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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!



millercarbon
mapman's avatar
mapman
23,618 posts
 
If it is the MElody amp reviewed here:

6moons audio reviews: Melody Hifi M880

its a few years old but probably quite good having been given a blessing by the late John Potis. I sought his advice and he graciously provided that back when I was doing my last big system upgrade and considering going back to Ohm Walsh speakers at the time. Good guy, straight shooter, very knowledgeable, good ears!
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Sorry stereo5, but it is so depressing. There are much worse things than hearing loss at high frequencies. Tinnitus, for example. If all you have is a rolloff at the top end that is actually quite benign. Sure you can't hear certain things but it really doesn't interfere all that much. There is an old audiophile expression, sins of omission are better than sins of commission. A speaker that rolls off - at either end - is better than a speaker that is too bright or boomy. The one that is missing your mind can fill in the blanks but the one that is adding you have no choice but to endure, and this gets tiresome a lot worse and faster.  

Similar sort of thing happened with the Supertweeters last night. I turned the level up from 3 to 4, the same effect of improved imaging, greater natural detail, etc only more of it- and now also with more shine and air. Cymbals shimmer more. But now on 4 it occasionally veered a bit into having a harsh edge. Where on 3 it was never like that. In fact on 3 the sound is even more liquid than with them turned off. On 5 forget about it. 4 seemed perfect except every once in a a while, 5 no way. But even though 4 was largely better most of the time than 3, when it was bad it was additive bad. Sins of commission. Much worse than the other.

We will see what happens when they are moved around. Early days. Lots to learn. So many tweaks, so little time.  

Oh well, we are getting older, the body is going, but on the other hand maybe we take fewer things for granted and appreciate what we do have more, eh?


millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
antigrunge2-
The germaine issue here is that old geezers can‘t hear above 12 kHz if they are lucky to even get that far. Yet they can tell when a supertweeter with a 15kHz cutoff is present and the effects are wholly beneficial. Go figure what to measure for starters.

My take is simply that harmonic overtones, and CD does cover harmonics up to 22kHz, have a profound impact on the perception of the base notes, the exact nature of which requires measurements not yet invented.

To anybody prepared to listen carefully, supertweeters, and particularly on digital, are a must for advanced audiophile listening.
For sure. Listening to Hotel California (Hell Freezes Over) last night, the bass thump at the beginning has such definition it is like you hear and feel every individual oscillation of the note. Then after a couple times a conga drum doubles up on it and it is so clearly two individual drums. Heard this a million times and the tone of the additional drum was there but not to this degree of separation.  

There is now going on in my system a number of things each of which contributes to unraveling and highlighting the unique individual character of each instrument. They all have their own timbre, that unique set of resonances and harmonics that distinguishes one from another. The supertweeter is another one that somehow teases out even more detail. A must have for advanced audiophile listening, indeed!
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,245 posts
 
After reading all of the posts above, many with knowledgeable reasoning that supports the belief that these supertweeters can't really work as they claim to, and as I experience them, I reminded of that saying that goes something like "If the measurements don't support the experience, you're measuring the wrong thing."
Maybe that's the issue.   
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Thanks, that is precisely the issue! 

Andrewkelley just PMd me with his succinct review and analysis of his newly setup DBA: "Holy F---n F--k. This is awesome." He has a fine career in reviewing ahead I can see. The point is this (DBA) is another one where people measuring the wrong thing keep thinking they can get there with EQ. Inevitably they are able to believe this only until they actually experience the DBA. Then, well read his review again.

I keep coming back to this article. http://www.townshendaudio.com/PDF/The-world-beyond-20kHz.pdf There are some fascinating parallels here that I am trying to figure out.

For example, doing a DBA has taught me that really low bass is mono. Yet at the same time it is with a DBA highly localized. How? Low bass is really just volume, with no location. Higher frequencies are highly localized. The only thing I can think of is our brains seamlessly integrate the two without our being aware of it. Anyone who has experienced bass in my system, probably any system with a DBA, will experience it as seamlessly integrated into the holographic sound stage. It is all but impossible to fight the illusion of bass being stereo. It isn't. But it sure seems like it is.

We need better measurement. Until we get it, the ears have it.
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