[floresjc]

I wanted to start off by saying thanks to everyone here for posting their views and knowledge online, because it really helped me to order what I wanted for my system. From speakers to cables and electronics, it was all very helpful. And I'll be sending each of you helpful people a bill because a few thousand dollar adventure for a pair of speakers ended up in a whole house whole audio system upgrade.

I'll list out what I have and talk about each, its probly the easiest way for me to keep track.

2 Channel Setup: HT2-TL's in curly walnut and claro walnut baffle, AVA Insight EC preamp w/ remote, AVA Insight Double 440, Insight DAC and Squeezebox Duet.

Here's a pic:



I have spent the least amount of time with my two channel system, but the last few days I have spent quite a bit listening to CD's I'm familiar with. I'm not really going to comment so much on "change detection" from my old system, because I threw out basically my entire old system and have all new pieces, so its hard to say what contributed and how much. I will say right out that coming from a Rocket system, the overall definition and clarity of the Salk system is beyond what I had before, and the bass is more quality than boom.

Getting right to it, the HT2-TL's are amazing. The fit and finish on my pair of speakers is top notch. Everything was superbly packed and arrived in perfect condition. Although palletizing probably helped alot. These bad boys are heavy and inert, you will definitely need two people to move them around or set them up. Set up is extremely easy, essentially screwing four bolts into the bottom of each speaker to hold the plinths on. I listen to alot of different bands and styles, although I don't really get too crazy with some of the foreign stuff or electronica like others might.

A big plus for me with the HT2-TL's was the ribbon tweeter, and I'm loving it. I'm really into the high end being clear and precise, and things like cymbals I want to be heard and portrayed well. The HT2's really do this magnificently. Another thing that I really like to hear is some oomph when you get the kick drum or other things going, and the TL version really has that too. It digs down deep and will play bass very musically and it renders things like Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" album superbly. Every bass line, kick drum and cymbal is heard and the midrange (a Salk claim to fame) is just lush. Compared to my Rocket speakers, the HT2's sound alot better, I would say more natural. The Rockets had a lot of bass, but it was more oomph than actual musicality, so there is a distinct difference in the two portrayals. So I would definitely say the Rockets were more "EQ'd" than a natural sound and they definitely didn't have the high end I was looking for.

As far as specific albums and the Salks being revealing. I've been lucky so far that my favorite albums sound marvelous on the speakers. I was really worried that the clarity of the Salks would expose some bad mastering and I would lose some part of my catalogue. I haven't really run into that in a big way. On certain cd's, there will be a track or two where it definitely doesn't shine, but the rest of the CD would be fine. A CD I really enjoy now that I was kind of bleh about before is Dave Matthews Band "Before These Crowded Streets" and more specifically the track "The Stone" is marvelous. I think its a great demo CD with a lot of bass, nice intricate drum work by Carter Beauford, and not a normal "rock" sound with 3 guys wailing on guitars. Blink 182's "Blink 182" album is one of my favorites as well and contains a lot of low end and some panning effects, which are rendered very well. I think in particular, the vocals are cleaned up and really makes the CD shine more than on my old system. I listen to a group called Ben Folds Five (indie/piano rock) and one of my favorite's is their "Sessions @ West 54th", which is actually a DVD, but I ripped the audio trac into flac so I could have a "CD" as well. I have never been closer to Ben Folds concert and I really appreciate the full range the HT2's are capable of as he's rocking out the piano. Some other CD's/artists I checked out were the new Beatles 2009 remasters (both mono and stereo), Supertramp, Tower of Power, Elton John Greatest Hits 1970-2002, Godzilla: The Album, a fair bit of the Green Day catalogue, Dave Matthews of all flavors, Ben Folds, 50 Cent (I said these things bump), 311 (hometown band that made it big), Taylor Swift, and certainly more.

Classical fans should be in love with these speakers as well, strings are one of the strongest points about the HT2 (also acoustic guitars). Very natural and lovely sounding, likely because of the ribbon. I bought about 15 Telarc CD's with classical music on them, and they sound superb on the HT2's. Able to replicate complex passages and play the dynamic range captured on the CD with ease. CD's tested for this were Time Warp (inlcludes things like Star Trek/Star Wars themes), Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, the reference 1812 Overture, an Organ Blaster Sampler, Holst - The Planets and others.

Now for the 2-channel accessories. The Squeezebox Duet is a new favorite toy of mine with a few annoyances. I love the ability it gives to control my entire library from anywhere in the house in lossless quality. There are 2 things I would improve upon, one is that the remote is very slow to wake up sometimes (like if you put it down for 20 mins and then go to change your playlist) and the SqueezeServer software sometimes renders dual copies of songs. For example, on my album browser, I see one copy of Fall Out Boy's "Folie a deux", but once I go into that album, I see two copies of probably 2/3 of the songs even though there is only one physical file. Not really a major problem since I use playlists instead of listening by album mostly, but if you wanted to just "pop in a single cd" and have a listen, you'd hear everything twice unless you intervene manually.

The AVA gear is just top notch. The Insight DAC and the Insight EC preamp combo are tough to beat for the price, or maybe any price. Styling is what I'd consider "old school" but the gear arrived built like a tank and is extremely functional. At first I thought the EC had too many buttons considering I will probably change the volume 99% of the time and thats it. But I've found the other features on it like the tone controls and the mono buttons to be quite fun to mess with. It has an external processor loop that I don't use, but others have found it handy to use as a home theater passthrough of sorts. I really enjoy the headphone jack on the front, its pretty quality in my opinion, because alot of manufacturers just throw one on at the end. This one has no noise and drives my Grado headphones well. As far as imaging/soundstaging, couldn't be more pleased. The preamp really delivers in providing a believable sound, and the DAC is getting every bit of data out of my recordings. Very smooth. I'm not a super huge believer in wide disparity of sounds vs different types of amps (power is pretty much power to me), but I'm impressed with the double 440. Drives the HT2's louder than I'd ever want to play, doesn't really get warm doing so, and completes the overall package nicely. No regrets there.

Moving on to 5.1, here's what I have setup. Two pairs of SongTowers (dome version) for the front/rear channels, a SongCenter, and the 15" Rythmik sub with dual passive radiators. Right now I have an Outlaw 1070 doing the processing and feeding the rear channels, but I have an Insight 240 on order from Frank that should be here in a couple weeks for the rears. On the front end, the Insight 240/3 is driving and I have a selection of sources. Mainly use a TivoHD, an Xbox 360, a Wii, and the Oppo BluRay player. I have a PS2100 with passthrough so I can listen to CD's from my Oppo in 2.1 channel goodness (or my iPod).

Here's a few pictures:

Close up of the Bubinga



Back channels and sub



Fronts

[floresjc]

2nd Part Sorry, too many characters for one post!

Excuse the mess in these photos, for the most part, I ripped everything apart and set it up as fast as possible. In the future, I'll be sure to do a professional looking job with the cables and all that. I just accepted a position in Nebraska and will be moving in a couple months, so this will all be going into a bigger house and my next project will be rewiring everything in the walls for a more permanent solution.

Let me just say "wow!" when it comes to the SongTowers and the sub is the best thing since sliced bread! These things really do well for home theater and I absolutely love the PS2100 passthrough. Thanks to Nuance for pointing that out to me months ago. I don't know that I can add anything about the SongTowers that hasn't already been said. Clean dialogue and midrange, good upper and lower end extension, and they boogie. I felt like they had a really wide sweet spot when I was at Dennis' house, and that has really translated well in creating a 5.1 sound field. The SongCenter is equally impressive, quite heavy for its size and has all of the characteristics of the SongTowers, which is no surprise. I have mine crossed over at 80hz with my sub and it sounds phenomenal for most things. There are a couple of occasions where I thought about changing it with certain dvd's or source material, but for 85% of things, 80hz seems to be working well as a starting point. So I'll move onto the sub.

The acquisition of this sub is a life changing event for me. Its that good. I'm really thrilled with the features on it and the presentation Jim gave to the product. It has the same magnetic grilles as the rest of the Salk line that are quite large (20" x 28"), but stay firmly in place. The amp is flush mounted and is integrated into the veneer very well, no funny edges. I'm not sure who makes Jim's passives, but they are also quite nice. A solid black color (although with grilles you can't see them), they are some sort of weaved material, maybe kevlar? It doesn't break a sweat on any material, and no port noise! Very agile for music. Perhaps the single best audio product I have ever personally seen/owned. A true no compromise design (as best as humans could do in the realm of physics).


I will say I was disappointed at first with the sub because I couldn't figure it out. I was experiencing mainly 2 problems, I couldn't get it to "auto on" when fed a signal reliably, and when it was on, it had really low output. I was quite confused because I had the sub gain knob turned nearly all the way up. The two issues were related though. Turns out, you have to trim the Oppo to +10 on the LFE gain to compensate for the -10dB in pressed DVD/BluRay releases which was my biggest problem. Secondly, Brian recommended I use a splitter and feed both source signals into the subs 2 input channels (which would sum for 3 or 6 dB boost I can't remember). He had designed the auto on to be not so sensitive and this little trick fixed it right up. Well now I have output galore (gain knob at 50% now) and the thing turns on whenever I want it to. I listened to the "tapping the fish tank" scene on Finding Nemo and I actually knocked a picture off the wall. Master and Commander, same deal, the house is coming down as the cannons go off. And the one really amazing thing to me is that the bass sounds really good, as if you could have a musical explosion. Its not a poof and a thud, but you can hear different phases of all these effects and none of it is muddy, but it still has *alot* of impact.   

My favorite thing about the sub is not so much those impacts and explosions as the agility it displays. I can just be watching a plain jane TV show or football, and it extends the bottom end out without being in the way, you would think the SongTowers are playing from 20Hz to 20kHz. Just watching items boot up and do bouncy effects that have low frequency content is fun. And I absolutely *love* running my iPod through my PS2100 and hearing things in 2.1! Granted, I'll give you an iPod DAC is not the greatest thing ever, but it still sounds quite good in my setup. I'll probably buy a Squeezebox in the future for this room as well, music on this sub is amazing. And it really has integrated well with the SongTowers, like I said before, its hard to tell whether the sub is playing of if the SongTowers are digging way down, I spent a good chunk of the week running over to the sub and feeling the woofer to see when it was on/off and what was I hearing (I think my wife thinks I'm nuts).

I think I'm one of the few people to have both an HT2-TL and SongTower in my home and I'll throw in a tad about the comparison of the two. It is my opinion that the HT2-TL is a bit more than just a SongTower with another 5Hz of low frequency on it. I think the ribbon gives it just that extra bit in terms of timbre accuracy on things like cymbals and overall "air". The bottom end is fuller sure, and I think the midrange just a tad more detailed. I think I've really been spoiled because I love the stock SongTowers, but after hearing the sub with them, I'll never hear them alone again. I have to have 2.1 and that extra extension, its just magic. I'd have a hard time telling you whether I liked the 2.1 SongTower setup more than the HT2-TL's (I haven't spend enough time with either), and I might just drag the HT2-TL's down to get the ribbon in 2.1 and pass out from sensory overload. In the future, I'd have a hard time recommending whether someone should get a SongSub and SongTowers or a pair of HT2-TL's, because that SongTower/SongSub setup is going to be just killer for the money. Its going to entirely depend on their listening habits and preferences.

Well I hope I conveyed my thoughts in a somewhat coherent manner. Overall I love the system, sounds good, looks good, and was a real pleasure working with Jim to get it how I wanted it. I will probably post updated impressions at a further time in the future, where I could really get into the nuts and bolts with people on specific recordings and tracks, but at this time, I've heard everything as kind of a cursory glance "how does this sound on the new stuff?" kind of deal. If anyone has any questions or is considering Salk, count me as a big fan and don't hesitate to PM me and ask questions or what not. Happy Listening fellow Salk owners!

[martyo]

Thanks for the thoughtful write-up! It all sounds very inviting.

And I'll be sending each of you helpful people a bill because a few thousand dollar adventure for a pair of speakers ended up in a whole house whole audio system upgrade.

  Ain't it the truth, seems that kinda thing happens around here.  aa

[ArthurDent]

Nice write-up floresjc, sweet systems. Glad I didn't make any recommendations or provide assistance, can't afford any more bills at the moment. Looks like you did your homework & got it all right. Jim, Dennis, Frank, & company are special folks/friends to work with.

Best of luck in the new position. Nebraska is (imo) much the nicer compared to Kansas. No offense to Kansans, but spent too many hours crossing I-70 over the years fighting mind bending boredom. I-80 is a much nicer drive. Just watch out for the ground thistles. Not sure exactly what plant they were, but seem to proliferate in the western half. Look like the old game 'jacks', and stick in tires, dogs paws, and shoes like no body's business. 

[evan1]

Great write up. Great finish on the ST's

[fsimms]

Thanks for the great reviews!  I appreciate all the time you took to write it up for us.

Bob

[vintagebob]

Top Notch Review! 

Great evaluation, great pictures and a ton of useful information.  Thanks for sharing.

[mathgeek97]

Great review!  And seriously, those HT2-TLs are beautiful.  They put my cherry finished towers to shame.
Great to hear about the Rythmik sub with the passives.  I was very curious to know how they'd sound.  Thanks.
You know, your review is just another reminder that I need to update my electronics.  May I send you a bill? 
Are you going to throw in some room treatments when you get to Nebraska?  At least play with moving the towers away from the walls, it really helped my HT2-TLs.

[oneinthepipe]

Beautiful system.  Must sound terrific.  Thanks for taking the time to report about your impressions.  Glad that you are pleased.

[floresjc]

Mathgeek -

I will probly do the space up right when I get back there. That will include room treatments and etc. I really didn't want to invest much time and effort in this home, since I was looking at leaving. I have the HT2's out from the wall more now, and they sound great. Until my dog got used to them, I didn't want him to tackle them to get to his spot.