Quote Originally Posted by Brian K
I spent quite a while in the Salk room and was very impressed with the SoundScapes and Van Alstine equipment. Unfortunately, their CD player - a Denon midfi unit - was downright bad and there was no vinyl. Music from the Squeezebox actually managed to sound good but when Jim put a CD of mine into the Denon the sound was just horrible. I think he knew it and stuck to the Squeezebox almost entirely.

As far as drivers, the speakers use a RAAL 70-20XR (OEM-only) ribbon tweeter, a 3" Accuton ceramic midrange and a 10" (optional 12") Acoustic Elegance woofer with dual passive radiators. The RAAL tweeter has extremely flat frequency response up to 30khz+ and excellent vertical dispersion which makes for a wide sound stage and lots of seperation and sparkle to the sound. The highs from that tweeter were without a doubt the best I heard from any room at the show. The midrange was equally as transparent and revealing with a holographic sound that seemed to float in the air. I was quite surprised at how much bass the 10" woofer was able to reproduce. The first couple tracks I heard were a little shy on the bass and then Jim played a track that had a nice acoustic bass recording and it was extremely tuneful, fast and deep. These are the kind of speakers where you forget you're listening to speakers and just hear the music.

I liked these speaker just as much as if not more than the Evolution Acoustics speaker that had similar drivers but cost $30k/pair instead of $10k. I wouldn't think twice about buying them if I were in the market.



Disclaimer : I have a pair of speakers being custom built using the RAAL tweeter with Accuton mids (albeit a different one). I think I'm still fairly objective however. Another Accuton system, the Conspiracy by Consensus Audio, which was at the show and has the same midrange driver being used in my speakers, sounded absolutely horrrrrible to me. I'm curious to hear how other people liked the Salks or Evolution Acoustics systems.
I heard exactly what you heard. I think the only significant limit to the sound was the CD player. I would LOVE to hear the Salk speakers with the Audio Note $5,500 CD player, or with a good vinyl system. The Evolution system with stand costs $22,000, so I'd spend the extra $5,000 and get the powered subwoofer if I went for an Evolution speaker. I think you can get the RAAL ribbon tweeter on the Songtower.