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Post by kauai82 on May 12, 2018 13:54:08 GMT -5
Well it took over a year to find the moderately priced speaker in the $650 - $850 price range that would meet my high expectations. I even took the search up to 1k and looked at the used market and Do It Yourself Market. I made a test CD and a Thumb drive with 14 favorite songs from the many different styles of music that I like to listen to. I played that disc so many different times on different systems that I have almost gotten sick of the songs. I finally took the leap of faith on the T1 after all the good press they got in the last few months and got them yesterday. Just want to share some initial thoughts on the speakers after listening to them for a few hours. A more in-depth review will come in about a month.
I have to say that the first thing that impressed me about the T1 was the packing of the units for shipping. They have a double boxed well designed packing that insures that they will get to you in one piece. For the speakers to get damaged in shipping the box would have to be collapsed in the middle. The top and bottom of the speakers has some very think foam that should protect the corners of the cabinet. Unless one of the shipping services drops the speaker off the back of the truck the speaker should get to you in one piece. As I was unpacking the speakers I thought that these babies are heavy. The finish is good for the price. I think better than the Elac which they are in completion with. I hooked up the speakers at first with only a few minutes to listen to them before I go to work. Overall impression was one of a very smooth seamless presentation. More hours of listening has confirmed this. There is a total well balanced presentation. You can not hear where the bass overlaps to the mids and mids with the highs. The AMT is very smooth tweeter and has a great dispersion pattern. Bass is tight an punchy with out a sub and with the sub it really extends down in my room. More to come later after some extended listening. Matthew
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Post by mshump on May 13, 2018 12:12:45 GMT -5
Thanks for the review !! These speakers seem to be a big hit for Emotiva.
Mark
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Post by boomzilla on May 13, 2018 12:26:01 GMT -5
Hi kauai82 - Be sure to let the speakers operate for a few hours before you do critical listening (they get better as they break in, based on my experience with some T2s). I'd wire them out of phase with each other, put them facing each other with no more than an inch between them, can crank them up with some headbanger music overnight. And I agree wholeheartedly that the transitions between drivers are (to my ears, as well) completely inaudible. If you're going to run speaker wires over about 10-feet long, consider bi-wiring the speakers. Also, for a crossover setting, you could actually go as low as 50 to 60 Hz, although higher is just fine as well. Out of curiosity, which other speakers were on your "short list" prior to purchasing the T1s? Enjoy the music! - Boomzilla |
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Post by creimes on May 13, 2018 15:28:17 GMT -5
Hi kauai82 - Be sure to let the speakers operate for a few hours before you do critical listening (they get better as they break in, based on my experience with some T2s). I'd wire them out of phase with each other, put them facing each other with no more than an inch between them, can crank them up with some headbanger music overnight. And I agree wholeheartedly that the transitions between drivers are (to my ears, as well) completely inaudible. If you're going to run speaker wires over about 10-feet long, consider bi-wiring the speakers. Also, for a crossover setting, you could actually go as low as 50 to 60 Hz, although higher is just fine as well. Out of curiosity, which other speakers were on your "short list" prior to purchasing the T1s? Enjoy the music! - Boomzilla Like Slayer, Anthrax or Barbara Streisand   |
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Post by kauai82 on May 14, 2018 11:16:12 GMT -5
Hi kauai82 - Be sure to let the speakers operate for a few hours before you do critical listening (they get better as they break in, based on my experience with some T2s). I'd wire them out of phase with each other, put them facing each other with no more than an inch between them, can crank them up with some headbanger music overnight. And I agree wholeheartedly that the transitions between drivers are (to my ears, as well) completely inaudible. If you're going to run speaker wires over about 10-feet long, consider bi-wiring the speakers. Also, for a crossover setting, you could actually go as low as 50 to 60 Hz, although higher is just fine as well. Out of curiosity, which other speakers were on your "short list" prior to purchasing the T1s? Enjoy the music! - Boomzilla Thanks Boom for the advice on the break in period for the T1's. I started to make a list of all the speakers that made and fell off my "short list" and found out that there were a lot of speakers that I considered. Here they are in three different categories. Remember that everyone hears differently and YMMV on some of my opinion's.. Also, my office audio system has changed a great deal in the last year. I started out with the PrimaLuna and then sold it (maybe a mistake ) and went with a lot of different combinations of integrated and separates, Rotel , Yamaha, Adcom and Schiit. My most recent system is in my profile and as a combination of my music room system and some pieces from my former office system as I combined the two. I did raise my budget up to the 1K from $850, but could not justify spending any more money now that I am retired and in reality these are secondary speakers as my main critical listening speakers are my custom DIY Jasmine Redux speakers that I had built by a friend. They use a 6.5" Peerless woofer and a Fortek Ribbon tweeter. I love the tweeter for stationary listening but it tends to be a little "beamy" when I am standing up and moving around the room. I am normally doing eBay when on the lap top and might be standing up packing up shipments etc. The AMT tweeter on the T1's has very good dispersion. Also, the room is 22 feet long and the Jasmines are on the other side of the room from my desk and laptop. Do It Yourself Speakers I was very tempted to go back to the DIY route. The Solstice from Jeff Bagby is $1000 a pair kit from P.E. was just a little bit to much money for the Budget. The Carrera a kit from Mencius was going to be also a $1000 when I got all the parts and cabinets. A new kit from DIY Soundgroup the Matrix was very tempting. It was a MTM version I was going to make and it would of run me about $650. It is brand new and there are no reviews on it yet. Jeff Bagby kit and I am sure that it would have been great, but did not want to finish the cabinets. I finally decided that I did not want to put together and finish another DIY project. Used I had pretty much decided that this was going to be the way I was going to go. Used offer me the best of both worlds good sound value and the chance to listen to the speakers that I was going to buy. I live in greater Los Angles area and using Craigslist and eBay with a local pickup options I had a pretty good selection of speakers that I could audition and try. One downside was having to drive over the greater L.A. lovely freeway system. Another downside was that many of the speakers were auditioned in peoples garages as they did not want you in the house (which I don't blame them ) and not the best acoustically to determine what the strengths of the speakers SQ. I did end up buying three speakers that I liked very much for good prices. One, was a Bowers and Wilkins Matrix 2 series 1 speakers from the mid 80's. A friend owned them and was remodeling and I was able to get them for a great price. They have an eight inch and one inch tweeter in a 22 inch high one cube cabinet. Very nice sounding speaker with a touch of forward sound and a pronounced mid bass sound. This was the speaker that the T1 replaced in the system. Another model I was able to get was the Canton CT -90 three way with a 10 inch woofer and a mid range and nice tweeter. Beautiful cabinets and weight a ton. They sounded very good, but for some reason I could not fall in love with them. There seemed to be something lacking in their presentation that I could not put my finger on. I also was able to buy a set of Paradigm Monitor 7 version 5 tower speakers for $61 dollars ($650 new ) that were very good. I liked them so much that I made them the surround speakers in my 5.1 Home Theater part of the man cave. New There is particular order to the following list. Just that I went through some old forum posts and pulled brand names that I cam across. Most of these speakers were listened to at either local Audio Shows in greater L.A. area or Magnolia or local retailers. Tekton Lore and Double Impact. Liked the Lore, but it was not that much upgrade from DIY Core 2's that I was using at the time. The Double Impact was great one of the best I have ever heard, but they were out of the budget and they are HUGE speakers. No WAF with these. Still very nice SQ. Magnepan MMG -- Had bought these and owned them for 17 years. Since I had one of the early production runs the glue started to breakdown over the years and they lost some of their SQ. Magnepan has since fixed that issue and was thinking of rebuying them, but their placement in the room is so critical and I did not have many options placement wise so I decided not to revisit. Elac. Really was interested in these. Auditioned all models except the new high end ones that are out of my budget. The original Debut were very good for the price, but not any better than what I had at the time. The new Debut 2.0 that just came out I was disappointed in. Maybe it was the way they were placed in Best Buy's local Magnolia store or they were not broken in. They sounded "flat" to me. Both the bookshelf's and floor standards I was disappointed in SQ. I was very impressed with the Unified series. Loved the bookshelf at $500 a pair. Would have to use a sub for the low end, but I had one already. Not as thrilled with the floor standard ones as they did not seem to be as smooth as the bookshelf. I believe that I would have bought the Unified bookshelf speakers if I had not gotten the Emotiva T1. As I write this I have been listening to the T1's . The more I listen to them the better I like them. I can hardly wait till they get totally broken in. Matthew |
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Post by boomzilla on May 14, 2018 14:23:59 GMT -5
Hi again, Matthew -
My review of the Emotiva T2 & C2 speakers are scheduled for publication this month on the "Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity" site. Thanks for sharing your rationale for ending up with the T1s. Most interesting! (and i thought I was the king of the sweet deal, but I think your Paradigm Monitor 7, V5 speakers for $61 has me beat).
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