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Hey everyone.
First off let me say how awesome Jed is. I happen to be fortunate enough to live within about 15 minutes of Jed and already have a set of the R44 speakers he designed. Jed helped me with the carpentry work that I do not have the tools to do well enough without massive tolerances. Anyways, that's my shoutout to him for being a stand up guy. Now to the review of these phenomenal speakers.
Ok. So I went to listen to these speakers today (4T's, courtesy of Jed) and to sum it up in one phrase, these speakers produce the most incredible sound I have ever heard. The dynamics are incredible, the bass clean, the midrange outstanding and the treble is great as well. Although the XT25 is slightly too laid back for my tastes, it performed seamlessly with the W4's in the upper midrange.
First I will go into a little more detail about the treble. The XT25 as most of you know is a very nice tweeter. It's very detailed yet easy to listen to. Now even though they are not my personal number one choice for treble, they worked so incredibly well for this design, it somewhat changed my view on them. Of the countless tracks we went through, this tweeter was dynamic and as I stated before, blended seamlessly with the W4 mids. This is in part because of the ability of the tweeter to extend further down (usefully anyway) than many other choices, and also in part due to the shallow crossover allowed because of it's low end extension. All of this was explained by Jed too, so this is where I am getting my information.
My personal bias of high end sparkle to that of ribbons did not prevent me from enjoying the sound of the treble produced by this design. And I might also note that on most of the songs I was familiar with prior to this listening session, I heard SO MUCH information I had never noticed before. It's incredible what a good set of speakers can do to your music.
The midrange was nothing short of incredible as well. Similar to my R44's, using dual W4 mids, vocals came out even more stunningly realistic than my R44's in part of that the crossover was quite a bit lower for the tweeter and it was a much shallower crossover than with the W4's and ribbons on my R44's. Female vocals are nothing short of amazing (well, this goes for pretty much everything that's recorded well). String instruments sounded incredibly lifelike. Percussion was just as lifelike as if the drum set was right in front of me (well, the drums mostly pertain to the midrange). Blue man group - WOW. Just wow.
Now, the midbass. This is what I was missing in my R44's. And all I can really say to explain the midbass is it is powerful, yet transparent. The bass was SO CLEAN! I don't think I have ever heard any bass as clean as these, car or home. It really surpised me too because of the lack of stress on these drivers. Line arrays really do stand up to their reputation of dynamics too. The midbass dynamics were amazing. I know, I have said the word amazing enough but really nothing else can describe my listening experience. Back to the midbass. Powerful but tonally balanced with the midrange.
I really can't say enough for these speakers other than the value of the sound these produce FAR exceeds the moderate cost of them. I am absolutely making the upgrade, and hope some of you can have the pleasure (more like privilege) of hearing these. Thanks Jed again for your hospitality and courtesy!!
:T :T :T :T :righton:
Link to his website: http://clearwaveloudspeaker.googlepages.com/
They are the first set of speakers shown on the main page.
First off let me say how awesome Jed is. I happen to be fortunate enough to live within about 15 minutes of Jed and already have a set of the R44 speakers he designed. Jed helped me with the carpentry work that I do not have the tools to do well enough without massive tolerances. Anyways, that's my shoutout to him for being a stand up guy. Now to the review of these phenomenal speakers.
Ok. So I went to listen to these speakers today (4T's, courtesy of Jed) and to sum it up in one phrase, these speakers produce the most incredible sound I have ever heard. The dynamics are incredible, the bass clean, the midrange outstanding and the treble is great as well. Although the XT25 is slightly too laid back for my tastes, it performed seamlessly with the W4's in the upper midrange.
First I will go into a little more detail about the treble. The XT25 as most of you know is a very nice tweeter. It's very detailed yet easy to listen to. Now even though they are not my personal number one choice for treble, they worked so incredibly well for this design, it somewhat changed my view on them. Of the countless tracks we went through, this tweeter was dynamic and as I stated before, blended seamlessly with the W4 mids. This is in part because of the ability of the tweeter to extend further down (usefully anyway) than many other choices, and also in part due to the shallow crossover allowed because of it's low end extension. All of this was explained by Jed too, so this is where I am getting my information.
My personal bias of high end sparkle to that of ribbons did not prevent me from enjoying the sound of the treble produced by this design. And I might also note that on most of the songs I was familiar with prior to this listening session, I heard SO MUCH information I had never noticed before. It's incredible what a good set of speakers can do to your music.
The midrange was nothing short of incredible as well. Similar to my R44's, using dual W4 mids, vocals came out even more stunningly realistic than my R44's in part of that the crossover was quite a bit lower for the tweeter and it was a much shallower crossover than with the W4's and ribbons on my R44's. Female vocals are nothing short of amazing (well, this goes for pretty much everything that's recorded well). String instruments sounded incredibly lifelike. Percussion was just as lifelike as if the drum set was right in front of me (well, the drums mostly pertain to the midrange). Blue man group - WOW. Just wow.
Now, the midbass. This is what I was missing in my R44's. And all I can really say to explain the midbass is it is powerful, yet transparent. The bass was SO CLEAN! I don't think I have ever heard any bass as clean as these, car or home. It really surpised me too because of the lack of stress on these drivers. Line arrays really do stand up to their reputation of dynamics too. The midbass dynamics were amazing. I know, I have said the word amazing enough but really nothing else can describe my listening experience. Back to the midbass. Powerful but tonally balanced with the midrange.
I really can't say enough for these speakers other than the value of the sound these produce FAR exceeds the moderate cost of them. I am absolutely making the upgrade, and hope some of you can have the pleasure (more like privilege) of hearing these. Thanks Jed again for your hospitality and courtesy!!
:T :T :T :T :righton:
Link to his website: http://clearwaveloudspeaker.googlepages.com/
They are the first set of speakers shown on the main page.
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