Towah speeka vs Bookshells

[tp4tissue]

Taughts? Wha gekhrs use?

[Rhienfo]

I don't really use speakers in my home but if I was going to I would use the smaller ones (So bookshelf ones), just way more suited for a desk/tv setup. The tower ones are way too big.

[TomahawkLabs]

Before my housefire I had a McIntosh MA5200 integrated amplifier with Sonus Faber Venere 3.0 tower speakers. I used an Emotiva stack before I got the McIntosh, but post housefire I moved towards Adueze LCD-2 headphones due to lack of space for towers and kids. I was really into the high end world listening to systems that start at my yearly take home.

What I found is tower speakers are superior to bookshelf speakers in a head to head. BUT, Once you change the field to tower speakers vs bookshelves + a subwoofer, the bookshelves win. It's much more cost effective (most of the time) to get a nicer bookshelf speaker and a decent sub vs a good tower. I've been away from the speaker market for a bit, but the Kef LS50s + a subwoofer was a fuller sounding setup than my Venere 3.0 towers. More detail in the high ranges and more punch down low. The issue with that is subwoofers are very hard to tune to your room unless you have a second, now you need to find space for 2 floor sitting subs near power outlets in addition to the space for the speakers.

If I was to do it again I still would go towers because I don't care so much for the sub-bass and lean more into warmer midrange sound signatures. Last thing to mention, find a local brick and mortar audio store, get to know the staff/owner. Tell them you are into used items, wait for rich person to trade in their "old" speakers as they move up, and buy the "old" speakers for 30% of the original MSRP.

[tp4tissue]

Warming up to towers lately, but of course "bass boosted" then equalized to pull out as much lower end as possible.

Even then, it seems like the cross over designs usually make the mid-driver do heavy work, and allocates too much to it.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, I don't neeed this, but I kinda need it. It supposedly has japan caps/ inductor + german wima output cap.

They even got the heat dissipation right with the transfer plate at the bottom to the chassis.

1 minor criticism is that these extrusions are never actually flat, so it's best to use some sort of 0.5mm thermal pad, as paste might be sporadic/spotty. The transfer plate doesn't look like it's been milled either, so you have extrusion on extrusion + the anodizing which is also not flat.

[tp4tissue]

Got the amp.  The soldering isn't nearly as straight as in the render, some components clearly hand soldered on by a team of chinese grandmothers.

Amp performance:

Man, this thing bumps. Handles towers like they're nothing.  Can go really loud no problem.

Criticism, It's not easy to get thermal paste into the slot because there's so little clearance, it smears most of it out.

Would've liked an on off switch instead of the pot pulling double duty.

Barely gets warm at listening volumes,  I've ordered some extra lm4562 because they've been recommended by the insanity crowd on audio forums.

Thinking about maybe getting those jbl 590 when they come back on sale.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, okok, I just refreshed the cable ends, fresh cut, shiny copper. 

Swear to god, it sounds better.  Could it be, the oxidation was resisting the electavotz.

[tp4tissue]

Bought the highly acclaimed king of value dac today.  Broke my old one prying an opamp, ripped out traces.

[tp4tissue]

It's here !!

Output is higher voltage than my old dac (louder), can't tell if I'm biased because of that.
 
But, subjectively, it sounds GREAT,  the separation and image is much better.

And OMG, Rubycon caps ? Was expecting much worse.

[tp4tissue]

OMG, this thing measures Fantastic.  Tweeter hiss went from 38db to 33db, which is more/less the noisefloor of the ghettobutt umik mic.

It's SOooooooo good. 116sinad, believe it, and running on dirtybutt COMPUTER POWER, Tp4's not even using a separate power brick.

Yup, just verified, using output from the Soundcard via toslink, noise went up to 39db.

USB seems to have latency, but it's a good thing Tp4 doesn't game no more.

Although it's equally likely they just have mute circuits on these, which you don't have with toslink.

[tp4tissue]

Tested with a very low silent track, it's not mute circuit, it's really that much lower than the soundcard/ other dac. It's pristine.

The only downside so far has been adding around 40ms worth of latency on usb. For movies this is immaterial, but someone'd probably use something else for games.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, forget about the tweeter, it was indeed a mute capability.

Fixed the added latency issue, though.

[chyros]

The title of this thread immediately made me think of C&C Generals. Speeka Towah will be ready soon!

[tp4tissue]

The title of this thread immediately made me think of C&C Generals. Speeka Towah will be ready soon!

Looking to upgrad at the moment, but honestly nothing good on the horizon. Exotics still cost too much and they're honestly not even known quantities, no one actually knows if they're well designed, half of the time they're not.

[TomahawkLabs]

The title of this thread immediately made me think of C&C Generals. Speeka Towah will be ready soon!

Looking to upgrad at the moment, but honestly nothing good on the horizon. Exotics still cost too much and they're honestly not even known quantities, no one actually knows if they're well designed, half of the time they're not.

Do you have a local audio store that does trade ins? I got a steal of a deal on a stack of Emotiva (pre, dac, 2 monoblocks) for a great deal and I know one of my aquantences in my audio club back when got a pair of Focal Diablo bookshelves (I think) for like half of MSRP because they were a trade in. The dream speakers for me are still the Focal Scala Utopia towers, but at 32k MSRP they are too pricy, but easily the best speakers I have ever heard.

[tp4tissue]

32k MSRP they are too pricy

Tp4 likes sound, but not that.. much. Probably within 1K each.

[TomahawkLabs]

32k MSRP they are too pricy

Tp4 likes sound, but not that.. much. Probably within 1K each.

That's more than fair. I would check Audiogon for used stuff. It's where "Audiophiles" list their old gear. I personally loved anything Sonus Faber because they tended to be more warm and less "clinical". Specifically I loved the Venere lineup and had the 3.0 tower. Here is the 2.0 bookshelves for a decent price, maybe worth a look.