SBLs & Supertweeters

[MrUnderhill]

I first tried supertweeters in about 2010, with my then speakers - Living Voice.

They were early Townhends, with four sensitivity selections.

I listened to them over a period of months and my final opinion was, meh.

I leant them to a friend to try with his large refurbished JBLs. He eventually bought a more modern pair, and they do work with his system.

Now that I am using the Sibbles, and they have a flat top, I was tempted to repeat the experiment.

I initially toyed with getting Tannoys or Fyne, but the bases were too large, not to mention the weight.

So, it was back to Townshends, but the more modern variant.

I decided to use the following playlist:

System Analysis

I had been listening to this the day before at a friend’s, when listening to some new bits he had bought. For the sake of anonymity let’s call him …George.

For the first time, when returning home, I felt a bit deflated when listening to my poor little system.

I was missing some of the excellent detail and expression I had heard in his systems, yes, systems.

I started listening with the Townshends.

The effect was akin to listening to a digital front end, after you had improved the power supply: lower noise floor; better detail; improved imaging; and, better resolved bass.

Was this consistent?

I would say the various improvements showed more in different tracks. Golden Rust was a stand-out. With bass resonances and tails being more obvious, and the sound-field being far more 3D.

I am a happy bunny. I have recovered from my trip to George

[MrUnderhill]

When I installed the ST I put them on position 3 of 7.

Sounded good with digital files.

I then tried some needle-drops and felt that it was slightly over-egging the pudding.

Changed to 2, which I felt worked well and hasn’t impacted the digital performance.

Played vinyl yesterday. The impact was less noticeable, but still present.

[Dunc]

Never tried supertweeters or even seen them being used anywhere.
Not sure how they work etc or how you are ment to hear them ??? As i know my own hearing is about gone at 14 khz these days.
But good to see george is still buying stuff.
Plus sometimes it’s best to leave listening to your own hifi for a few day’s after hearing something that you really enjoyed, gives you time to forget, .

[MrUnderhill]

Fascinating comparing and contrasting the Bartok Apex via the ARC 5/160 and the ARC Ref 9 dac via the Atma-Spheres into his Sophias.

The Tron 7 is singing nicely. Graham did a few tweaks for me.

[MrUnderhill]

WRONG …partially.

On the same day the Super-tweeter (ST) arrived I had sent my Vortexbox Audiostore Prestige 2 Server back to Martin for an upgrade.

The server is about five years old and is rather under-powered for some of my needs, such as HQPlayer, and with only 1TB of onboard storage.

It is being rebuilt.

Soooooo. I was rubbing my two brain cells together as I was wondering about how the ST could be making the tonal differences I am hearing, and I think the answer is that it is NOT.

As my server has departed I am not using Roon, which has been my main audio software for the past two years.

I am using dCS Mosaic.

As a test I listened to some music using Bubbleupnp on my phone. The tone shifted, and not for the better; or at least, not to my taste.

I am driving over to Audiostore on Saturday to get my server back. It will be interesting to compare and contrast with Roon once back in situ.

I suspect the truer ST difference is what I am hearing WRT my turntable.

[Dunc]

Well i certainly prefer dCS qobuz on mosaic to roon.
I tried a few different roon devices and both did the same, slightly less dynamic.
I dont use roon for that reason as i feel it just doesn’t sound as good, plus many others do, but some say no difference
But for me it’s simple.

[Keltik]

Quite a bit of subwoofery going on there , what’s connected

[MrUnderhill]

Big center to the SBLs, from the external xover.

Centre to the left sub, from the speaker terminals.

Another behind me connected to the focal rears.

[Enrico]

I just installed a nice pair of TakeT Batpure… arrived 3 days after reading this discussion.. now I reserve the right to listen to them without talking nonsense. Thanks.