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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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tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,140 posts
 
TAKET Batpro2 with air motion transformer at less than half the “ low hanging fruit $” of the subject product.

as for probability, i am guessing when n =1 ( reviewers sample size ), the probability of the Taket being better is  50/50.

just trying to save y’all some scratch….
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
It would be nice for this thread to have a link to your thread with your review so everyone knows what you are talking about. Just tryin' ta help y'all establish some, you know, credibility.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,023 posts
 
There is a loudspeaker with what amounts to a super-tweeter built in: the Eminent Technology LFT-8b. The ribbon tweeter in the LFT-8 is employed from 10kHz up, fed from a 1st-order filter set at that frequency. The LFT-8b retails for $2499/pr, not much more than the price of the Townshend tweeter alone. Just sayin'. ;-)

Below the tweeter is the LFT (Linear Field Transducer) driver, which reproduces 180Hz to 10k (!). The best kept secret and value in hi-fi loudspeakers.  
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,109 posts
 
Well millercarbon, here I go. I told you so!
I read many times for years that they were great, and I started to believe it, so I finally bought a pair when the right deal came up. Yes, they work, and despite the supposed impossibility of them affecting redbook playback...they do!
I think that you will learn the right setting for your speakers in time. On mine it's usually but not always 3, but sometimes 4.
Also, and this is important!...don't just plunk them on top. Make a dedicated set of stands for them with a wooden pole and two pieces of flat square wood about 5"x5", at the correct height to be approximately coincident with the center of one of your tweeter arrays. I would suggest the top one. You can put this on the inside or outside of the speaker cabinet. I put them on the inside, and yes, it makes a difference!
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