Tidal Speakers owners

Went back for second audition. This time Contriva not as impressive. The stand out vacal in first audition a few weeks ago was gone. Still very enjoyable but not much more special than any other high end pair. Dealer said he had optimized speaker position. More suited to classical music. Based on this, Scala (6 months ago) was clearly ahead - more intimate sound with tremendous soundstage. Will go back again August when Piano arrives with my amps.

Kw13,
could it be a change of placement or associated equipment that resulted in this change of opinions about the Contriva?

Alectiong,
No he changed nothing except speaker placement and acoutic treatment placement. I was very impressed originally and now very surprised by the change. Third time lucky (too) perhaps...

Kw13, I don't know about your relationship with this guy, but acoustic room treatment and to a lessor degree speaker placement is very critical. He may not like what you like. If he will allow you to remote room treatments and reposition the speakers you may find you like them even more. I am still experimenting with my Contriva diacera SEs after nearly two months with them. I assure you that they are very revealing of everything.

Kw13, your description of the change reminds me of something we experienced with the Contrivas after the wall to wall carpet had been renewed in the listening room. In this case, it took two sets of Harmonix RF-999 MT tuning feet to cross the line back from "plain" good to the uniquely emotionally laden performance that had put us flat on our back before. Far from claiming Harmonix feet are the remedy for all, it is one example of "small cause, big effect", so I'm with Tbg in pondering the suspicion the dealer may have tweaked (even a little bit) too much.