Tidal Speakers owners

Hi,

my name is Jörn, designer behind TIDAL and I just want to add some general things to this thread if I may, maybe I am able to answer some questions I see here repeating:

In general, it is nice to read from enthusiastic owners comments who want to share their experiences. As in every other field of men’s toys one finds “fans” and those who are fans of other brands or products. Which is fine, since in the end of the day it will never stop to have fun with arguing about different products and philosophies. We just believe that it makes no sense trying to sell someone who prefers “blue” sounding audio equipment “red” sounding one or fight about what is better. Our products for e.g. are in fact not for everybody in terms of how they sound (and maybe even look), neither we do have the intention making people believe that we do offer the holy grail nor is it “cult”, “the next big thing” or any of that. We try to avoid that. All audio equipment does have more or less a specific texture, a signature or easy spoken – a colour. Everyone can find his very own favourite colour in this wonderful big jungle of products, TIDAL is just for those who like the TIDAL-colour so to say, whatever colour that would be.

If one is saying the Contriva Diacera does sound better then a Sunray, then one is absolutely right: if one heard it in the setup one liked more, in a better room, with better software and just the way one prefers how a system should sound like, then this is true. It is as true as some other say the small Amea did sounded better then a Contriva - under the same circumstances as listed before. We do know better Piano Cera setups then some Contriva Diacera setups. But if one likes to know the direct difference, then one needs to compare it under the same (!) circumstances. In that case the ranking of the performance of the speakers is going hand in hand with the size of our speakers. We know Sunray setups sounding that realistic that a Contriva Diacera is in the best case “mediocre” after it. The Sunray is more accurate in any way and just more realistic then a Contriva Diacera (both can cover about the same size of rooms form the acoustical point) – at the same position, same software, same chain. A Contriva Diacera does not have the slightest chance then. By fact, not be feel. But: how one likes that deeper insight into the chain/recording is again on a different sheet of paper – and this is the point.

If it comes to our black ceramic drivers, we just need to reserve the right to know more about it then someone else. We can assure there is a difference, things one can easily measure. Black or silver anodized aluminium makes no difference, it is both time anodized, I agree. But an additional coating does change things, things we do take care of in return into our filter design. But is the black coating the reason why they do sound different then maybe in other manufacturers designs? For sure not (alone). It is the complex interaction between the driver itself and the adapted x-over (and actually even many things more). It just plays its little part within a “clockwork” of all the things we thought thru when we do offer a speaker. So it makes no sense to argue about black or white ceramic drivers and looking for simple answers out of it, as well out of other single components, especially without a real deep view insight. Trying to bring things down to some parts and making conclusions out of it is as sensible as guessing how the wine is/will be based on the grapes.
A client just needs to trust that a manufacturer does his best for him anyway, just to offer a product which is in a positive way special enough to end up some day in a living room. If one does not trust the manufacturer or does not like the result one hears – then there are plenty of other options. Building own stuff or looking for something else are just two possibilities.

I think threads should be more about sharing personal experiences, not about hypotheses or absolute judgements, fanatic missions to teach others with what one likes the most. I remember a great thread here only written by guys sharing their experiences and then it was erased since some guys started again with the same old boring “no, THIS is the best and YOU(R equipment) stink(s)”-story… One last thing from a personal side: if there are objective technical questions about a product, just ask guys who do know the product the best, which could be the manufacturer or the dealer/importer of your trust.

Enjoy your equipment, whatever it is making you happy :-)!

My two cents as the designer behind the speakers mentioned in this thread: neutrality is nothing but an objective criteria. It is a fact which can be found out, and no opinion or a feel.

Neutrality can be defined very simple by the difference between what goes inside of the speaker and what comes out of it. It can be measured in many complex ways. The most famous and also most simple one to understand is the 'frequency response', but it does not tell the whole story of a speaker at all - otherwise all speakers with a flat FRQ would do sound the same.
But almost all effects to "sound" can be measured and follows the same principle: the difference of IN and OUT. The less the difference, the more 'neutral'. And this is at least what we do at TIDAL: bringing this difference as low as possible.

But HOW one likes neutral speakers/systems closer to neutrality then others - well, about this one could talk back and forth since it is a subjective issue/feel/opinion.

many greetings, Jörn

Hi, this is Jörn again,

even if it does not sound very romantic and many clients would prefer to hear a nice marketing story like “oh yes, we had a couple of hundreds listening sessions with a bunch of famous grey haired musicians”, but for us there is no such thing. We do not sit in our listening room while making serious faces and debating about it if the violin sounds like a Stradivari or like a Guarneri after we changed this or that detail…
We leave that to those who like to tell and/or read such thing – since such a process brings me back to one simple thing: everybody can build drivers into a cabinet, tells a story about it and try to sell it. Since always something will come out of the box and one can describe it as “sound” then and talking about it how much one likes this “sound”. Print it, or let it print and find clients who like exactly your philosophy/story/sound – and you are in speaker business. What do you think is more difficult: being able to work with difficult measurement equipment (which is more expensive then a nice car) and the willing to invest in to it and knowing exactly what one is doing or taking the short cut and just describing the sound of a product, judging it by hearing and telling a story about it ;-)? Even without ever touching a microphone one could design a likeable speaker and could check it with live music, concert visits etc. and would get maybe even a pretty decent result, and it is nothing wrong with doing it like that.
But we believe it needs much more to offer a product which is working like a messenger, since we want to design “a postman” who delivers the mail without changing the content of the message nor forgetting parts nor adding parts because it would be more enjoyable to read the message then. We also do not like to sit in a closed closet in the first row of an orchestra because “it sounds better in there” to prefer a coloured/filtered way to listen to what is happen in front of one.
And therefore our best friends here at TIDAL are microphones and measurement systems. But even then one can not make a general conclusion out of this procedure, since many manufacturers claim “measuring over hearing” and most clients heard that before and disagree with the result. The difference and the core of it is how good and what they measure. And what they believe is relevant to the sound and how they deal with it or finding a solution for it. Of course we know as well there are things one can hear more easily then it is easily to measure in the dynamic process of converting current and voltage from the amps into sonic for the ears by the speaker, and also take care about it. But this is a very small amount and just the little cherry on top of the cream. At least for us.

Using technology and judging it with technology is something we do to avoid to colour our speakers with our very own preferences. Everybody has a preference if it comes to hifi. And to mix it with “this is right and this is wrong” makes no sense per se. As an example: there was reviewer coming to our room this year at the CES and wrote “the Sunray sounded bass shy” after listening to his tracks. He claimed to have a neutral position to judge this. Well, we gave it a friendly grin and can live perfectly with a.) such attitude and b.) the statement he did.
Why is that? Simple answer: the guy’s reference speaker is a speaker with a big bass boost, where a Sunray simply does not add bass where no bass is. Used to his recording of course he heard it “bass shy” – he heard it maybe the first time as it really is. We treated even the room with very effective bass absorbers to have no big bass peaks – even if it would be more popular then a reproduction closer to neutral. And since the TIDAL Sunray is like all speakers from us designed to do the opposite of “absolute sound” we took it as a big compliment.

I leave it up to everybody to consider if a TIDAL could be one of the more neutral speaker out there. A chameleon-like ability to follow every change in equipment is always a first little sign for “neutrality” of a speaker if one does not have or care about measurements. Because in the end of the day all manufacturer should build products for the ears, and not for the microphone! And if it has to be a TIDAL, then one better just trust us why we work that way.
You as clients can enjoy the fun part to do something we don’t do - to get praise from music lovers in the end of the day: judging and discovering the speakers in an emotional way, to play with them, to feed and spice them them in many different ways with many different amps, cables and sources until YOU feel they do sound like the best to in your ears.
And a neutral speaker will always allow that. Just think about it :-).

Many nice hours in front of your systems,
Jörn Janczak
TIDAL Audio GmbH, Germany

Dear Bryon,

I can follow your experience and your conclusion could be a first proof that your system allows you to hear the different qualites of your recordings. Cause in the end of the day it is like this: if you have the perfectly neutral speakers/cables/amps/source/room, what do you hear then and would start to describe? The recording quality itself.

And this can be both a wonderful revelation and bring you closer to the artist then ever before, or it can show you the same unasked truth as seeing a not so pretty face on a 55" full HD screen. I believe the whole hifi camp is making a constant discussion between these two ones: reproducing music as it was recorded and reproducing music as one likes to hear it. And all inbetween ;-).

Please understand that I do not want to be to much involved into this, I just wanted to explain it a bit better what it is what WE do.

Jörn

The Contriva Diacera TT was a limited series of only 5 pairs with the original Sunray drivers, pure silver parts (as for our Sunray / T1 models), a whole new internal wiring concept incl. a new terminal for passive and active bi-amping incl. our silver/goldplated softcopper binding posts from the Sunray.
Well, the drivers itself were more expensive then the drivers we build into our other speakers, but this is just a smaller part on the list, the major part and biggest difference is the massive silver PIO Cast parts we used for this speaker and the whole new x-overdesign which we adopted to the new drivers. And I am not talking about some standard silverfoil caps as for e.g. Mundorf Supreme parts, I am talking about high µF-values in massive silver, and these parts alone are more expensive then the big diamond tweeter in it.
The two aluminum rings in the front do have a positive influence to the reflections of the grills and just show that it is not just a "tuned Contriva Diacera". Each pair also needed much more hours to build it then a serial pair of Contriva Diacera. If one is one of the few persons who saw and heard one then one should know if this speaker is a different ballgame even the serial speakers :-).

Sunray with/without LPX:

After changing the distribution in the U.S. to our wholly owned subsidiary company, TIDAL Audio Imports USA, we decided this year to deliver the TIDAL Sunray in serial with the active crossover "LPX" for the U.S. market.
In other countries, where our products are handled by third party distributors, we gave the marketing and sales decisions into the hands of our importers there and it was an optional offer. For 2012 we want to include the LPX in all other countries as well.

As for the different cross-over modes of the Sunray: the Sunray can be driven classical all passive with two channels (incl. three different gain levels for the bass) or with four channels in classical bi-amping (also incl. three different gain levels for the bass).
The "LPX" makes the internal bass crossover obsolete and does controll frequency and gaining before being amplified and therefore needs two channels for the bass-section and two fullrange channels for the mid-part of Sunray.
This offers more flexibility to all kinds of taste and/or rooms and/or amplifier matches and has an influence to the sound compared to the all passive mode.

Jörn Janczak
TIDAL Audio GmbH
Germany