Waking up this thread....anyone with more recent and additional comments on TAD Reference 1 Mk I or Mk IIs, please post them! |
Thank you all for the feedback! |
Thank you both for your feedback! I believe the finish is reported to be Sapele Pommele wood with Red Birdseye finish very highly polished reminiscent of TIDAL finishes. |
Don't know.....audiobrian? |
Bugman03: Thank you very much for all of your feedback! It parallels much that I've received privately and have read here and elsewhere. Have a great day! |
Thank you all for the feedback both on the thread and to those who responded privately. The choice has been made recently and it looks like I will get to experience these speakers for a long time to come... |
Will do bcgator once they are up and running and broken in! |
knghifi: Will post feedback as noted once I have some them up and running, broken in, etc....I plan on using my existing Esoteric A-02 amp. The nice touch around all this is that this will be the first time I've ever heard my speaker cables and that amp run full-range as the prior speaker and RoomEQ device delegated bass and sub-bass (rather well and with great results) to dual 500W ICE amps in each tower and routed those frequencies over analog XLR to the speaker. The whole experience should be a real event.... |
Thank you all for your responses; very much appreciated! |
And the thought behind this post is what exactly? |
melbguy1: From what I learned talking to many TAD R1 owners, not unlike other speakers out there including your preferred Magicos, the R1's performance is gated or blown out by the choice of front-end, interconnects, speaker cables, amplifier, etc....I have no doubt that the Be concentric driver whose tweeter section goes up (at least they claim measurement of) to 100 kHz will show the best and worst of whatever is driving it. All I know is that with my gear and cables, on Day 1 when you (I) would expect the good and particularly 'the bad' to come out and hit you in the face, what i heard amazed me. I believe I've got a good match of electronics and cables here and I've not heard any of the "harsh, harsh at bigger SPLs,..." type of of issues some have reported. I just returned home after 5 days of holiday travels, speakers just crossed 141 hours; same deal, no harshness, no downside thus far. Very encouraging... One thing is certain from what I can see and hear with these speakers, throw sub-standard electronics and cables at the R1s and they will let you know it. Drive them with the right top-quality gear and you'll be rewarded (same as any speaker).
I suspect that may explain what you heard.
Kudos on the Magicos; people say they that model are great speakers. Not my cup of tea in general for the Magico line as a whole,...but that's what is great about this hobby...there are so many great choices out there! |
bcgator & knghifi: Do you have systems posted here with pics? Also, what amps do you drive the TADs with? |
Thank you for the feedback; the RELs are great subs. I know others in the US who have the CR1s and drive pair them with JL subs (112, 113, 115, Gotham); I've not heard this as I'm an old REL fan/owner but they seem to love the combination particularly with the additional audiophile-grade crossover.... |
Thanks....back in my subwoofer days with 7.1 HT + 2-ch hybrid, REL was the king for 2-ch integration. Others came and went and tried to measure up but they fell short for 2-ch. Glad to hear it's still that way! My last REL was a B1 Britannia which had the best of both worlds very well ironed out (IMHO), typical hi-pass integration off amp mains for 2-ch and equally great LFE input for HT. I realize other subs in the line had this but the front-firing B1 was my favorite in terms of pleasing both sides of the house... |
melbguy1: Thanks for the response; I am very glad you are happy with your speakers and gear combination. I know a couple guys here who had the 3s and have upgraded to the S5s in the last few months and they are very happy as well. I hear they are awesome speakers from many fans of that company's speakers. To each their own,....absolutely agree. I'm sure your ears are not lying to you nor are mine here. Perhaps I just got very luckly with baseline of gear, cables, power, etc....that I have as the foundation of the system as my hearing is still exceptional and I'm also very prone to finding the least bit of ear fatigue in a speaker and given the Legacy's I owned in various models for year, I know what a fatigue-less (not a word but you get the point) is. I'm very glad that I have a combination of gear/etc...that is showing the R1s at their best and I've not heard, even in the first 190 hours, the aspects that you are pointing out. Have a great new year and enjoy your setup and those great speakers! |
Thanks for your response; that is interesting regarding the other speaker. I had not heard that from the guys I know who own them and are liking them very much. Happy New Year! |
Melbguy: Happy New Year to you as well! As far as my system sounding musical to me, you can also add a long list of various audio fans who have had long and multiple listening sessions at the house so it's not simply just my ears thinking the system sounds good. |
Great,...now that we have the Magico topic out of our system, can we return to discussion of the TAD R1 MkIIs? |
All thanks for your feedback across the entire thread, no need for apologies as we all get passionate about what we like and sometimes go overboard (guilty as charged here LOL). Magico does make some fine speakers, some much better than others (IMHO) but their heart seems to be in the right place when it comes to pushing the performance barrier all the time. The big Thiels 3.7s and in the old days the 6s and 7.x (if memory serves) were great speakers; thought about buying the higher end of the Thiel line more than once over the years. I never forget the first 2 speakers I heard that imaged in a way that truly shocked me versus the broad stroke/diffuse sound audio speaker approach of the 70s and 80s; one was a pair of mid-line Infinity's that I owned (RS4s), the other was a pair of Thiel 1.1s in an audio shop in Montgomery Ohio (suburb of Cinci). They were playing Thomas Dolby and Patrick O'Hearn's latest highly regarded albums. Surprising at the time how specific the imaging was and how the music just hung "correctly" in the air. Have a great weekend guys! |
"I am not a moderator. I have no connection to Audiogon. I'm just a fella who wants a site that operates in a reasonably friendly fashion."
Well said,.....!!! |
As life has dictated that I am breaking in the R1s at a slower pace (only about 7-8 hours of playing time per day 5 days per week), they've crossed 300 hour as of yesterday but the differences in the speaker as it matures are making themselves very apparent; the bass has become very accurate, deep and tight, the mids and highs are liquid and rich without being overly saturated and inaccurate and the sound stage and imaging performance of this speaker and its ability to convey the scale, energy and beauty of whatever music I throw at it is extremely impressive to me. I do miss the deep bass below 21-22 Hz from my last speakers so I may have to do something about that however in terms of musical accuracy, scale and energy of the performance, the ability to pull me into the recordings, extremely accurate rendition of every note and nuance individually for each instrument and voice AND for the ensemble as a whole regardless of type of music, I would now change the title of this thread from "R1....How good are they..." to "R1....How GREAT they are...". |
That is certainly true but 6 of any sub could very well remove all the music from the room of this size and leave only bass and sub-bass notes LOL! |
Yes,...saw that last year; Arnie is a great guy whose system I've stared at many times over the years! I meant to ask him why the stack of 3 G1s were necessary when that sub or a single G25 would be ample for bass and sub-bass in that room for 2-ch. Perhaps he went with the 6-pack for HT related presence. They certainly look damned impressive!!! |
