Customer comments
Al:
I don't know if this would be considered a review but, if you want to cut and paste to any site, you have my permission to do so.
I first heard of these HT3's by lurking around the RAW Acoustics forum. When I learned that Danny from GR Research was somehow involved with the Xover, I got a little more enthused about them. Then I read the reviews wherever I could locate them. When they came up for sale "used" from Al at a decent price, I bought them. These were the review pair that went all over the joint and were pretty well broken in by the time I got them. When they arrived, I quickly put them in my new 12' x 17' x 8' room. All I had in this room was an equipment rack on the front wall an oversized leather chair approx. 10' from the front wall and set these guys approx 8' apart. My equipment was put together by scrounging pieces I had lying around. BK 2220 amp, BATVK20 preamp, Nacamichi-CD3 (my MUSE Erato was out for an upgrade), Analysis Plus Oval 9 speaker wires, various bal & unbal interconnects. The floor is fully carpeted over a concrete slab floor.
Ok, so I'm all set. I fire these up and YUK! Highs are killing me the bass is so overpowering it's making me wanna jump out of the room (or it's pushing me out). My first reaction is how the hell do these things put out so much bass? But, I can't think about that because I've got a headache from all the "echoie" (highly reflective bouncy sound) all over the place. Hey, I was expecting glorious sound. I was bewildered! What the hell is going on???
What I did was, start to correct everything that was wrong and that I didn't have in place when I first fired up the system. If you recall from above, I said "new" room and that all I had was a chair and a rack. This means NO room treatments - just painted sheetrock walls and no furniture. I also did not have the base attached to the speakers. The speakers were just sitting on top of the carpet. I made a few calls to Al and Danny and they quickly and "nicely" said get some room treatments and Al specifically suggested to install the bases on the speakers with SPIKES. Ok..ok..ok...I ordered up some AST Acoustic panels - 6 @ 2' x 4' x 2" and hung them on the side walls, installed the bases WITH spikes, got some various bits and pieces of furniture that now is filling the room, got my MUSE Erato back and fired up the system again (BTW this didn't happen overnite - three/four weeks). With the room more like a normal "listening room" the sound improved so much that I thought they were different speakers. The bass was no longer BOOOOOMMMMMY and the highs were not killing my ears. The bass from these little guys are unbelievable. They go very low that I swear there's a sub woofer in the room and...I don't own one. They image like crazy and the soundstage is deep. The midrange appeared to be a little dry and thin until I changed out my B&K 2220 amp for a Pass Labs X250. Now, it sounded like I changed speakers again. This amp combined with the HT3s is a whole other dimension. The dry and thin midrange is gone and was replace with a lower fuller midrange. Also, the speakers appeared to have grown twice their size. The bass...well, it's more controlled and deeper.
So, I'm a happy camper and then I hear that Al has a replacement woofer for these. Naturally, I change them to the new SDX7 woofer. This is another epiphany! The bass is even more tuneful/articulate and makes the mid and high frequencies stand out a little more clearer. How this works is beyond me. What really strikes me about these little guys is the sound they produce (of the entire spectrum) ain't little! They respond well to changes in the system. If the change is a "quality" change, you'll hear it and reap the benefit from these guys. I cannot determine if the sound is "colored" or "neutral" or "natural" or "whatever". All I know is I like what I hear and it just sounds "right". They're a delight to listen to. Are these the end all be all of all speakers, no, but they do so much stuff right that I gotta' keep them.
Again, I'm a happy camper, but now I'm thinking of upgrading the Xover to the Platinum series. Will this ever end?????
By the way, my musical tastes are: blues, jazz (smooth), classical, some opera, some country, some new age stuff, female vocalists of almost any kind (has to be a good recording), little rock, no disco, NO rap...
Tom
Below is the pair Tom purchased which we had at RMAF 2006
