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Townshend Maximum Supertweeters

Yes, Maximum. I don’t come up with the names, I just review the stuff, okay? ;) And I got em because everyone keeps telling me I should, and once again they are right. Whew! That was easy!

Kidding! We will now laboriously delve into why you cannot live without these tweeters, that you can’t even hear.

For sure I can’t. My hearing rolls off somewhere north of 15k. If that. These things extend to 90k. Why? What difference can it possibly make?

Who knows? And since when has that stopped me?

So out they come and what have we here? Two heavy black bricks, with a screen on the front and a couple binding posts on the back. In between the posts is a little knob you use to turn them off and set the levels. On the bottom are rudimentary rubber dimple feet. Guess I was expecting Pods or something, this being Townshend. No such luck.

They go on top of the Moabs. Well there is already a BDR Shelf on top, and a HFT dead center right where this thing is supposed to go. Moving HFT even an inch changes the sound so executive decision, the Maximum Supertweeters go just outboard of the HFT. They are first just placed there not even connected, just in case this somehow messes with the sound. It doesn’t.

Okay so now you need to know my system is all messed up. No, not the usual mess I mean really seriously messed up. No turntable. Chris Brady has the bearing for some resurfacing and stuff. So we are slumming with the heavily modded Oppo. Not to fear, Ted Denney sent me some of his latest Atmosphere X (review to come) which with the right tuning bullet the Oppo now sounds....digital. Oh well. KBO.

The usual: Demag. Warmup. Listen a while. Hook em up. What level? Who knows? Moabs are 98dB. How ya gonna know anyway? How can it even matter? How do you even set the level of something you can’t hear? Level 3, good as any. Plug em in. No change. Not the slightest peep out of these things. Total dud. Knew it. Sit back down.

What the...? No way. There is not the slightest hint of top end coming from these things. They may as well not be there at all. Except the whole presentation is somehow different. Top to bottom. No way!

I get up and turn the black magic off. Sit back down. Crap. Flat, grainy, digital. Turn em back on. Deep, liquid, analog.

No, not analog like my turntable. They are just supertweeters after all not magic. But way more analog than it was. More dimensional, more solid, more liquid detailed. More black between the notes, and in the black it is now easier to hear the natural acoustic decay. I do NOT want to go back to listening to CD without this! I cannot wait to hear it with my table.

And I haven’t even had time to get them dialed in yet!



128x128millercarbon

Showing 3 responses by musicaddict

musicaddict
370 posts
 
I’m always late but this has been another interesting concept to start thinking about.

MC, I read the ‘World Beyond 20KHz’ article several times and it is very fascinating to me, especially those hairs. I also very much appreciate the idea of ‘maybe we’re measuring the wrong stuff’ and feel it has merit. Some things are probably not measurable (yet) but they do have an effect on the human body’s ‘hearing’ or ‘perception’ of outside sources of sonic energy and otherwise.

I have embraced the subwoofer DBA concept (keeping it low volume, low Hz: 50). Well-integrated multiple subwoofers somehow do open the upper end and give more air or space (as did a well-integrated REL; DBA is better), but this is not intuitive for the behavior of a subwoofer.  Now, I feel there is very probable merit to the addition of super tweeters (above 20KHz). And, although not yet known to us, many listeners report a more defined low end when using them.

Questions:  1:  Should the super-tweeter try to start at 20KHz to avoid the mains? The fact that people report they can ‘hear’ the super-tweeter makes me fear it is down below 16KHz or so, and if audible, therefore could interfere with the mains’ own tweeters and probably not in a good way? I’m guessing ‘inaudible’ is best. 2: Is a volume control a must, and going to 100dB volume fine?  I think both make sense to have the ability to match up (and stock 70dB vol seems low…)

I still want a fourth audio sub, but now I’d like to try super-tweeters too, just unsure about a non-returnable or high-loss gamble, and I feel I have superb air already with the Raidho sealed ribbon tweeter. I’m just wondering how much more is out there? I admit DBA helped.

Thanks for another eye-opening topic.


musicaddict
370 posts
 
Thanks, mc.  It all makes sense. I can hear the 12KHz tone but not 16. I re-plugged all four Schuman resonators in the room and the jury is still out. The fourth sub may well be the best advice for now, not that I would expect to 'hear' a super-tweeter-I wouldn't. I'd think I'd feel it somehow?

Now I'm wishing I had three of those SVS PC-2000 tall round subs for the floor (and a 4th for up on the high rear wall, unseen). I'd have a seamstress skirt them to the floor and put bronze art stuff on the tops real sneaky like. Good ideas are late sometimes...

musicaddict
370 posts
 
      Firm believer in the air a sub adds since the Denver REL guys left the demo room 20 years ago, and let me play bass-less "Fields of Gold" (Eva Cassidy's version) and turn the REL off and on at will. The added air and spaciousness was EASILY noticeable and I ended up eventually with a B1.      What is said about the effects of super-tweeters are exactly what I'd expect from a good super-tweeter (the sub effect, but in reverse!).
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