Hi Guys,
I ordered my Salk Sound HT2's a few months ago from Jim. He was good to deal with swapping emails and taking the odd phone call from me. I live in Perth, Western Australia and I was pretty nervous about spending so much money on a product I wouldn't have an opportunity to listen to prior to putting down my cash.
Over the years I've read a lot of comments regarding Jim's products and his direct selling method. I even swapped pm's with Dennis Murphy and Zybar regarding what I was after in a speaker. For a long time I lived with a pair of custom made speakers that used a Raven 1 ribbon tweeter and 2 x 7inch focal mid/bass drivers in an mtm configuration. It was a great sounding speaker but over a period of time I became bored with the sound and decided I needed a change. I then built a zalytron speaker kit called the phenomenal speaker. It was a bit of a disaster and it never really sounded that good imo. I then bought a pair of Nuforce s9 speakers which I purchased as a demo from my local dealer. These are a good quality audiophile speaker but I always felt they didn't perform as well as my raven/focal speaker. I know its a long intro but it explains my nervousness.
Here is a picture of my speakers finished in africal pommele bosse:
As you can see from the picture (sure hope the picture works) I own a number of amplifiers. Ps audio hca - 2(modded), 2 x N.E.W. 20.1's and a Son of Ampzilla. I also use a modded pioneer as a transport into a perpetual technologies p3a (modwright level 2) and a N.E.W. p3 preamp. I think I've got a pretty good system to evaluate these speakers.
I've probably got about 50 hours on the speakers at this stage. After I set up the speakers in my listening room I decided to have a listen to them. Remember, they had been sent half way around the world by sea. On first listening to them I thought they sounded fairly good. After about half an hour of warm up I decided to put Jim's cd into the mix. The sound quality that I was getting from these speakers was pretty impressive. I've read a lot of threads about Jim's opinion of speaker design and I can confirm that the midrange in these speakers is very good.
The bass is pretty articulate and for a speaker of this size they go quite low and in fact are enough for my needs. The top end is really very good and provides a real natural sound quality. A few months ago I read a review of zaph audio where ribbon tweeters were tested against some of the best dome tweeters and apparently they didn't perform as well as the domes on the distortion tests. I personally would like to say that a ribbon tweeter certainly adds a level of naturalness that I just haven't heard in a dome tweeter. Remember, I did have my nuforce s9's (Editors Choice Award winner by TAS) to compare them with.
In comparison with my s9's the HT2's are more 3 dimensional, have a top end that I prefer and the bass is more articulate. These speakers cost me $3695us compared to $5500us for the Nuforce speakers. Not bagging the Nuforce but it certainly does show that Jim's direct selling method provides so much value to the consumer.
Garbage in garbage out certainly describes these speakers. I'm going thru my cd's at the moment and so many of them are fairly average compared with the tracks available on Jim's cd. I've also read a number comments regarding opinions that the seas driver is overly analytical. I personally don't agree I would say that in my opinion they are neutral and have what I would describe as a very classy sound and even my wife thinks they sound good. I think they are rated at 88db and I'm currently using an N.E.W. 20.1 which provides 22 watts per channel. I listen at moderate levels and the amp seemsto be more efficient than what is quoted on the website. Btw the Blue Man group track sounds great on these speakers.
I would like to thank Jim and Dennis for providing a true audiophile speaker that is affordable to our community. Can you think of another speaker that provides the level of finish and component value that these speakers do?
Best wishes
Rod
