for allowing us (me and my wife) in their beautiful house for a serious listening of his gears.
Bigload has a pair of STs in his living room for pure stereo audio, and a whole set of Veracity (HT2-TL fronts, HT1-TL surrounds, HT2C center) in his “mancave”. All are driven by AVA pre-amps and amps (“the marriage in audio heaven”
). His setup can be found here:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=82850.0Auditioning of the Song TowersWe started our listening session downstairs in the living room with the STs, which are finished in dark curly cherry. The speakers look extremely elegant and are visually satisfying. They blend in very well with the surrounding furniture. I have been looking forward to the auditioning ever since I discovered the Salk speakers, and couldn’t wait to hear the magic sound coming out of the speakers in person. When the music starts, I was immediately enveloped in the beautiful music notes. I was surprised at how upfront the sound stage is. It feels like that I am on stage with the musicians. Sometimes it feels like there are surround and rear speakers. Pretty soon I found out that not all the music pieces have such an upfront image. Some other pieces create a feeling of “depth”, e.g., the instruments and the singer are positioned behind the speakers. I think the best word to describe the sound stage is “3D”, and the actual sound stage rendering depends on the source materials. At the mean time, I find that the width of the sound stage is just a little bit over the area defined by the two speakers. But again, it might depend on the source materials. A side note is the living room has a vaulted high ceiling without acoustic treatment. I’m not sure how this will affect the listening experience.
The middles and highs are every bit as good as I expected from reading the reviews here. One music piece that left me a deep impression is a guitar solo (I think it’s from the Salk demo disc, but I might be wrong). The artist is right in front of me and I can “see” the kiss between the guitar strings and guitar pick. I feel that the sound is extremely transparent, and I don’t know how much more transparent it can be, even though I read a lot of reviews stating that the ribbon tweeters are more transparent than the dome tweeter. We listened to a large variety of music, including classic, rock, pop, jazz, electrical, etc. There are female vocal, male vocal, and pure instruments. Most of the music are from Bigload’s personal CD collection. I also brought some lossless pieces with my iPod. The STs handled all genres with ease and eloquence. There is a Chinese violin piece I brought with me: the butterfly lovers, which has a pretty demanding middle-high end. It sounds pretty harsh on my current speakers, but warm and clean on the STs. I feel that the strongest aspects of the STs are the middle to the middle-high range, and the string instruments sound extremely well.
The bass goes pretty deep even though the size of the woofer is just 5’’. We listened to some pieces with strong bass presence, and for most part the bass is accurately reproduced and well integrated. The drum feels punchy and prompt; the bass in the string instruments feels “clean” (I know clean is usually used to describe highs, but I couldn’t find a better word to describe the smooth transition from the middle to the low in the string instruments). At the mean time, I have to admit that the ST is not perfect in the bass department. When I listened to the prelude of Eagle’s live performance on “Hotel California”, I feel that the bass can benefit from reaching a bit lower. Of course it is clearly stated in the spec that the 3dB point of the speakers is 42Hz, so a subwoofer is more appropriate to finish the job below the 42 Hz. I would say that the STs can meet 90% of the bass needs. For the remaining 10%, the STs might not be able to go deep enough to throw the bass right into your body. An analogy is when you stand right next to a huge diameter drum, you can feel that the drum beats are all over you and are affecting your heart beats. The STs might not have the “heart beat affection” capability, but I also doubt if there are any speaker in this price range can achieve such a feat. This of course can be easily compensated with a subwoofer.
Overall, both my wife and I are very happy with the STs. I almost made up my mind on the STs right there on the spot, until we go upstairs to listen to the HT2-TLs … (to be continued)
Auditioning of the HT2-TLsThe HT2-TLs are the center pieces of a complete 7.1 setup with HT2C center, HT1-TL surrounds, Polk rear surrounds, and a SVS PB13 Ultra subwoofer. My first impression is that the HT2-TLs look much bigger than the STs, and they stand grandly on both sides of a huge plasma TV. Bigload has done a fantastic job in building his mancave. The room is thoroughly treated with acoustic panels hanging on the walls and vaulted ceilings. All the speakers are in a uniform black color and they match the colors of the equipment and racks. A really fancy feature of the room is the colored backlight behind the plasma TV. When the light dims and the movie starts, the red or blue back lights projected on the wall behind the TV adds a nice touch and coolness of the room.
We started our audition with two movie clips from Lord of the Rings and the Dark Knight. Both clips involve intensive fight/chasing scenes with highly dynamic sound levels and awesome surround sound effects. The speakers handled the job effortlessly and create an extremely engaging 3D sound stage. All the details in the entire sound spectrum are clearly revealed. The bass were so powerful that I felt the chair was shaking. For a minute I even thought there was a butt kicker installed underneath my seat. Bigload told me after I left he found that part of the bass management was messed up so the system was not at its full capacity. I just couldn’t imagine how the system will sound at its full capacity, and Bigload described it as “breathless”. Since I didn’t audition the STs with movies, so other than the fact that HT2-TLs are also fantastic speakers, I had no idea how they would compare with the STs.
What distinguished the HT2-TLs from the STs was the two channel music. We switched the receiver to direct mode and started to play the music clips that we just listened on the STs. Immediately I found that the sound coming out of the HT2-TLs are more “full” compared to the STs, and the instruments and vocals are better “materialized”. Later all of us agreed that the STs are not in the same level as the HT2-TLs (they better be, given twice the price tag
). At the low end, I just can’t believe the subwoofer has been turned off. At the high end, now I understand what is “more” transparent. The lows and highs are connected meticulously with the middle range. I was just completely lost in the music. On our way back, my wife told me that she almost cried (in joy) during one of the pieces. Granted she is a quite emotional person, but she is usually not crazy about speakers. I guess now she understands my craziness in this hobby
. If I haven’t listened to the HT2-TLs, I would be extremely happy with the STs. However, after listening to the HT2-TLs, I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. Bigload told me that he tried to listen to music with the subwoofer on, and found that leaving the subwoofer off actually renders a better result.
At the mean time, please note that the room in which the HT2-TLs are auditioned has full acoustic treatment, yet the ST audition was in a vaulted high ceiling living room without any sound treatment. In addition, the STs are the dome tweeter version, while the ribbon tweeter is used in the HT2-TLs. I have read some comments stating that the only difference between the STs and HT2-TLs are the bass. I guess those statements were referring to the ribbon version of the STs. I agree that the biggest improvement of HT2-TL over the STs is in bass. However, I did notice a big improvement in the middle range and high range as well. Since my auditioning condition was not side by side, and the auditions were performed in completely different listening environments, I think we also need to take into consideration of these factors.
Overall, I think the STs are great speakers, but I like the HT2-TLs better. Now the question is: does the improvement worth twice the price? My original budget was $2K for fronts, and I stretched it to $2.6K for the ST RT, and I’m struggling with myself now whether I should stretch it further to the HT2-TL. Hopefully I can make up my mind soon …
