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CSS Criton 1TDX

AudioSQ

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Apr 12, 2021
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Indeed he does.. sorta. I have the 2TDX with upgraded crossovers and the regular 2TD with standard crossovers so not exactly the 1TD with upgraded xover. I'm happy to answer any questions. I think they're fantastic, but I'm no real audiophile.
 

AudioSQ

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Previously I was at the office and didn't have the time to bore you with a bunch of stuff you didn't ask about. First of all their customer service is top notch. They'll give you straight answers to anything you ask, and they'll do it promptly. They should definitely be a source to answer questions.

You mentioned doing the crossover upgrade, but if you are only going to do one of the upgrades I would upgrade to the standard 1TDX over the 1TD with superior crossovers. It's a cheaper upgrade and it will make a bigger difference. CSS will tell you the same.

When I upgraded the xovers and the tweeter I did find the top end to have increased detail, sparkle, and to be a more halographi... oh wait this is ASR I can't offer subjective opinions. I will say the difference wasn't huge and honestly I couldn't say with confidence that I could tell them apart in an A/B test. I like to think I could, but until I do a double blind test who cares what I'd like to think. I will say 9 times out of 10 I am disappointed when I upgrade audio gear.. this time I wasn't. I believe they sound better, and the money was worth it to me, but it's nearly double the price to do both upgrades. The base speaker is a heck of a value, after that It's still a great value, but you start to hit diminishing returns, but that's "HiFI" for ya.

I decided to measure them both tonight and compare, this is ASR after all. I used the moving mic method while playing pink noise, stood about 3 1/2 feet away, took three measurements and averaged them together with 1/12 smoothing. There was no EQ, and I only measured one speaker of each. Admittedly they were not in the exact same location, they were about two feet apart. They were pulled out at least six feet from any walls and there was definitely room for human error. In fact I would count on it. Below is a comparison of 1k to 20k.. below that they should in theory be the same. Red line is the regular 2TD, purple is the 2TDX with fancy pants xovers. Take this for what it's worth.. which should probably be nothing as the controlled variables weren't very controlled.

2TD vs 2TDX 7-14-2021.jpg


For reference to what I'm hearing when I'm listening to them in my listening position (I think it's about 8 feet away).. the below is with the PEQ and subs on. I obviously still have some work to do below 500hz. And I don't run the subs that hot for music.. unless it's for funsies.
EQ Sub & Pi 6-26-2021.jpg
 

AudioX3

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Oct 18, 2021
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So what if you took the original red line and a PEQ to adjust it to match the blue line raised highs....and pocketed the difference in $.... don't you now have the same sounding more detailed speaker?
 

muad

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Jun 8, 2019
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Depends if boosting the treble increases the distortion? But I would expect them to sound the same ☺️

It's interesting that all the usual YouTube reviewers are all over these things in the last little while. I'm thinking CSS opened up their advertising budget? Too bad no spins.
 

AudioX3

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I have to ponder do all these audiophiles ever think to think what makes a sound sound the way it sounds? What magic do they think or don't think reveals more detail or has more warmth? Could it possibly be it is the piece of equipment being less than or more than flat at a particular frequency? Could they not just put a quality S/N PEQ between their preamp and Amp and tweak whatever tone they favor and take the savings and maybe go on a date or get a Porsche.
 

muad

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I have to ponder do all these audiophiles ever think to think what makes a sound sound the way it sounds? What magic do they think or don't think reveals more detail or has more warmth? Could it possibly be it is the piece of equipment being less than or more than flat at a particular frequency? Could they not just put a quality S/N PEQ between their preamp and Amp and tweak whatever tone they favor and take the savings and maybe go on a date or get a Porsche.
I guess there's money in it for them remaining blindly ignorant ;)
 

UtopiaNemo

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Jun 23, 2022
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Why is it that every thread on this forum eventually devolves into folks looking down their noses at other groups of folks, if not outright insulting them?

Frequency response is a fraction of a speaker’s overall performance; Amir’s measurement process and copious graphs should make that obvious. I doubt anyone here would try to argue that taking the lowest performing speaker on Amir’s list and slapping a bunch of PEQs on it would make it sound like an M2, but that seems to be the inference in this thread.
 

MabeHall

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Oct 17, 2022
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I bought and assembled the 2 TD-x with the $400 crossover upgrade. The x version is the tweeter upgrade and shows up in the response curve above. I paid for the $400 crossover upgrade simply to get the higher tolerance capacitors not because I thought the $60 capacitors would sound better but bc I knew both speakers would more likely crossover at the correct 1800 hz—anal engineer here. If I had known the component values ahead of time I could have purchased 1% capacitors somewhere else for less. Looking at the frequency response curve of the two speakers, you see there is more amplitude variations around the crossover frequency with the standard crossover. Can you here the difference? Probably not in this case but this is probably not the worst case possible variation either. And let me say, I can not describe how pleased I am with sound of my speakers. I’m sure there are better sounding speakers somewhere but I couldn’t stand anything much better. I’ve LISTENED to more music in the past 4 months than the previous 10 years and I had/have Yamaha NS-1000Ms. Now looking at room treatment.
 
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