HTM2D Demo'ed at home.

[Stevebez]

Well my dealer kind enough to trundle out to my place and unpack this monster - it really is quite big - and this is not even the Hummer.

And this was its downfall really - it simply did not fit in my setup. Almost as wide as the 42" plasma!! Also too high in my placement allowance and the tweeter covered the lower part of screen - (cannot move fixed Plasma mountings).

Sound? Well as you would imagine much more seamless integration with 803D's ... but curiously when doing a signal test and toggling between left-centre-right-center etc - it gave a noticably lower and resonant frequency tone. Bungs were left in place thoughout the set-up since I had the unit pretty much right up against the projection wall with the placment contraints I have.

Speach was fuller and more rounded - and again more resonant - and much enveloping and pleasing . Currently I have the Boston Micro Centre - which is way out of its league - and flimsy sounding by comparison with nothing much to add below 100hz.

HTM2D is a great piece of kit although its just huge ... and this is suppossed to be the baby - even so the 804 is only marginally smaller in height but quite a bit narrower.

Cinema was superb and although music was good in 3 channel stereo / Dolby Surround (Music mode) - although I prefered the 803's in stereo for this.

Notably too - when set to "large" the unit seemed to increase its ENTIRE dynamic range not only the bass region. I was always under the impression the dynamic range limited the lower end only - but here it seemed to affect the whole spectrum.

So, in summary, - until I get a bigger place - its on the back-burner.

Rgds Steve.

[Somphon]

Steve, When you said the sound is fuller and more rounded, ect. What were you comparing it to?

[Stevebez]

Unfortunately - a Boston Micro II Centre. So almost any larger cabinet will sound fuller. Although what I did notice was that there was a distinct difference between speech over the 803D's in ghost mode (i.e. sans centre), than with the HTM2D in place.

The HTM2D had decidedly more resonance - not in a bad way - but just sounded more "full". I was curious to understand why the HTM sounded so different in speech than the 803D's did when ghosted.

This was particularly noticable when using the test signal and toggling beween left-centre-rigth and so no - the HTM gave a dictinctively lower tone than the 803D's. I would assume the test tone is a signal output that is uniform in freq spectrum across the channels.... any thots would be much appreciated. Only diff between teh HTM and the 803's was that the HTM had bungs in place while 803's had them removed. If this was the culprit I would have thought the effect of the bungs would have been the opposite anyway.... a little baffled.

The HTM was driven by rotel 1075 (only one channel used), while the 803's were driven by a rotel 1080.

Rgds Steve.

[Pieter]

.... a little baffled.
Rgds Steve.

Baffled and bunged, it seems.

[Kobus]

The HTM was driven by rotel 1075 (only one channel used), while the 803's were driven by a rotel 1080.

What effect is this supposed to have on the sound. It would be nice if some of the rotel specialists will comment.

[Stevebez]

Howzit ! ... good to see fellow Seth Efrikens on the forum agn... anyhow ... I would not think much difference at low volumes but if u cranked it up the centre would fade slightly into background... - not that I have tried it; but also given the spl's you will be at to get this effect it may become less noticible.

I was aiming to bi-amp the centre with 2 of the 1075's channels - as I only have a 5.1 system currently- but in the test I only used one channel.

Still cannot understand the test tone difference though ... I doubt that dramatic a difference could be due to the amp. It was blatantly obvious not marginal at all... I did not ask the retailer about that effect at the time either - I'll drop him a line to get his take.

Totsiens.