The capacity of Humans for self-deception is apparently unlimited - Mr. Spock the Vulcan
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!
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!
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- 133 posts total
mijostyn Here is a perfect example of some people liking the addition of gross distortion to their systems. These distortion synthesizers have useful output down to 10 kHz which is audible and will make a system sound brighter.Nice try, but a proper tweeter is not a "distortion synthesizer" and it no more "synthesizes" output than any other speaker driver. ... people who do not know what they are listening to prefer this. However, it is a fine way to destroy accurate imaging.How do you know? You don’t know any details about the specific components. Of course, I recognize that you think you know how something sounds just by looking at it, but thinking something and knowing something are two different things. ... most audiophiles do not know what accurate imaging is. They have never heard it.I think most audiophiles are lot more knowledgeable and experienced than you suspect. The addition of complexity to loudspeakers is always a bad thing.That depends on the speaker. The Infinity IRS is a complex system that sounds great. I’ve also heard simple single-driver systems that sound awful. The Dahlquist DQ10 is a perfect example. From a tonality perspective they were wonderful but there is no way you can get them to image properly.Actually, the DQ-10s could be improved enormously with the addition of Dick Sequerra’ supertweeter. "Want your digital to sound like analog?" Give me a break. Red Book CDs are quite capable of producing 10 to 20 kHz and that is all you are hearing if you are 19 years old.Huh? There is much, much more to proper playback than just keeping response extended to 20kHz. Mysticism does not belong in audio. It is not a religion.It’s odd that you would state that after promoting some of your faith-based beliefs, much as if you were a wanna-be mystic. |
these complement (rebuilt ElectroStatic Solutions') Quad ESL 57's adding greater sense of space, front to back spatial depth (a limitation of these wonderful speakers), extension of treble and bass performance (the 88 - 89dB efficiency rebuilds do not lack bass) and rounded out performance. I would not use 57's without them. I tried them with full range single driver horn loudspeakers and they also gently lifted bass performance (welcome) but at loss of the special clarity, of course, of single point source. For panel speakers they work, and I believe they were designed for 57's. |
Also, and this is important!...don't just plunk them on top. Make a dedicated set of stands for them with a wooden pole and two pieces of flat square wood about 5"x5", at the correct height to be approximately coincident with the center of one of your tweeter arrays.Good point for not placing them on top. I did nearly the same thing when I had my pair of Sony ss-tw100ed attached to the side of the Dunlavys. Only I had a metal brace where the tweeters were attached and had adjustable for and aft movement as to fall with tweeter axis. |
- 133 posts total