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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!



128x128millercarbon
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petg60
1,486 posts
 
They do make a huge difference, not that you hear anything but you feel it, strange but true.
Other thing is that they enhance sonic picture as all frequencies are affected and presentation is calmer.
Need care in positioning and to be aligned on same axis with main tweeter.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
antigrunge2, you aren’t the only one. There’s so much info and it can only be absorbed so fast. I am a high-probability/low-hanging fruit kind of guy. Try and only go for stuff when it gets to the point where it starts to feel like a sure thing. Because I have learned if I do that then sure enough it turns out well.

The hardest part is people bashing anything they don’t understand. A lot of people are afraid to try something they fear will only expose them to ridicule. Maybe because I am so freaking obsessed with sound quality, or maybe because I am such a wanker, but either way I don’t care. I’m just glad you and the others weren’t afraid to speak up, because then who knows how long until I would have tried?

So for whatever reason supertweeters are another of these things like springs or the Distributed Bass Array that have been around a while and proven to work, yet somehow flying under the radar. Some of this has been known for decades. DBA for example is a good 30 years, and Townshend has been engineering solutions for nearly half a century now. When I heard how good Podiums sound I was stunned. Still am, only now more at the thought of how long they have been around and yet hardly anyone has them.

This is a lot like that. I am working a lot of OT, hardly had time to do anything the other night but hook them up, but they work so well even slapped in with no adjustment the effect is impressive. No fine-tuning, no tweakery, no nothing. Heck they don’t even have any TC on them yet!

Reasonably sure they are set too low, will try some different settings tonight. Last night was so much fun, which considering it was CD is really saying something. And yes petg60, plan on moving them around some too. They are not even on-axis right now. 




decooney
1,896 posts
 
Fifteen (15) tweeters in each Tekton Moab speaker, and yet still hearing a difference from an add-on super tweeter to enhance the sound. Interesting.   
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