Tidal Speakers owners


Could you please write your impressions about the Tidal speakers you currently own ? I will probably buy the Tidal Piano Cera in the near future so I would appreciate your feedback...
geopolitis
Hi, this is Jörn again,

even if it does not sound very romantic and many clients would prefer to hear a nice marketing story like “oh yes, we had a couple of hundreds listening sessions with a bunch of famous grey haired musicians”, but for us there is no such thing. We do not sit in our listening room while making serious faces and debating about it if the violin sounds like a Stradivari or like a Guarneri after we changed this or that detail…
We leave that to those who like to tell and/or read such thing – since such a process brings me back to one simple thing: everybody can build drivers into a cabinet, tells a story about it and try to sell it. Since always something will come out of the box and one can describe it as “sound” then and talking about it how much one likes this “sound”. Print it, or let it print and find clients who like exactly your philosophy/story/sound – and you are in speaker business. What do you think is more difficult: being able to work with difficult measurement equipment (which is more expensive then a nice car) and the willing to invest in to it and knowing exactly what one is doing or taking the short cut and just describing the sound of a product, judging it by hearing and telling a story about it ;-)? Even without ever touching a microphone one could design a likeable speaker and could check it with live music, concert visits etc. and would get maybe even a pretty decent result, and it is nothing wrong with doing it like that.
But we believe it needs much more to offer a product which is working like a messenger, since we want to design “a postman” who delivers the mail without changing the content of the message nor forgetting parts nor adding parts because it would be more enjoyable to read the message then. We also do not like to sit in a closed closet in the first row of an orchestra because “it sounds better in there” to prefer a coloured/filtered way to listen to what is happen in front of one.
And therefore our best friends here at TIDAL are microphones and measurement systems. But even then one can not make a general conclusion out of this procedure, since many manufacturers claim “measuring over hearing” and most clients heard that before and disagree with the result. The difference and the core of it is how good and what they measure. And what they believe is relevant to the sound and how they deal with it or finding a solution for it. Of course we know as well there are things one can hear more easily then it is easily to measure in the dynamic process of converting current and voltage from the amps into sonic for the ears by the speaker, and also take care about it. But this is a very small amount and just the little cherry on top of the cream. At least for us.

Using technology and judging it with technology is something we do to avoid to colour our speakers with our very own preferences. Everybody has a preference if it comes to hifi. And to mix it with “this is right and this is wrong” makes no sense per se. As an example: there was reviewer coming to our room this year at the CES and wrote “the Sunray sounded bass shy” after listening to his tracks. He claimed to have a neutral position to judge this. Well, we gave it a friendly grin and can live perfectly with a.) such attitude and b.) the statement he did.
Why is that? Simple answer: the guy’s reference speaker is a speaker with a big bass boost, where a Sunray simply does not add bass where no bass is. Used to his recording of course he heard it “bass shy” – he heard it maybe the first time as it really is. We treated even the room with very effective bass absorbers to have no big bass peaks – even if it would be more popular then a reproduction closer to neutral. And since the TIDAL Sunray is like all speakers from us designed to do the opposite of “absolute sound” we took it as a big compliment.

I leave it up to everybody to consider if a TIDAL could be one of the more neutral speaker out there. A chameleon-like ability to follow every change in equipment is always a first little sign for “neutrality” of a speaker if one does not have or care about measurements. Because in the end of the day all manufacturer should build products for the ears, and not for the microphone! And if it has to be a TIDAL, then one better just trust us why we work that way.
You as clients can enjoy the fun part to do something we don’t do - to get praise from music lovers in the end of the day: judging and discovering the speakers in an emotional way, to play with them, to feed and spice them them in many different ways with many different amps, cables and sources until YOU feel they do sound like the best to in your ears.
And a neutral speaker will always allow that. Just think about it :-).

Many nice hours in front of your systems,
Jörn Janczak
TIDAL Audio GmbH, Germany
Thg,

I have read all your posts on this discussion again. You are 100% correct that it is not possible in any way to measure what is best because we all have different opinions about what is best. What is best is a matter of opinion and by that 100% subjective.

You do however make one mistake when you think neutrality is equal to what is perceived as best.

Please imagine a loudspeaker playing through a system without any listeners. Then we have removed taste and subjective opinions from the equation. Still the speaker will output the same as if there were listeners present. That is a fact and not subjective.

Please then imagine there existed a single measurement tool which shows neutrality. This measurement would undoubtably have shown the same degree of neutrality with or without listeners. That is a fact and not subjective.

It we then imagine one listener in the room. This listener doesn't like the sound. There is no doubt the neutrality measurement would show the same with or without the listener. That is a fact and not subjective.

Lets then imagine another listener in the room. This listener really likes the sound. There is no doubt the neutrality measurement would show the same with two, one and no listeners. That is a fact.

Haven't we then just established that the sound doesn't change no matter what any individuals opinion of the sound is and because of that the neutrality of the sound can't change either. The only thing which change is the listeners evaluation of the sound. So since we are talking about neutrality from the speaker, which sound doesn't change no matter how any listener might perceive it, the neutrality can not change either. It's only the peoples opinions which change and are subjective.
I need to add that how can something that doesn't change be subjective. It can't. The only thing subjective about something that doesn't change is how we like it. Taste is subjective. However no matter how much we like or dislike the sound from a speaker its deviations between the input signal and its output will be constant. That is a fact even if we can't measure it.

The only way neutral could be subjective would be if individual taste would be part of how to detect neutrality, and that is not the case. Taste is only involved when you determine what is best.

Neutral and best certainly is not the same.
Thank you Mr Janczak.

Your position on this issue is very convincing and makes me want your products even more.

I would actually say that to use hearing and listening evaluation as tools for manufacturing a speaker would be good for a DIYer who knows what he wants, but to do that when manufacturing a speaker for market with as many opinions as people would be very unprofessional and selfish.