[Gizmo]

I was interested in finding out if anyone has had the pleasure of hearing these 2 in a manner that would allow you to compare them.  I am currently auditioning the Ushers compared to my Energy 2.4i's.  I have not yet had the opportunity to hear the HT3's, but I am interested in any comparison people might have between them and the Usher's or the Energy's for that matter.

Thanks for the input,

David

[marvda1]

have you used any lead shot or sand in the chamber provided?
have you replaced the speaker jumpers?
what size room do you have them in?
what do you think of the sound so far?
i own the 6381's and have access to listening to the ht3's but as yet haven't done any comparison listening.
one thing i have found is that as i improve on equipment and cables the 6381's do let you hear the upgrades.

[brj]

i own the 6381's and have access to listening to the ht3's but as yet haven't done any comparison listening.

And I own the HT3s that marvda1 is talking about...

I've heard marvda1's Usher 6381s several times.  I've been treated to an audition of Captain Humble's 6381s as well, although he has since upgraded to 6391s.  I was very impressed with the sound both times, and I think that Usher probably has the best finish quality I've ever seen on a non-custom speaker.

Unfortunately, I don't know that I can offer any concrete comparisons between the two when it comes to their sound quality.  My room is very different than marvda1's in both size, shape and treatment level, and our component chains are wildly different as well.  (My component chain is pretty rudimentary at the moment, but with my new room treatments up, I finally have some strong hints as to what my HT3s will ultimately be able to achieve.)

If marvda1 feels like lugging some of his gear over to my place when we finally arrange a meet, that might provide enough similarity to make a comparison, but it would still stretching things in my opinion.  I'm always up for an experiment, however!

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask.  Be aware, however, that even if you use the 6381's MSRP of $3400, the HT3s will definitely be in a higher price class if you start adding upgrades.  (Mine have quite a few, which is why my component chain is still so basic! )

Good luck!

[KJ]

I haven't heard the HT3s (yet), but I have listened to the 6381s on numerous occasions.  If you're looking to stay within the 6381 price point ($3400 MSRP), you might consider trying to find a base pair of HT3s to audition ($3900 MRSP).  However, this may be difficult since most people tend to order their custom HT3s with numerous upgrades (ala brj's).  Nonetheless, something to keep in mind.

IMO, the 6381s provide a very dynamic and tight sound.  They are easy to place and emanate a very nice soundstage (both width and depth).  Although they can be driven just fine with 150 watts, I think they benefit a fair amount from greater amplification.  If you listen at high SPLs, these speakers can certainly dish it out (I've listened to them at levels that far exceed my normal listening habits).  If you prefer night time SPLs when the kids are asleep, they will sound just fine although I think they perform better with greater than whisper level volumes.

Marvada1 makes some good points.  The bridge wires suffice, but you will hear a decent improvement when using your favorite cable of choice as an alternative.  Also, most people I know who own these tend to toe them out a bit.  However, this is definitely room dependent.  Bass is most impressive from a speaker cabinet the size of the Usher.  They require the use of some incredibly heavy cast iron plinths/stands to hold them up, but they help couple the speakers to the floor very nicely.  Included with the stands are two sets of spikes (one set brass and one set plastic).

If you are in the DFW area, I would certainly hit up Captain Humble and brj for some auditions who are both very gracious hosts.  Enjoy!

[Gizmo]

Marvda1,

Stock chambers, stock Jumpers, the room is 17' wide by 27 deep with a 10 foot ceiling, pretty well treated.  They sound great so far.  This is my first night of auditioning and they seem to be great speakers.  Tomorrow I will be able to do some comparing between my Veritas 2.4i's and the Ushers.

brj,

You and Marvda definitely need to get together, I am sure it would be a great experience demoing both speakers.

KJ,

I agree that they have a very dynamic and tight sound.  I am using a 300wpc Cinenova Grande amp to drive them.  This seems to be a great match.  The bass is awesome.  Different than the Energy's, the 2.4i's have great bass, but the speakers present it in a different manner.  I haven't compared the 2 directly tonight, just spending time with the Ushers.  I will do so tomorrow or Saturday.  I live in Fla., but I will be in DFW in October. 

Thanks for all the thoughts so far,

David

[KJ]

David,

If the ones you are auditioning are brand new, you'll want at least 90-100 hours on them before you start performing some critical listening.  They start off sounding pretty good out of the gate, but come across a bit muddy around the 50 hour mark.  I'm guessing the mids and bass on the HT3s take a fair amount of breaking in as well.  Have fun!

-KJ

[brj]

It sounds like you have a nice big room to play in, Gizmo.  I'm unfamiliar with the Energy speakers, but the comparisons should be fun.

brj,

You and Marvda definitely need to get together, I am sure it would be a great experience demoing both speakers.

It will happen.  My system is still quite new and suffering some growing pains.  The last of my initial room treatments just went up within the last week.  (The clarity improved very noticably, but I still need to deal with some slap echo issues and measure the system in order to work out bass treatment issues.  After that I deal with component upgrades as funds allow.) 

Marvda1 will have to bring the Ushers to my place, however, if he wants to perform a direct comparison, because I'm not moving the HT3s!

I'm guessing the mids and bass on the HT3s take a fair amount of breaking in as well.

I didn't notice much initial change in the midrange Seas XL, but the surround on the TC Sounds woofer definitely took a few days of continuous play to loosen up.  I still remember being surprised at how suddenly the bass kicked in...

[marvda1]

sure brian, i'll just strap them on my back and come right over

[marvda1]

gizmo, before you put in the lead shot or sand let the speakers breakin.
i bet you had a lot of fun positioning them. you tell brian how easy they would be to take to a friends house to demo

[Gizmo]

Hey guys,

The speakers are on loan from a friend, they are already broken in.  They are definitely not easy to move around.  It took 2 of us to load them properly into a Mini van.  I am sure the HT3's would be equally cumbersome.  I stayed up way to late last night.  Lots of fun though. I am off to the office, hopefully sneak out early and get more play time in today. 

David

[Steve Vol]

Brian, have you had done a comparision of you HT3's vs the VMPS RM30?  What are you thoughts on the HT3's so far.  I know that you considered both of them before making your decision.

After emailing with you a few times earlier in the year to try and get an audition, I was able to get a demo from another set of HT3's here in Houston and then ordered the HT3's.  I believe mine should be here sometime in August.  Can't wait to get them after listening to "Texas Steve" HT3's. 


Steve in Houston

[brj]

Hi Steve - good to hear from you!

Gizmo, my apologies if this response drives your thread a bit off track.... give me a shout if you want me to have a moderator split it out into a separate thread.

Brian, have you had done a comparison of you HT3's vs the VMPS RM30?

I've spent quite a few hours listening to a pair of RM30's that were considered maxed out at the time of purchase over 1.5 years ago.  They do a great many things very "right" when dialed in properly.  My own impression is that the RM30s are the best combination of price/performance and "liveability," due to the smaller size and slim profile, within the VMPS line.  The recent move to Mark Shifter's cabinetry (always excellent on all brands of speakers!) and Brian's new commitment to pre-tuning all of his speakers prior to shipment go a long way torward addressing many of the concerns that had prompted me to continue my speaker search at the time.

Unfortunately, I don't feel I can provide detailed comparisons between the two speakers for the same reasons mentioned previously... the systems are set up in very different rooms, powered by very different gear, and, in this case, I've always had a multi-day lag between hearing the two systems.  I realize that this response isn't especially helpful, but the impact realized after installing my new room treatments this past week cemented in my own mind just how important they - and other component choices - are in determining the ultimate sound of any given system.  The improvement in detail, imaging and soundstage were impressive.

(The RM30 system is located in a room with very few options in terms of room treatments, due primarily to geometry and traffic patterns.  All walls are either windows, built-in furniture, a fireplace or an opening into another room, with a sloped ceiling and no clearance to place treatments in corners.)

I will say that I appreciate the bit of extra bass extension that the HT3s offer over the RM30s, but the RM30 system has a VMPS Larger sub installed, so it still wins in the end.  (In a future room, I eventually hope to install infinite baffle subwoofers.)

What are you thoughts on the HT3's so far.

My particular speakers have had a rather bumpy road, but they sound impressive enough that I very much wish I could accelerate the upgrade of my other components in order to realize the HT3's full potential.  Hopefully, I can have a few locals that are further along in their audio journey bring over some of their components to give me a taste of what I can look forward to...

After emailing with you a few times earlier in the year to try and get an audition I was able to get a demo from another set of HT3's here in Houston and then ordered the HT3's.

Believe me, no one was more eager for my speakers to arrive than I was!

I'm sorry the timing didn't work out, but I'm glad "Texas Steve" was able to provide an audition for you.

I believe mine should be here sometime in August.  Can't wait to get them after listening to "Texas Steve" HT3's.

Obviously the audition settled the decision for you - congrats!

[marvda1]

so gizmo, how did the comparison go?

[zybar]

Brian, have you had done a comparision of you HT3's vs the VMPS RM30?  What are you thoughts on the HT3's so far.  I know that you considered both of them before making your decision.

After emailing with you a few times earlier in the year to try and get an audition, I was able to get a demo from another set of HT3's here in Houston and then ordered the HT3's.  I believe mine should be here sometime in August.  Can't wait to get them after listening to "Texas Steve" HT3's. 


Steve in Houston

I directly compared my HT3's to my RM 40's and it wasn't a hard decision to go with the HT3's.  I know of one person who went RM 30's to HT3's and he is also very happy.

If you search, you will find lots of comments comparing Salk to VMPS.

George

[Gizmo]

This has been a very fun weekend.  I sure wish I could hear a pair of the HT3's.  The Ushers are a great pair of speakers.  For their price they have no glaring errors of omission.  I have a pretty good size room, and they have plenty of bass, great soundstage.  They are a very rhythmic speaker.  By that I mean the Music is conveyed in a very natural way, not to clinical.  This is a preference of mine.  In comparison to the Energy's, I won't be selling mine for the Ushers.  The Energy's present a tighter more emphatic bass line, not as full, but more impactful.  The mid's on the energy's are just ever so sweetly more revealing.  Playing Dave Matthews Band CD Crash, there are several songs with great arrays of various instruments from horns, to percussions, to guitars, both acoustic and electric, electric violins, keyboards, you get the idea.  Anyway it is an outstanding recording for being able to present a challenge to speakers for clearly separating and identifying all the various instruments, and layers of depth to the soundstage.  This is were in my setup the energy's slightly outshone the ushers.  Just picking up on a specific instrument in a specific spot with a touch more clarity and detail. 

If there are any HT3 owners in Florida that would like to arrange a get together, please let me know.  I really love the look of the Salk speakers and I can't wait to hear them.

Like I said in the beginning, anytime you get to bring different equipment into your home and audition it in your setup, it makes for a very fun weekend.

David

[jsalk]

Gizmo -

Not having heard the Usher or Energy speakers you are comparing, I obviously can't comment directly.  But I have worked with the Usher drivers and, assuming Usher did an excellent job with the design, I can offer some observations that may help.

First, the Usher drivers are commonly regarded as being clones of popular ScanSpeak drivers.  The tweeter is basically a clone of the SS9500 and the midwoofer is basically a clone of the SS8545 driver.  In this regard, Usher did a very good job.  I have used both of these drivers with very satisfactory results.

That said, there is no comparison between the performance of these drivers and those used in the HT3.

While the Usher tweeter does a good job as a conventional 1" dome tweeter, it is nowhere near as detailed as the G2 pure ribbon tweeter.  The G2 is a much lower mass driver and is significantly faster.  Whereas the Usher tweeter tops out just above 20,000Hz, the G2 is down only 3db at 40,000Hz.

Now you might think that as long as a tweeter reaches 20,000Hz, all would be pretty much the same (since you can't hear higher frequencies anyway).  But because a pure ribbon tweeter is much faster, it can resolve minute detail in the audible range that the dome tweeter simply can't reproduce.  The result is that the ribbon tweeter will resolve additional detail in the overtone structure of instruments and present them in a more natural light.  In that regard, a ribbon tweeter provides a crystal clear window into the sound.

The dome tweeter produces a very nice top end.  But the ribbon appears to have no top end at all - it just goes on forever.

In terms of the midwoofer, the Usher driver uses a paper cone.  Again, it is a quality driver, but does not have anywhere near the detail of the Seas Excel W18.  The Seas driver uses a very stiff, low-mass magnesium cone (one of the stiffest, low-mass cones available today).  The result is much greater midrange detail.  With the low-distortion W18, you will hear midrange detail in recordings that paper-coned drivers simply cannot reproduce.

The woofer chosen for the HT3 also has a very low-mass cone (aluminum in this case).  This, too, was chosen to provide detail in the bass frequencies.  No "one note" bass here.

If these drivers provide more detail (which they do), why wouldn't Usher or Energy use them in their designs?  The answer is simple - cost.

Usher and Energy sell their speakers at retail.  A retailer will not stock the product unless he can make about 40% margin.  Then the manufacturer has marketing, distribution, labor and other costs.  Of course, they both also need to make a profit.

The bottom line is that manufacturers who sell through retail channels can invest no more than about 10 - 15% of the retail selling price in parts.  In comparison, we typically spend about 50% of our selling price on parts. 

Because we and others like us sell direct, we can afford to offer higher quality drivers and crossover parts in speakers selling at roughly the same price.

This is not to say that Usher and Energy do not make good speakers.  They do. 

But, $ for $, our speakers will perform better simply because they are better - they are built with higher quality parts. 

Speaker building is all about trade-offs.  When you determine the target selling price for a product and analyze all costs associated with your marketing model, there is only so much you can invest in drivers and crossover parts.  It is that simple.

I'm sure all of these speakers sound good.  But the biggest difference in the sound reproduced by these various speakers will be in the level of detail resolved.  Higher quality drivers will result in a more accurate and detailed speaker.  Provided the crossover is designed properly, higher quality speakers will also provide superior imaging and a more realistic sound stage.  They will add no "signature" of their own to the sound and will literally disappear into the room. You are simply left with the music - no more, no less.

Obviously, you should consider these comments biased.  But I believe them to be an accurate assessment of the types of differences you would hear in these designs based simply on the parts used.

I hope you find this at least somewhat helpful.

- Jim

[Gizmo]

Jim,

Thank you very much for taking the time to give me such a detailed response.  I truly appreciate it.  I can't wait till I have the chance to hear the HT3's.  You wouldn't happen to have a pair that I could rent for a week would you?

Thanks again,

David

[jsalk]

Jim,

Thank you very much for taking the time to give me such a detailed response.  I truly appreciate it.  I can't wait till I have the chance to hear the HT3's.  You wouldn't happen to have a pair that I could rent for a week would you?

Thanks again,

David

Gizmo -

Well, if shipping weren't so costly (and slightly risky), I would send you a demo pair.  But, unfortunately, it would be about a $500 round trip, so this isn't a good option. And, of course, I would have to build them first since I don't have any demo HT3's on hand other than my own personal pair.  But the thought did occur to me that at some point I should consider building  a "touring" pair...

- Jim

[95bcwh]

Jim,

Thank you very much for taking the time to give me such a detailed response.  I truly appreciate it.  I can't wait till I have the chance to hear the HT3's.  You wouldn't happen to have a pair that I could rent for a week would you?

Thanks again,

David

Gizmo -

Well, if shipping weren't so costly (and slightly risky), I would send you a demo pair.  But, unfortunately, it would be about a $500 round trip, so this isn't a good option. And, of course, I would have to build them first since I don't have any demo HT3's on hand other than my own personal pair.  But the thought did occur to me that at some point I should consider building  a "touring" pair...

- Jim

Gizmo,
    Take a vacation trip to Michigen, arrange it when Jim just happen to finish a pair of HT3 before shipping it out. You won't regret your trip.
I went to listen to another pair of speaker cost $8000 (Tannoy-TD12), powered by expensive Krell amp, audio research preamp and Cary CD player. (can't recall their exact model). The whole system still sound "blurry", less transparent, less imaging/soundstage than my SB3->Bryston 4B-SST->HT3.

   barry

[ryno]

Jim,
A pair of HT1's might make a good tour. Less risk and cheaper shipping. That is if they sound similar to the HT3's with less bass. It would give people a feel of the salk sound.

It might be me, but your web site link in your signature doesn't seem to go to the right place.
Ryan