Salk Speakers - Opinions & Advice?

My company is based in Troy, MI and on a business trip a while back I visited Jim Salk at his home to hear his speakers. Even without proper placement and room treatments I was very impressed. I didn't find them cool in their presentation. They are neutral and have very good low end extension. Also, the designs are well executed as is build quality. A couple of the speakers can be considered works of art and the paint work is automotive quality. I never saw Ferrari Red look so good.

Price wise they are a great value IMO.

The A.K.Fest is a wonderfull place to see what is happening in Audio, it is like most audio shows not a great place to hear what is happening in Audio. The rooms were difficult esp from a bass standpoint. Tyler speakers were brand new and did not have any break in time also he has redesigned his Decade line with different drivers and crossovers from his older series...Salk speakers do have some of the best looking cabinets around but with the source equipment at the show not the sound quality to compare with the looks...

I too attended AK Fest '10 and the comments about the Tyler's by Tomryan are exactly the impressions I walked away with. This was my second year in a row of attendance and the Decade's sounded pretty much as they did last year. IMHO, Tyler should have had one of his smaller models at the show due to the size of the room.

The Salk's are a handsome looking speaker, but not my cup of tea. I had a pair of Songtowers for about a year and they sat idle for most of their stay with me because the top end was not satisfying. The HT3's have been auditioned twice in two different highend systems and I couldn't get use to the upper midrange/lower treble hotness. Listener fatigue for me, but YMMV Salk's newest speaker seems to have promise if he can get the lower frequencies to balance with the rest of the drivers.

As others have stated, if you can audition them WITH YOUR OWN MUSIC and your cdp and preamp, then you will be able to make an ~85% informed opinion.

The speaker that totally and unexpectedly surprised me at this year's AK Fest was the mini Dali Menuet speaker. They plan on making a floorstanding version of this design, which is now on my short list.

Good luck with your equipment journey.

D.

Dominion78 - The Songtowers are what I am interested in. What exactly about the treble performance didn't you like? Was it lean, bright, recessed, dull?

Also, what did you think of the Fritz and Grant Fidelity designs (if you did hear them)?

Hello, I was at AK Fest over the weekend also. My impression of the D1's matches those of others already listed. I intended to ask Ty how many hours they had on them and never did. If they were not broken in it could explain the forward upper mids/low treble. The bass was another issue. Those speakers had plate amps on them specifically dedicated to the bass and they could have been turned down at any time. The plate amps are not standard for them, but I verified they were on the demo pair and turned on while in the room. I don't know why he had the bass turned up the way he did with them, but the problem could have been easily rectified.
As for the Grant Fidelity and the Fritz Carbon 7's, I thought them both to be well made and sound very good. The speakers in that price range that grabbed my attention were the Dynaudio Excite X 12's which to my ears had a superior tweeter to either of the above. The Dyn's also drew me in to the music a little better. On top of that, they are also less expensive. My opinions are based on limited auditioning under show conditions so take them for what they are worth. I thought the little Dali's were also very good but would take the x12's over them. I put a great deal of emphasis on tweeter performance and the Dynaudio models have had the best tweeters in their respective price classes. The Dynaudio C1's have had the best tweeter at the show regardless of price the last two years running IMO.