Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

---

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Speaker Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

TAD Aural Ersatz stereo subs for $350 - initial thoughts

Posted by mattcecil1@yahoo.com (A) on March 19, 2007 at 08:47:35

Just wanted to report that i received the new subs and they are working quite well...a heck of a deal for $350 incl shipping.

Stereo subs are freakin amazing. the improvement to the size & depth of the soundstage is really cool. quite a difference from having only 1 sub the last few months. highly recomended regardless of sub.

the finish quality is a bit more than i expected in some areas, spot on in other areas. When i 1st pulled them from the shipping boxes, the port in each speaker bottom popped right out. They had a dab of hot glue on them, but this didn't survive shipping. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise as there were plastic bits still stuck to the ports, interfering with unobstructed air flow. 5 minutes with a corner of sandpaper took care to smooth the ports and a few dabs of Silicon RTV gasket material sealed down the port...not a big deal really.

The cabinet finish is fine, the vinyl covering matches my Thiels. the subs come with 2 sets of feet, i'm using the 3" rubber ones which are quite nice. Also supplied are standard brass footers. the subs sit right on the carpet. sitting on the floor looking at the curvilinear cabinet top reminds me of behind behind the wheel of a cigarrette boat.

I'm listening via speaker level connections, with anti-cables. the amp on each sub is really beefy, and resides in its own MDF enclosure...not open on the inside to the speaker cabinet like prevoius subs. incredibly loud (but controlled) volume is easy to achieve with 25%-30% volume. Right now each sub is directly behind each speaker and firing toward the side walls.

The only subs I can compare this too are the Hsu STF-1 and VTF-2 which i owned briefly. In terms of $ spent and the desire to have stereo subs, i'm thoroughly impressed with the TAD Aural Ersatz 12" subs. i could've bought a 2nd STF-1, but wouldn't have been as happy. Not enough budget $ to own 2 VTF-2's.

i'll do a more formal review in a month once these brutes are broken-in, but will say they are musical. I was worried 2 12" subs would be too much, they aren't. so far, there's little cone excursion...maybe 1-2mm. the deep bass is tight but integrates perfectly.

these subs each have 3 curvilinear sides. looking inside the cabinet this was achieved via 1cm wide slats of mdf arranged and glued together...looks like the vinyl siding is a part of the cabinet structure, not just a finish. Both the Hsu and these subs have slight cabinet resonances. by placing a small pointed mapleshade heavyhat weight on top of each it changes the tone, makes it deeper sounding & i like that. the pointed weights are tweaks though and not needed. Problem with the TAD subs is the top is rounded & the weight slides. Might add a dab of RTV to each point on the weights to stop this. the nuckle rap on the TAD cabinet gives a somewhat loud hollow thud...definitely not dead, one of the livelier sounding cabinets i've owned.

there's a host of pro's & con's that I can list, but i'm gonna wait a while to really put these through the ringer.

One incredible outcome thus far is that it doesn't seem like the Room Tunes Deluxe kit i have is outmuscled by all the deep bass notes. i figured extra bass trapping might be needed, but its not - whatsoever.
most impressed by this.

i'm pretty sure these will be priced at $179 a piece for a while, but it was good saving $130 on shipping while TAD was having the March sale.

Paul Gryzbek, the TAD guy, has been awesome this last week. i've sent him 4 e-mails to him re: set-up, and all were returned within the same hour. I get the feeling that if i have a problem with these in the future he'll be more than willing to help out.

matt

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Signature Sound

[ Signature Sound Lounge ]

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---