Well it's been about a month now that I've listened to these little giants on a regular basis and I think it's time to comment on them. I mentioned previously that I am listening in a completely untreated (big) room with minimal furnishings. A good strong hand clap in my room seems to take forever to decay to nothing. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable posting an indepth review. This would be akin to reviewing a high performance sports car when you have only been allowed to drive it in the rain. I will do my best to factor out the sound qualities of my room, which is pretty darn hard to do. I can't help but imagine the comb filtering, modal & non modal issues going on in my room are out of control.
I listen at a distance of about 11.5' from the speakers. The speakers are spaced about 8' apart and toed in such that they cross paths about 18" behind my ears. Following Ethans recommendations I sit at about 38% from the rear wall. Side walls are about 16-18' away from listening position. My associated equipment is listen in my signature below. My Timepieces do have a revised XO but do not have Mundorf upgrades and they currently have the original Seas Aluminum drivers, not the updated Excel black version.
Here are my observations thus far:
I had two Peerless XLS 12" drivers integrated into the last pair of speakers in my system so my ears were expecting deep bass. I do not get the deep bass as I did with the XLS drivers but that should go without saying. I do get bass down into what seems to be the high 20's and it seems much more real and less bloated than before. Most of the music I listen to involves acoustic instruments so high 20 hz's should cover just about everything and to my ears they do it and do it
quick and accurately. Bass is not gut wrenching but it's not lacking either, even in my large room. I'm very curious to see what happens to the bass with more muscle behind the amp(s). I'm using Khartago's which are not feather weights but not heavy weights by anymeans. I've shut them down on a couple occasions when I've had the wicks turned up pretty high. I'm also vertically biamping which I suggest people try with these speakers. The upper bass/midrange is outstanding, almost haunting. Soundstage is very realistic, making it very clear where the performers are located, not only left to right but front to back. I attribute this in part to the distance of the side walls from listening position. I get a bit of confusion horizontally but I know this is because I have untreated maple floors between me and the speakers, this is nothing that a thick Flokati rug will not solve in the near future once the loft is finished & furnished. I have no issues with the sound of individual instruments/performers sounding as if they are coming from multiple locations. When listening, I like to pay very close attention to the location of the piano. Often I can hear a note jump away from location, that is, if the piano is left of center, it may shift location in the soundstage, say to the right a bit, as the pitch changes. This shift does not happen with the Timepieces. I can also pick this up by listening to violin but I've not been able to detect even the slightest shift in soundstage with these speakers. For this reason I say the Timepieces are very "accurate". Upper midrange is very tight and accurate, again no shift in sound stage. The transition between the tweeter and bass driver is seamless, I'm not sure how Bob pulls this off, but I love the fact that there is no midrange involved to muddy things up. I guess these Timepieces go to prove less is more. I do find that the upper Hz is a little shy. This could be because of my room, lack of muscle in the amps or speakers, it's hard to say. Again I listen to alot of acoustic style music with brushes on drums and to my ears it seems the sound is a tad thin. The upper treble is not "bad" but in the intrest of full disclosure I wanted to express that I feel it should be a just a little more present. To my ears these speakers sound very flat from bottom to top with just a little dip up top....remembering that my room is not optimal yet, by any means, this could be caused by any number of things.
Overall I'm very impressed with these speakers even though they might be a little small for my room I'd say the kid stays in the picture
. Feed them power and they will play
accurately at very high SPL's, I can't imagine what a kilowatt would do for these things. I'm not a studio sound guy but I now understand why Bob markets these to the recording folks. The Timepieces do their job and deliver the good, bad and ugly just as it is. Streaming audio via the internet and mp3's are a joke with these speakers. I always get a smirk on my face when I read people saying this or that speaker performs better than a speaker costing 2x as much...
okay?!?!....I will say only that I have not a hint of buyers remorse.
I will post a follow up after Bob swaps bass drivers & XO parts, though I can't understand how they could get much better
