Salk SongTower QWT Floorstanding Speaker Review

[bigspur1984]

Nusance? I hope I'm not...

Sorry, misspelled.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks I will stick with the standard spikes.

I am getting the same finish as the SongTower RT that are for sale right now, the medium to dark curly cherry. I will be sending in my deposit tonight. I am getting the center channel also.

Mine are cherry too. They were clearcoated without any stain and have darkened somewhat as cherry does on its own. The curly cherry veneer Jim Salk uses is better than any I've seen. I still stare at them often .

You and Nusance are one of the big reasons I am buying these after reading your reviews.

Thank you for your kind words. Hearing that makes my day. If I can speak for that Nusance guy (), he would probably say the same thing.

 

[surveyor]

Speaker Parenthood

Tom, I saw the speakers birth certificate. Did you and your wife adopt, or are you taking some type of esoteric fertility drugs?

 

[Nuance AH]

Sorry, misspelled.

It's all good.

Thanks for the kind words, by the way. If I can help just one person it totally makes this all worth it.

 

[Nuance AH]

Oh, and if MJK says the SongTower is a version of a TL design, that's all I need to hear. After all, he's the designer of this particular version.

 

[ned]

Finally a speaker that beats my 1266se at price/performance. I knew this day would come.

 

[MJK]

Oh, and if MJK says the SongTower is a version of a TL design, that's all I need to hear. After all, he's the designer of this particular version.

I cannot claim to be the designer of the SongTower. I wrote the software used to do the calculations and I answered a few questions about applying the software. Paul, Dennis, and Jim did all of the work and deserve all the credit for the design. The first time I saw or knew anything about the SongTower was when pictures and discussion appeared on Jim's forum at AudioCircle.

 

[Nuance AH]

I cannot claim to be the designer of the SongTower. I wrote the software used to do the calculations and I answered a few questions about applying the software. Paul, Dennis, and Jim did all of the work and deserve all the credit for the design. The first time I saw or knew anything about the SongTower was when pictures and discussion appeared on Jim's forum at AudioCircle.

Oops - sorry for the confusion. I just meant their design is based on your mass-loaded quarter-wave transmission line design.

 

[Davemcc]

I'm glad to see this review too. I have to admit to having a fascination with Salk before ever having heard the speakers. The reviews seem to be universally favorable, the finishes oustanding and the customer service above and beyond. I'm glad to see a trusted reviewer like Tom likes them as well.

 

[jsalk]

First of all, I would like to thank Gene for making this review possible and Tom for a thorough, well thought out and well written review.

I would also like to publicly thank Dennis Murphy for another spectacular crossover design and Paul Kittinger for his great work on the cabinet design. And, of course, thanks to Martin King for developing the software that made the cabinet design possible. Without the efforts of these individuals, the SongTowers would not exist.

While I could certainly quibble about this point or that, I only have one comment I'd like to share on the review and subsequent discussion. I am somewhat amused by the discussion of TL or not TL. I have had this discussion with a couple of speaker designers in the past and it is purely a matter of semantics.

If you adopt a very tight definition of what constitutes a TL cabinet, the SongTower cabinet may not qualify. But to say that it is simply a standard bass reflex cabinet is certainly not an accurate statement either. If you compare the bass quality and extension of the CA15 in a properly designed bass reflex cabinet with the same driver in the SongTower cabinet, it is quite obvious that there is something very special taking place with the ST cabinet.

Technically, the ST cabinet is a "mass-loaded quarter wave tube." Just as with a more traditional TL cabinet, this design takes advantage of quarter wavelength resonance.

As Gene accurately stated, a classic TL design would require a line length of roughly 7 feet to achieve a tuning of 40 Hz. But as Martin so eloquently pointed out, you can achieve the exact same tuning by using a shorter line length coupled with a mass loading port.

In this case, the line length is tuned to a quarter wavelength resonance of just under 80Hz. The mass loading port then lowers the system tuning to 40Hz.

If you simply change the dimensions of the cabinet by making it shorter and deeper for example, while maintaining the current internal volume, you could certainly end up with a classic bass reflex cabinet.

In this case, the cabinet's physical appearance does closely resemble a standard bass reflex cabinet. But from a performance perspective, it more closely resembles a classic TL cabinet.

For me, there is a simple question that resolves the issue. Is the performance based on helmholtz resonance (bass reflex) or quarter-wavelength resonance (TL)?

Since this design takes advantage of quarter-wavelength resonance just as the most tightly-defined TL design, but accomplishes it in a different manner, I (and many others) feel it is more accurate to define it as a TL variant. But if it makes you happy, simply call it a pseudo bass reflex cabinet on steroids. No matter what you call it, I think we can all agree on one thing - it works.

Thanks again to audioholics for making this discussion possible.

- Jim

 

[Matt34]

Ok, I'll ask...what the heck does "mass loading port" mean?

If I had the money, the Salk HT3 would be on my to buy list.

 

[Dan]

Perhaps the best thread here I've seen. When else has the designer as well as the physicist behind the theory participated in a thread, especially a review about a great speaker. I've heard em. If this is your price point, look no further.

 

[MJK]

Ok, I'll ask...what the heck does "mass loading port" mean?

In both a bass reflex cabinet and a mass loaded TL, the volume of air in the port acts as a lump of mass. The air in the cabinet acts as the spring, but it is a different spring action in the two types of cabinets. The combination of the cabinet's spring and the mass of air in the port determines the tuning frequency of the cabinet.

If you go back to the yardstick and lump of modeling clay analogy in my earlier post, the air inside the cabinet acts like the yardstick and the port acts like the lump of modeling clay. The air in the port moves in and out, like the modeling clay moving up and down at the end of the yardstick, effectively lowering the tuning frequency of the enclosure.

 

[Swerd]

Ok, I'll ask...what the heck does "mass loading port" mean?

Jim Salk and Martin King did answer this, but I'll try as well.

A classic transmission line is a straight tube with a woofer mounted on one end and the other end open. The opening is the same diameter as the tube. The tuning frequency determines the length of the tube. This can get quite long, sometimes forcing the tube to follow a folded path inside the cabinet.

A mass loaded port on a TL cabinet uses an opening smaller than the diameter of the tube. In the case of the SongTower, the opening is a 4" diameter flared port. From the outside, it looks the same as a bass reflex design, but inside, that port is a lot shorter than in a standard bass reflex cabinet. This allows the cabinet to be shorter (46" for the SongTower) than with a classic TL opening.

 

[Nuance AH]

Martin and Jim - that was very well explained. Thank you. I even learned something.

 

[Tom Andry]

I am about to put my deposit down on a pair of SoundTowers, after reading this review I was wondering if I needed to order the sharp spikes instead of the standard. You say that you have had no trouble with yours, are they on carpet? Mine will be but I do not have very thick carpet.

They are steady because of the weight of the cabinet and the size of the base. The "problem" is that the "spikes" don't pierce the carpet. If you are looking to make a solid connection with NO wobble (which can affect sound), you'll want the sharper spikes.

Tom, I saw the speakers birth certificate. Did you and your wife adopt, or are you taking some type of esoteric fertility drugs?

If she is, I'm going to have to have a serious talk with her. Last thing I need is her yelling at me from the other room that she can hear the difference with the new speaker cables.

 

[Funkmonkey]

Great thread, nice information on TL / not-TL. Thanks guys.

My experience with TL designs, limited though it may be and extremely untechnical, is that these speakers impart a "feel" to the bass that is more like the sound that you get from musical instruments (like wooden hollow bodied acoustic bass & guitars). I have heard the SongTowers and they are excellent. If you consider price, they are a steal.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers,
-Funk

 

[BoB/335]

I ran across this thread while looking for reviews on Song Towers as I am contemplating purchasing a pair.

Seems I read somewhwer that th hole resembling a port at the rear of a ST is a "vent" and not a port and can therefore be placed close to a wall at the rear. Is that true?

 

[Swerd]

I ran across this thread while looking for reviews on Song Towers as I am contemplating purchasing a pair.

Seems I read somewhwer that the hole resembling a port at the rear of a ST is a "vent" and not a port and can therefore be placed close to a wall at the rear. Is that true?

Yes, that's true. Someone asked that in the thread where I posted my ST listening impressions. Dennis Murphy answered.

Others (including myself) have also tried the same thing and heard similar results. This is the opposite of the usual conventional wisdom that has it that placing speakers closer to the wall behind them makes them sound boomy or muddy, and that moving them away from walls decreases the boom. Apparently this feature is also seen in other speakers with transmission line cabinets.

 

[lost33]

Hello,

I purchased a pair of SongTower QWT's with the dome tweeter sight unseen and unheard.

I have had them for 2 weeks now.

I have been amazed each and everytime I listen to them. They are the best speakers that I have heard in this price range. We did listen to most of the fine speakers in this price range, but due to Nuance search for his perfect speaker I was convinced this speaker, design etc was somthing special.

The entire experience from talking to many forum members and with Jim Salk himself was a really nice cordial one. Jim really likes to make his customers happy and has gone out of his way to answer everyone of my calls and emails..imagine sending an email to the owner of other high end speaker CEO's!! Matter of fact I just emailed Jim and in less than 10 minutes he emailed me back. What a real nice person!!


That said I have modest electronics and a rather small listening room and have spent a day or so playing with toe-in and seperation distance. I also have a 58" plasma piece of glass in between them. I was worried about the soundstage and imaging etc...

Well I am very happy to say the overall experience with the SongTowers have been close to a 10 out of 10. By careful placement making sure the speaker fronts are well in front of the plasma HT screen the imaging has been fantastic...I have always walked away just amazed at what relatively small speakers lilke these can do with all sorts of material....classical, guitar, rock, etc...and vocals WOW do they do these well!!

The soundstage is absolutely amazing in my listening room and I was so worried that this room would not be a good one!!! Happy, happy!!

I have played many of the audiophile RAVE discs and demo discs that have some extremely great recordings and I just cant tell you how well these speakers reproduce this material. Garbage in is still garbage out...but with well recorded material is sent to these transducers, its magic.

The sound of instruments is very accurate, the drivers in this speaker have to really good to allow this to happen, the response is very quick, I guess those small 5" drivers can move very fast and the drum / percussion is really tight and wonderful. Heck even FM radio sounds better! Different but better.

The ONLY thing that these speakers can not really do well is reproduce those really low end 'rollers'.....those things that go really low, below 30HZ I would say, those low growling thhings like you hear in FLIM and the BBs material and the old Edgar Winters "Frankenstein" cut at the end where the synths go down to the bottom of what we can hear....

That said 95% (guess) that we (I) listen to the Songtowers produce muscial base that is wonderful....Duende and Diana Krall cuts have bass violin that is so dang accurate and tight it like they are right there in the room....its THAT GOOD.

If your on a budget, have a smaller room, and think you would never find a set of speakers that would be 'world class' in this size / price range....look no further!!

The SongTowers are what Jim descibed to me as the 'perfect storm' of a speaker, the sum of the parts is exceptional.

All the best
Alex

NOTE: I am not getting paid by Jim or anyone to say these things...
They are that good!!