Its not the looks. It is the test results. When a speakers tests worse than many order of magnitude cheaper similar type speakers on the market it is a poor show. The spartan look is the mustard on the cake
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TAD Evolution 2 Speaker Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Heulpic
Member
Trust me I tried everything including E-Bay. I contacted both of them (Pioneer and TAD in Japan) w/o results.
When there are FR anomalies, you will hear it.
I think this is the result of tuning by ear in a reasonably reflective minimalist room. Possibly a new designer given a chance?
We can see most notably a dip around 2.5KHz in the on-axis response, while at the same time we also see a widening of dispersion in this range looking at the normalized horizontal directivity plot.
The cabinet looks nice, but they might not think to brace it a lot.
We can see most notably a dip around 2.5KHz in the on-axis response, while at the same time we also see a widening of dispersion in this range looking at the normalized horizontal directivity plot.
The cabinet looks nice, but they might not think to brace it a lot.
I have a question....are designers purposefully adding that dip around 2 -3khz (also known as the BBC dip)? I learned of this through Audyssey when discussing mid-range compensation. I'm seeing that in quite a few speakers measured here, but the best speakers seem to omit the BBC dip. Andrew Jones is no longer at TAD...as most of his designs measure flat. Has TAD's new designer added that "British" sound to the Evolution speakers? If they have - the BBC dip is to be expected (not saying that I like it - as my speakers measure flat - so I take the mid-range compensation out of Audyssey settings).
As above, the dip mostly came about from the dispersion characteristics of those older BBC speakers. Larger woofer crossing over to a smaller tweeter. The sudden widening of dispersion when the tweeter takes over encourages a reduction in the FR there. Without detailed measurements the designers had to do their best by ear, possibly not fully understanding the 'why' of it.
IMO a designer who implements a 'BBC dip' in a speaker without understanding the dispersion characteristics of that speaker is going to have a rather hit or miss result.
I would argue that the BBC dip originates in the back then new 2-way paradigm with larger plastic woofers (8") and tiny tweeters (3/4") with, by todays standards, very high x/o frequencies (3,5k). The on-axis equalization might have compensated the directivity error.
Nope. Meh.
Agreed and, imho, they looked a lot better.
I haven’t read the review yet, but I give TAD A+++ for sending the sample to ASR for testing. Regardless whether the speaker performs or not, kudos to TAD!
Tom C
Major Contributor
Yes. Those are very nice looking. The looks make you want to have them. Even my wife picked the floorstanders out of the crowd when we were at an audio show last. Imposing appearance when seen in real life.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #98
Correct data export added to the review.
JBL adds mysterious lumps to their modern horns and waveguides, under the guidance of computer modeling. One assumes it gives the desired dispersion pattern.
Price and performance aside, the design is just ... not pretty.
The weird spacing of the drivers, the unfortunate combination of the color and texture of the drivers with the mesh grille and bright ring around the tweeter practically fighting with the wood veneer, the little single driver grills, the sharp corners - it just looks like somebody stuck a bunch of random components together.
I have nothing against a utilitarian finish on high end speakers. A Neummann KH 420 for example looks like an overgrown cinder block, but the design is consistent and it's clear that form follows function.
On these, nothing follows nothing. Price, design, performance - none of those makes sense either in itself or at least when looking at the whole combination.
The weird spacing of the drivers, the unfortunate combination of the color and texture of the drivers with the mesh grille and bright ring around the tweeter practically fighting with the wood veneer, the little single driver grills, the sharp corners - it just looks like somebody stuck a bunch of random components together.
I have nothing against a utilitarian finish on high end speakers. A Neummann KH 420 for example looks like an overgrown cinder block, but the design is consistent and it's clear that form follows function.
On these, nothing follows nothing. Price, design, performance - none of those makes sense either in itself or at least when looking at the whole combination.
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