Hi Everyone: I must be one of the first owners of HT2 TL's. First of all, for new customers, this was unlike any other purchase I've ever made. Jim took a call himself and patiently listened to my needs. I followed with pictures of my awkward listewning location and we talked again. Jim persuaded me to go with these speakers instead of his own more expensive products because they fit my need better. I followed with a sample of my flooor, which he matched perfectly in Brazilian cherry. The projected production time was accurate and delivery was prompt.
I've never owned high end speakers before but always tweaked my budget buys to the maximum. Audiophile, I may not be, but music lover I certainly am and do hear a lot more subtle stuff than ordinary people.
This is my setup: Lossless FLAC's from a silent PC > Benchmark DAC1 USB providing volume control > XLR balanced outputs > PS Audio HCA-2 power amplifier > 12G speaker cables > HT2's
I have them about 18" from the rear and about 22" from the side walls toed-in to a couple of feet behind the listening position. They work okay at closer distances too but imaging seems a bit better with some room. More experimentation required on that. The present postion is quite good for now. With well recorded tracks, the speakers fuse into a sharp sound stage as if the artists have moved into my living room and the speakers almost disappear.
Jim's demo CD of course is made up of well recorded tracks and they show off these attributes well as well as the amazing bass these speakers can produce. I was using Polk RT35i speakers with a subwoofer before and you can imagine how easy it is to get used to a lot of bass with a subwoofer. Mind you, I always resisted turning it up so high that one became conscious of the sub-woofer.
But I hadn't purchased them to listen to Jim's CD. So I threw all sorts of music both old and new at it - acoustic and electric blues, traditional Jazz, Bop, cool, soul-jazz, soul, funk, the usual classic rock standards as well as newer Indie Rock, vocal traditional pop as well as jazz vocals, essentially everything except hip-hop and classical which were played a little but I won't trust my ears with them.
These speakers did an incredible job with all of the above. Lionel Hampton from the 30's to Pink Martini and Sharon Jones from today all sounded great. My special loves are 70's Memphis soul from the Stax Studios and Latin Jazz, both of which require a very clear punchy bass line dancing with the melody. Sam and Dave as well as Poncho sanchez came out fantastic. The only time I felt the bass lacking a little was with some classic rock tracks - "Who's Next" for example. My system doesn't allow anything but a volume control and an Equalizer somewhere in the path would have taken care of it easily. Its not the speakers, its the recording I feel. All recordings are different and one does need a way to adjust the playback to one's liking. I might have gotten used to listening to that album with bass turned up high.
So my verdict is that you are unlikely to find a better looking pair of speakers which give a great bang for the buck performance. They can work well close to walls and no subwoofer is required for stereo music playback. For home theters, you might need that but I don't mix my music and movie playback, so can't comment.
I live on the south shore of Long Island in the town of Sayville and would be happy to let you audition them. Just ask Jim to get in touch with me.
