@antigrunge2
Thank you for your vote of confidence
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!
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!
133 responses Add your response
Not especially, Hearing might be limited to around 20kHz, but in real life harmonics extend well above that frequency. Indeed, research shows the frequencies above 20kHz influence hearing and could well be one difference between live performances and recordings that the CD format ignores, being limited to a theoretical 22.05kHz. |
Supertwitters continue to be a problem around here. I recommend just ignore them.
Roxy54 on the other hand is some kind of super audiophile. Feel free to keep bugging me. It can take a while sometimes but in the end it usually works. Like I just took some string and duct tape and rubber bands and got the super tweeters lined up with the tweeter tweeters and yes indeed, much to my surprise the incredibly good focus got incredibly gooder-er. Only listened to Linda Ronstadt so far but omg she is so in focus and palpably there now! Before she was centered and solid but kind of diffuse and taller, probably because the supertweeter was on top it was stretching things higher. Just a guess. They are on the outside right now. The way they are set up it is real easy to fine tune angles and position fore and aft. I will mess around with that a while and then maybe try them on the inside. This has me thinking this might be one of the reasons people like the Be tweeters so much. They get a lot of the ultra-sonic extension benefits and it is right there not a foot off one way or another. Whatever. This is nice. Thanks and feel free to bug me any time! 😉 |
Of course I'm still using them. Haven't yet got around to experimenting with different placement but that is because of being so happy with them right where they are. We did have one interesting experience recently. A younger audiophile was here and when I played the XLO demagnetizing tracks and it got up into the highest frequencies it was hurting his ears. I couldn't hear a thing, but it was loud to him! I said we can always turn the supertweeters down if needed. But then playing music he said it was fine. This to me jibes with the science that shows we have a lot of hearing cells devoted to very high ultra-sonic frequencies that are for time and transient information not sine waves. Hearing tests and measurements are all sine waves. Simplistic at best. Human beings don't hear that way and this backs that up. His ears found sine waves painful while the same super tweeter level with music was just fine. They do improve imaging and the perception of "real" all across the audio band. Really fascinating stuff. |
My experience is that supertweeters make ports superfluous. Blocking them with bungs makes the bass even clearer and more defined. In any case, if you have subs you certainly don't need ports to extend the bass. Some subs have ports to extend the lower frequencies, but again, with supertweeters they're unnecessary. |
Firm believer in the air a sub adds since the Denver REL guys left the demo room 20 years ago, and let me play bass-less "Fields of Gold" (Eva Cassidy's version) and turn the REL off and on at will. The added air and spaciousness was EASILY noticeable and I ended up eventually with a B1. What is said about the effects of super-tweeters are exactly what I'd expect from a good super-tweeter (the sub effect, but in reverse!). |
Extreme low and extreme high frequencies are so completely different, yet similar in the way we don't so much hear as experience them. With really low bass the big surprise is the way it creates the sensation of being in a larger space, even with recordings that seem to have no really low bass. Something like that happens with ultra-sonic frequencies too. With both there is improvement in what we can definitely hear. Bass really does have a lot more definition. Cymbals really do have more shimmer. But in addition to that is this sense of space. That part it is hard to put a finger on. But it is definitely there. This can result in some crazy things. When I put Pods under my subs the difference was immediately apparent but had nothing to do with bass! Likewise super tweeters were immediately apparent but again nothing to do with hearing more top end. Indeed it was only when they were turned up "too high" that their impact on extension became apparent. At the level where they exert their influence they are inaudible- at least in the simplistic test tone measuring way we call audible. |
Thanks, mc. It all makes sense. I can hear the 12KHz tone but not 16. I re-plugged all four Schuman resonators in the room and the jury is still out. The fourth sub may well be the best advice for now, not that I would expect to 'hear' a super-tweeter-I wouldn't. I'd think I'd feel it somehow? Now I'm wishing I had three of those SVS PC-2000 tall round subs for the floor (and a 4th for up on the high rear wall, unseen). I'd have a seamstress skirt them to the floor and put bronze art stuff on the tops real sneaky like. Good ideas are late sometimes... |
Thank you for the compliment. That is my specialty, and my pleasure, ever since having my eyes opened to a lot of crazy things myself. So nice to know it is appreciated, and you are very welcome. How important the range is, I would guess depends a lot on the listener. We are really good at localizing midrange and treble. But somewhere up around this frequency range that ability starts fading away. Same thing at the low end, where we start to lose the ability to localize below around 80Hz. So I would think the person who can hear test tones really well all the way out to 20k, for them it may be they need to be either crossed over higher or it would be important for that person that they be closely aligned with the tweeter. There is evidence for this in that some people have said it is a huge improvement to have the supertweeter very close to the tweeter. While mine are several feet away, and others actually have them pointing backwards or in multiple directions. This would totally be a problem with a normal range tweeter but with supertweeters seems to be different with different people. Yes a volume control is a must. This is because speakers vary widely in sensitivity. My Moabs at 98dB require quite a bit higher setting to be at the same relative volume as a speaker with only 88dB sensitivity. There are speakers both above 98 and below 88. So for sure the level must be adjustable. At the same time it is not super critical. I can run mine just about equally well at two different levels that are, I think, 2dB apart. A difference of 2dB would be a big deal with a tweeter or midrange. In this case it is very hard to tell. My hunch is the more the supertweeter overlaps the tweeter and the more extended your hearing is the more this will matter. Just a hunch. There’s a few have said the Townshend Supertweeter is quite a bit better than some cheaper ones they tried. But there’s also one or two changed speakers and they noticed less difference. So it is entirely possible your neodymium magnet ribbon thing is close enough you might not find it worth the extra. Based on my experience this is kind of a guess not knowing your ribbon thing exactly but I did notice a pretty darn nice improvement adding just one more sub- and that was going from 4 to 5, which is supposed to be less than 3 to 4. So if you’re asking advice that to me is the safer bet, and I am a low hanging fruit kind of guy. |
I’m always late but this has been another interesting concept to start
thinking about. MC, I read the ‘World Beyond 20KHz’ article several times and it is very fascinating to me, especially those hairs. I also very much appreciate the idea of ‘maybe we’re measuring the wrong stuff’ and feel it has merit. Some things are probably not measurable (yet) but they do have an effect on the human body’s ‘hearing’ or ‘perception’ of outside sources of sonic energy and otherwise. I have embraced the subwoofer DBA concept (keeping it low volume, low Hz: 50). Well-integrated multiple subwoofers somehow do open the upper end and give more air or space (as did a well-integrated REL; DBA is better), but this is not intuitive for the behavior of a subwoofer. Now, I feel there is very probable merit to the addition of super tweeters (above 20KHz). And, although not yet known to us, many listeners report a more defined low end when using them. Questions: 1: Should the super-tweeter try to start at 20KHz to avoid the mains? The fact that people report they can ‘hear’ the super-tweeter makes me fear it is down below 16KHz or so, and if audible, therefore could interfere with the mains’ own tweeters and probably not in a good way? I’m guessing ‘inaudible’ is best. 2: Is a volume control a must, and going to 100dB volume fine? I think both make sense to have the ability to match up (and stock 70dB vol seems low…) I still want a fourth audio sub, but now I’d like to try super-tweeters too, just unsure about a non-returnable or high-loss gamble, and I feel I have superb air already with the Raidho sealed ribbon tweeter. I’m just wondering how much more is out there? I admit DBA helped. Thanks for another eye-opening topic. |
Yes. The dumbest thing you can do in designing a sports car is put all the mass behind the rear axle. Well dumber I guess would be in front of the front axle, which SAAB I think it was actually tried. What a joke. But behind the rear axle is a total nonstarter. No one would ever do that. Unless you are Porsche, and then with brilliant engineering it winds up being the best performance car, ever. It all comes down to the details. Always. |
Fascinating paper. It would appear the CD standard was fatally flawed from the beginning by the measuring and testing methods used to set the standard. Instead of playing music they tested bits of sounds. This is similar to the way RMS watts have been used to create a false impression of power, IM and THD to create false impressions of distortion, dB and microphones to create false impressions of tone. On and on. People will argue but we have the facts to back that up, at least in this case. I look forward to the paper that proves all watts are not created equal. |
Here's a link to some interesting research - Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity: Hypersonic Effect - https://b01fe120-8355-4a65-8abc-c8b51b6192cc.filesusr.com/ugd/d25f4f_a07d2fffb4244c4aa3341eb3c12e1e3... I found it while looking at The TAKET BATPRO 2 Supertweeter with a range of 18kHz -150kHz or more - https://www.atelier13-usa.com/taket-supertweeters. |
millercarbon I note their Max sensitivity (2.8V @ 1m) is 89dB, and the level control settings are 1: 74dB, 2: 79dB, 3: 83dB, 4: 85dB, 5: 87dB, 6: 89dB. My speakers have a sensitivity of 88dB, so I've gone with level 6. Works for me. I should add that I've upgraded my speakers by treating all internal surfaces (including the rear of sealed speakers) as well as encasing crossovers to reduce reflections and filled the internal space with a sound absorption material. The results are fantastic and there is barely a hint of contamination impacting the cones' movement, which can be heard as a hint of ringing. (I suspect it could even be why some speakers are considered bright.) Perhaps that's why I can go higher than the recommended starting point without feeling uncomfortable. |
My buddies leave the room or I shut the door for the rabbit if I'm blastin'. I always have. It's movement more than noise with the rabbit. BUT I always keep my voice down around Junior in any case. He loves a good rub.. Sure are great friends. Rabbit and the Dog what a pair. I use several UHF. Mine do have a 25k limit, they are good to 30k I think. Second VERY directional. Almost line of sight to get that high of a frequency to me, much less the animal.. Regards |
“For those with super tweeters and pets, have you noticed any annoyance/discomfort/ “ Yes.... https://media.giphy.com/media/o9W9ILrxLrHpe/giphy.gif |
Thanks millercarbon. John Hannant has indeed been most helpful. I'm not sure I'd ever consider going out of phase or bouncing off rear walls. Still to each his own. As for hp, anything that does 0-60 in 6 seconds is fast enough. AWD is far better than more power!!!! It was a testimonial on their site that said "Every speaker should have these! Stunning in every way." I been dragged into going multi channel, but with 9.4.4, I can't imagine having 13 supertweeters. Overkill? My 9 channel amplification is all monoblock, so who knows! John is checking to see if they sell 'em separately so I can get one for the center channel. |
Tongue in Cheek Audiophiles who understand the supertweeters impact on the physical enjoyment of listening to music by stimulating the ear hairs responsible for the range of sound that cannot be heard by humans will also understand the need to taylor the number of supertweeters used and their volume setting. The proper matching of supertweeters to an individual audiophile can only be achieved by having the number of ear hairs responsible for non audible stimulation counted with an ear hair magnifying glass. Both ears must be submitted to this count as the number of relevant ear hairs per ear are often different, resulting in the possibility of a different number of supertweeters and settings per ear. Then the best placement of the supertweeters can only be achieved by crawling around on the floor much like subwoofer placement testing until one senses that the sound he is not hearing is the best. Best to perform this testing when she is not home. |
Townshend has several customers running multiple sets of super tweeters. Some are running them out of phase, some have them pointed backwards. Far as I know these are all 2ch systems. When it comes to what is sufficient seems to me this is no different than anything else. 500hp is sufficient to some, while others want 750. If you can find someone here who knows, great. If not I would call and ask John Hannant. He works for Townshend, sure. But he has never been anything but on the level with me, and strikes me as a bona fide audiophile and knows a lot about how this stuff works in practice from tons of feedback over the years. |
Anyone have experience with a multi channel home theatre system? Is a pair on the main speakers going to help all speakers? I remember reading a comment that read Just put them on all speakers! Although I'm not sure that's the best approach. It would be an expensive exercise if the benefit diminishes with the number super tweeters. I'm thinking a pair might be sufficient, although Atmos channels mostly output higher frequencies so perhaps they would benefit from their own. Any help or guidance would be appreciated. |
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Good question. Never tried anything else. I do know there are a couple people who tried cheaper ones that weren’t as good. So quality does count for something even here. I have no idea what it is we are hearing or why it works at all with CD. Only know it does. Now with my turntable the sound is really something. Which is the bigger improvement CD or LP? Don’t ask. Who knows. They are so different. All I know is they both got a lot better, and in the same ways. This paper has a pretty good discussion of what is going on. http://www.townshendaudio.com/PDF/The-world-beyond-20kHz.pdf The most important thing I think is there are about 15k hair cells in the ear that sense sound, but only about 3k of them respond to the 20-20k range we call "audible". That leaves 12k that respond to sounds we cannot hear. Four times as many, for something we cannot hear seems a bit odd to me. Another great example of how what we can measure falls so far short of what we can hear. Anyone who tries supertweeters will know in an instant we certainly can hear these ultra-sonic inaudible frequencies. The question is not whether we can or not. We can. The question is how? That is one for psychoacousticians. Me, I am an audiophile. If it works, if it makes my system sound better, I just do it. You probably are right, inaudible frequencies get in there and interact with audible ones. Would it be nice to know why, sure. But ultimately? Long as it works that is good enough for me. |
millercarbon OPjay mark, Good to hear. Thanks Now I'm wondering if there is much difference between brands? You mentioned the improvement with CDs is exceptional. Since CDs cutoff at 20kHz, I'm wondering what is being emitted? Are they creating harmonics (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and if so, it might suggest some brands may well be better than others. There seems to be sceptics who use human hearing range as the excuse. There is no reason to believe higher frequencies aren't entering the ear and interacting with frequencies we can hear. Your thoughts on all of the above would be gratefully appreciated. |
Supertweeters obviously produce no bass but if there are instrument overtones in their range they can boost those and deliver the full range of certain instruments better. Of course you don’t need supertweeters for that unless your system is otherwise just not producing enough to satisfy at those higher frequencies. Most good speakers will go up to 20khz by design. Some more than others by design. Supertweeter can help there if needed but most importantly our hearing deteriorates with the age and most older audiophiles do not hear above 10khz or so like they used to so an adjustable high frequency driver can help. That or DSP or an equalizer god forbid. Many ways to tune the sound to ones ears as needed. |
@antigrunge yes and those high-frequency overtones are referred to collectively by the term “air”. Look it up. I’m not making up the definition. Some instruments have them and some do not. Some that do might also produce some upper bass frequencies. This stuff is well documented and anyone can look it up. |
I have the Townshend supertweeters on top of my modded Revel F208s. If they are distorting the sound it is a beautiful distortion that I crave. I have another brand of supertweeter on my lakehouse stereo system that I have kick in well below 20 Hz. I love the sound I get out of both systems with supertweeters. |
Have not had time to experiment. Too many other things keep getting in the way. Right now it is 100+ degree heat! But talking with John Hannant, they do not seem to be particularly sensitive to location. They have customers using them pointed backwards, using multiple tweeters (up to 3 per speaker!) and some even running them out of phase. This all sounds super zany until you stop and think about the physiology of human hearing. In the Cliff Notes version we have three different but somewhat overlapping systems. One for very low frequencies is really good only for volume, and not even all that good at that, it hardly registers until the volume gets fairly loud. (Which is why the Loudness switch was invented.) One for midrange is incredibly sensitive, able to localize with high precision, fine tuned to such subtle details we can tell a violin from a viola, distinguish a million different human voices, etc. (Which is why the midrange is so important, why speakers must be positioned precisely, etc.) Yet a third system registers ultrasonics- frequencies too high to register as distinct discrete sounds. We literally cannot hear them. Yet the majority of cells in the ear canal are designed to detect them! As if all that weren't cool enough, the best part is we have something that combines all the inputs from these disparate systems into one solid and dimensional mental map of our world! This is why five subs spread around at random are able to produce impeccably precise bass. Why the two main speakers must be positioned with extreme precision. And why super tweeters we can't hear not only work, but improve even very low bass. |
I have supertweeters with my MA PL500II. Amazing addition overall. They add a sense of air around, more of 3D like effect. Also noted improved bass (don't know how can I expect this, but definitely saw this) with deeper and wider soundstage. Need to be careful to align them with the speaker tweeters and fine tune it with different levels. Have settled for level 3. In general, I like Townshend products. They are undervalued. |
I would love to hear from Audiogon member @folkfreak about his integration of the Townshend Tweeter with his Magico loudspeakers, which I heard when he was still in Portland, Oregon. Magico might be viewed as one of the least likely speakers needing any high-frequency augmentation, especially in a room as small as Simon's Portland room was. Simon, care to disclose what about your system, Magico's, and/or room that lead you to feel the need to add the tweeter? |
