INTRO
I recently received a pair of Al’s HT2s in the mail on his demo program. A user just pays shipping to the next person and they can demo his speakers in his own home. I have already built a pair of HT3s for my two-channel upstairs and I was thinking about building the HT2s for home theater. I like the idea of having identical speakers all-around on a home theater setup, so I requested a pair to see how they sound. They arrived nicely double boxed and packed neatly in Styrofoam, with neat speaker protectors taped over each speaker.
The HT2s are a bookshelf-ported speaker in an MTM configuration using a pair of the CSS WR125 and a custom Arum Cantus Tweeter. They are a 10-ohm, 87dB sensitive load on your equipment, which I found to be a quite manageable load on my system. Al offers this in a sealed configuration, but I did not get a chance to hear them.
The grills for the HT2 are magnetic, a really nice touch. The magnets are buried under the veneer so you don’t have to look at empty peg holes when you leave the grills off, which is what I did. They are quite beautiful, with an expertly done real cherry wood veneer. I still can’t see how Al makes the seams so neatly. I was again very impressed.
Setup: The equipment used for this review may not be state-of the art, but it does reflect what I believe is a good price ratio and is relatively affordable for the average consumer. When purchasing a home theater setup, I expect to spend about half of the budget on speakers. In the case of my setup, I plan on building the speakers myself, which kinda throws this calculation off…but hey. I am using a Kenwood KRF-X9050D for a receiver; a THX certified, 110 wpc 5.1 receiver. For movies, I am using the 5.1-channel audio outs of my Pioneer DV656A. The CD-Player is a Kenwood CD-204, connected to the optical input of the receiver. TV is a Sony Wega. The room is treated with six DIY sound panels located at the right and left first-reflection points on the side and rear walls, with two corner traps in the upper right and left corners. My original Mains are a pair of Kenwood floorstanders and a voice-matched set of bipolar surrounds and center. Subwoofer is a 150W, 10” powered subwoofer – also Kenwood. I powered the mains separately off of an Onkyo Integra integrated amplifier that I intend to replace once I get a separate Home Theater amp (money again…) You might have noticed that I got most of my stuff as a matched set… Adjusting for cables, cheap VCRs, and antennas, total equipment cost runs a little over $2,000, with everything purchased at discount or used.
The subwoofer and mains were blended in with a combination of the Avia Home Theater setup and the Onix RDES subwoofer integration system (normally $400, I got mine for $100!) The speakers sent by Al Wooley already had 70hours on them, and I put another 40 before the review playing everything from classical to hip-hop.
The key here is subwoofer integration. For the serious buyer, these speakers were designed to have a subwoofer to cover below 60-80 Hz. In full range mode, I was able to get usable in-room bass down to about 60 Hz, but they definitely felt lacking in the lower bass. Considering that the lowest key of a grand piano is 27 Hz and an Organ goes down to 16…a subwoofer is a must for just about any system. Plus, with a mains-sub combo, you can tame bass nulls easier because the position of the subwoofer can compensate for the mains and vice versa. I have a 70 Hz null at the mains and a 63 Hz null in my sub, both of which are mitigated by complimentary placement.
A radio shack meter and two days of adjusting speaker and subwoofer placement later, and I was ready.
MUSIC (all music was played in two-channel):
Opus 3 SACD Sampler – VariousThis is my favorite demo disk because it has various tracks selected primarily for evaluating the timber, soundstage, and dynamics of your system. It plays in both 2-channel and 5.1, with some tracks only available in stereo. What I like about the HT2s is that violins sound like violins, trumpets sound like trumpets, symbols crash like symbols, and schnozzberries taste like…waitaminute… Overall, I was really pleased with the presentation of this disk through the HT2s.
Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits – “Tusk” is a favorite of mine because of all the extra effects sounds inserted into the track; crowds of people speaking, weird echoes, and such. The HT2s did an excellent job here, fully bringing all the details out without masking anything. The voices of Fleetwood Mac were crystal clear, never sounding harsh or fake. Everything sounded like I was right in the studio with them.
Playboy Jazz II, disk 2 – “The Blues” by Neena Freelon – On this disk, my favorite demo track is this one not only because of Neena’s spectacular voice, but also because there are a passages using a water chime and regular chimes where the sounds float across the soundstage. Many times where I demo this track on other systems and speakers, the chimes are left to one side of the soundstage or are hard to make out. With the HT2s, imaging was beautiful. The chimes flowed cleanly across the image and were very distinct, again without overpowering any of the other instruments.
SACD – 1812 Overture Here, I chose this piece because I wanted to hear the bells and cannon played at about 14 minutes into the CD. These speakers continued to play clear, clean, and realistic. The bells could be heard clearly at different distances from the soundstage and the cannons really had impact. It was wonderful and had my wife’s eyes bugging out of her head.
MOVIES:
Blackhawk Down:
I chose this movie for a variety of reasons. First, the 5.1 surround sound is very well done, with plenty of effects that whirl around the room. Second, the effects themselves are very realistic. I have a military background and think the helicopters, guns, and explosions are the most realistic I have come across. Last, it has an excellent soundtrack with good mixes of drums, synth, and woodwinds. For this review, I tested the HT2s in both regular 5.1 setup as well as using a phantom center.
There are numerous scenes of helicopters flying past at varying angles. The HT2s did a nice job of portraying depth, realistically creating an image of a helicopter approaching from far away to right on top of my head. The Irene scene was excellent.
City Fight scenes also demonstrated a clear sense of depth and realism. Bullet ricochets and exploding concrete was very up-front and explosions were powerful. The effects of wind blowing across the soundstage were very clean and sounded like the room was in the middle of the city. I was especially impressed by the impact of rifles, pistols, and 50-Caliber guns. Most movies have a very muted explosion effect, but this movie really captured gun sounds accurately. To re-create the explosion perfectly would probably damage people’s hearing, but this was really close.
Dialogue scenes were great, allowing background ambiance through cleanly without overpowering the dialogue. The interrogation scenes of the Somali Kingpin and of Michael Durant portrayed a clean dialogue intermixed with very realistic background sounds that really put me in the room with the actors. The soldiers in the aircraft hangar kept fading in and out of the background, playing guitar, fixing equipment, and horsing around. The realism really brought a smile to my face.
Fellowship of the Ring: My favorite scene is the “Balin’s Tomb” scene on disk two. This scene is full of effects. The foleys were really put to the test to create a fight scene that is chaotic but still remains distinct and crisp. The sounds of yelling, grunting, and crashing filled my room. The impacts were bone crunching. The scene where the Cave Troll enters the room and starts smashing everything in sight was really impressive. In all of this, I experimented turning the subwoofer off and still found impacts to be full and clean – only missing the lower two octaves, of course (20 – 80 Hz).
Conclusion: I continued to listen to all sorts of music, for hours, without detecting anything about the HT2s that I did not like. This is just my opinion, but the use of a subwoofer is not the only element to focus on for explosions. There is also the higher-frequency sounds that give an explosion its sharpness and prevent it from sounding like a dull thud. The primary frequency of a kettledrum, for example, only goes down to 87 Hz. To see what I mean, play any high-impact soundtrack with explosions in it with the main speakers off. Listen to just your subwoofer. It will sound dull and you will see what I mean. The HT2s were really good at projecting the impact of high-frequency explosions like gunshots and ricochets throughout my demo. I was really impressed.
Soundstage, timber, and imaging were the best I have heard in a bookshelf – hands down. The instruments were lively and everything was realistic. Knowing that I can build these for about $400 in parts is really exciting for me and I have decided to base my system off of them. The only problem is money and spousal approval. Sigh.
