I swerved into Jim quite by accident. It had always been a life long dream of mine to build the ultimate floor stander speaker. I vowed that some day when I had sufficient funds and a suitable workshop I would build them. Two years ago the planets aligned and I was on a mission to find the perfect floor stander design. I narrowed the decision down to two prominent kit suppliers.
Just to be absolutely sure I hadn’t overlooked another speaker kit company, I Googled speakers and up popped Jim’s site. My attention was immediately drawn to the HT2 TL, but I didn’t see that he sold the plans or kits for his speakers. Upon further review of Jim’s website, I noticed that he was located in the Detroit metro area. I was surprised to discover that his location was less than a mile for where I lived.
This had to be speaker “fate.” I promptly called Jim and explained that I wanted to build my own speakers and that I lived just down the road from him and asked him if he could supply the plans and parts. He said, “as a rule I don’t sell plans or parts.” The conversation could have terminated right then and there, but Jim asked “would you be interested in seeing how we make them?” Of course I would…
A week later I met Jim and he took me on a tour of his shop. I brought along pen and paper in hopes of taking notes of how the H2TL was constructed. Jim was gracious enough to let me take notes of the dimensions and some tricks of the trade that I might use in constructing my version of the H2TL. After five minutes, I stopped writing. It was rapidly becoming apparent to me that building a high quality speaker was a lot more than constructing a box with holes in it.
It occurred to me that I could spend a lot of time and money to build a pair of speakers, but they would never be constructed or sound like a Salk speaker. After the tour Jim auditioned HT2L’S for me. The sound was amazing and unlike anything I had ever heard. I looked over at Jim and asked him how much deposit was required to build my pair of HT2TL’s.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with Jim to customize the perfect set of speakers to my specific taste. The variety of veneers, attention to detail, and the quality craftsmanship allowed me to custom create the speaker of my dreams.
