Hello everyone, I have been using Meadowlark Kestral 2's for the past 2 years and am ready to move on. I use a Cayin 35 watt el34 based intergrated tube amp and I have a Audio Note cd 3.1x coming as my source.
Amplifier power is a rather interesting thing - check put what Dave Ellis has to say:
http://www.ellisaudio.com/wattsratings.htm'Given 85db/watt speakers, a good El34 push pull (about 35wpc) or a good 60wpc stereo amplifier will get the job done with more than enough power.' And the Timepieces happen to be 85db.
Just to acquaint you with how good an experienced loudspeaker designer thinks they are (yes he designed them for many years) check out
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1003/sptechnology.htmThe only ones I have been able to listen to are the Harbeth 30's, thought they had very nice midrange which is important as I listen to a lot of female vocals,
You will find reviewers claim the midrange of the Timepiece is simply the best they have ever heard - and that is the old Model eg
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=16259'I heard details in the midrange that I had never heard before.From quiet ambient sounds to harmonic structures, all other speakers I've heard have failed to resolve midrange like the TimePieces. A huge thumbs up'
the bass was very good especially for a monitor BUT I thought that the upper end was restrained and not life like or "accurate".
Now we are getting to another great strength of the Timepices - they produce accurate bass to 29hz.
That being said I don't like a speaker that is going to let me know that the treble is present, I like balance and a natural sound across the board.
IMHO I think that is where the timepieces excel - Bob has gone to a lot of trouble to locate the 'best' tweeter he can find. The outcome was rather surprising - evidently the famous Seas Millennium or Hiquphon was not good enough - he used a Scan Speak.
http://206.13.113.199/ncdiyaudio/mark/Testing/testing.htmIt is now accepted by many that the air etc of the Millennium and Hiquphon is a form of distortion - distortion not present in Bobs speakers.
'What to make of the ow2's mediocre nonlinear distortion performance? Well, think about this. Perceived detail and "air" can occur for a number of reasons. Good off axis performance can do this. Good linear distortion performance can do this. But modest amounts of higher order nonlinear distortion can also increase apparent detail. In this fashion, I suppose the ow2 is the winner. But only in the sense that "it gives you all the detail that's in the recording, and then some..."'
Because of this some have commented the treble takes a little getting used to compared to others you may have heard. But one thing you can be sure of is it will not be overblown or tireing to listen to.
I would be happy to find a monitor that could reach down to the mid thirty's or below with in room response.
Then you have found it - the Timepices will do that with ease.
Overall I want a speaker that sucks you in to the emotions of the music being played while not thinking about what the speaker is lacking! My question is, can the sp tech. speakers do all of this for around 2000?.
That may be the timepieces weakens in your case. It is $2995 - only you can decide if that fits in your around $2000.00. For what you get I think they are an unbeatable bargain - I would say they have the best price performance ratio of any speaker I have seen - which I why I purchased them. However you are the only one that can decide if you want to spend that sort of money.
Second, I saw that there is a new speaker, the Essence with two bass units? Is this the one?
The essences have a single woofer - the presents are an MTM ie have two woofers. This is Bobs more affordable product and while they sound very good are not a no compromise design - reviews mention you can hear things like cabinet resonance's. The Timepieces use constrained layer construction that is reputably very dead. When I said before they had the best cost/performance ratio of any speaker I know of I meant of those speakers I consider to have no or virtually no audible coloration - as the review says:
'What sound?? They essentially make virtually no coloring to the reproduced music. At least none that I can hear per se. I do not hear the normal "thumbprint" character that most loudspeakers exhibit in the bass response. Balance is maintained from the very low 30 Hz range to beyond the range of normal human hearing. All the talk of imaging, bloom, warmth, tiss, spit, sizzle, glare and other words used to describe the sound just does not apply here. These loudspeakers were designed for critical monitoring of recordings during the mix-down and mastering stage. What they do, is turn the electrical signal into an acoustic signature as accurately as possible, at all input levels from way below one watt RMS of power (sans low organ pedals at milliwatts) to an incredible 1,000 watts peak per channel!'
I know of no other speaker anywhere near its price that you can say that about.
I live in Austin so if anybody has any of these speakers hear I would love to come listen. Thanks for all of your help ahead of time!
As you can see I am very enthused about the Timepieces. So enthused, because I live in Australia, I purchased a pair unheard. I know it is a leap of faith but I firmly believe these are one speaker that can be purchased unheard. Probably your best bet since you live in the USA is to make a trip to a dealer like Response or Jamn audio and have a listen and compare them to other brands. Please understand that if you want to go to your local Hi Fi store, listen and compare brands, then you pay big for this privilege - you have to put a large markup to make it worthwhile for most dealers to stock it. If Bob went that path his speakers would cost a lot more. He has steered a middle course of having a few selected dealers stock it.
I'm considering a pair of the Timepiece 2.1's but they're about double your budget..
Not quite double - a little under 50%.
One thing I seem to hear a lot is that they seem to like to have the volume cranked a bit.. And I notice you listen to Nick Drake... which isn't something I'd enjoy super loud.
The timepieces are built without compromise - designed to sound equally as good at high volume as at low. Subjectively we judge a speakers loudness by the level of distortion. Since Bobs speakers can play frighteningly loud with virtually no distortion the tendency is to always crank up the volume. Bobs speakers are not alone in this. I once owned a pair of Gale 402's that were known for exactly the same trait - they liked to be played loud. After much experimenting I discovered it is not they liked to be played loud it was because they had such low distortion they could be played loud so people kept on winding it up. After a while though I found listening at realistic volumes was more satisfying. Since for me I listen to vocalists like cranky Frankie that meant about 75db (the level of speaking loud) at about 1 meter from the speakers - not loud at all. However if you want to listen to rock music at concert leveles as Bob said you will need a big ass amp. However the original poster gets by with 35 watts which will not produce rock concert levels so I suspect that is not what they are after.
How do the SPTech's do at lower volumes?
Think about this - a speaker designed for critical monitoring in a recording studio must excel at low volume levels.
Is there one that performs better than others for lower volume listening?
At anywhere near the cost of the Timepieces? - IMHO no. Much more expensive speakers like the War Reference One of the Orions may (and that is a big may) but they will cost you a lot more.
