Salk Sound System 5.0

[Pogre]

Good deal.

I'll tell you the same thing I told the guy that I hosted...bring some music that you've played many times.

Coming from a 20 yr old pr of 804 series B&Ws I knew to get an appreciable gain, the upgrade was probably going to be north of $3k for the L&R. I had a budget of roughly $6k for speakers...namely LCR which would not go very far with the new 800 series B&Ws.

ATL still has a decent high end brick & mortar audio presence so I demoed a lot of speakers, and didn't really start hearing what I was looking for until I heard the Revel F208 and Monitor Audio Gold 300...now I was hearing something better than what I had and the LCR for those was a little over $6k....I discovered Salk and the rest is history.

I only went to hear the Personas to compare them to the Song3As after I'd had them about a yr..Jim said he thought my 2.2 setup would compare well with speakers costing more than double the price...so I got the bug, .how would they compare to a $10k speaker? IT wasn't a true A to B comparison, but the same content...2.0 to 2.0 listening to music peaking into the 80 dB range ...3F was slightly meatier in the bass which you expect, but Salks held up much better than I expected mids/highs, and when I factor in the dual subs...the Salks pkg was still half the price of the 3F.

The 3As
View attachment 32603

What a nice looking setup! Nice and clean.

I remember your process here. You were very thorough and did your homework. I'd love to hear it if I'm ever in your neighborhood.

 

[ryanosaur]

*She* loves the Salks above all others.

Admittedly... I wish the Lady could find a ____ to give about good sound and nice speakers in our home.

 

[Pogre]

Admittedly... I wish the Lady could find a ____ to give about good sound and nice speakers in our home.

My wife has 100s of cds and I've been slowly but surely ripping them all to our pc. She's been listening to music more and more often and I'd daresay she would be upset if something happened to the system now. Comments like "Oh I love this song. I never knew there was that much bass in it before!", and "Out of all your speakers I think the Ultras sound the best." just warms my heart. I never thought I'd see the day where she'd comment on sound quality or have a speaker preference!

 

[Alex2507]

She married me regardless. It seems to have worked out.

*She* loves the Salks above all others.

My story is pretty similar.

Admittedly... I wish the Lady could find a ____ to give about good sound and nice speakers in our home.

Build some DIY speakers out of pallets, like do your best and randomly throw some drivers in there from old Panny Thrusters and the like. Nail them to your living room floor for like a month. After that I'm pretty sure you'll be allowed ANY Salk model.

 

[ryanosaur]

Yeah, that looks very nice too. Which one is it?

If I recall my conversations properly, Maple will give the best nuetral background for receiving a colored dye. The Curly Maple is of course the more affordable, with Quilted and other Figured Maple coming in at a slightly more premium price. The other wood veneers have too much inherent color (think yellow tones) to give a good background... (ie, blue die on a yellow/orange wood won't look blue).

This is a cool site to look at types of veneer and see what they might look like:

Wood Veneer Sheets Stock List (Species A - G)

Here is our "picture list" of burl, quilted, curly, and other figured wood veneer sheets. We have photographed every veneer in our inventory so you'll know exactly what you are getting in your order.

www.veneersupplies.com

Our OPs Waterfall Bubinga is very nice. Also Spalted Beech, Zebrawood, Tamo Ash... Just too many f'n options!

 

[baronvonellis]

If I recall my conversations properly, Maple will give the best nuetral background for receiving a colored dye. The Curly Maple is of course the more affordable, with Quilted and other Figured Maple coming in at a slightly more premium price. The other wood veneers have too much inherent color (think yellow tones) to give a good background... (ie, blue die on a yellow/orange wood won't look blue).

This is a cool site to look at types of veneer and see what they might look like:

Wood Veneer Sheets Stock List (Species A - G)

Here is our "picture list" of burl, quilted, curly, and other figured wood veneer sheets. We have photographed every veneer in our inventory so you'll know exactly what you are getting in your order.

www.veneersupplies.com

Our OPs Waterfall Bubinga is very nice. Also Spalted Beech, Zebrawood, Tamo Ash... Just too many f'n options!

Yea, that's the same website I used to pick out the bubinga I got. Too many options though, it was tough to pick just one!

 

[Pogre]

Yea, that's the same website I used to pick out the bubinga I got. Too many options though, it was tough to pick just one!

I think you did great. They're gorgeous speakers. I'd love to have them!

 

[everettT]

Yea, that's the same website I used to pick out the bubinga I got. Too many options though, it was tough to pick just one!

You had up to 5 choices

 

[baronvonellis]

You had up to 5 choices

Haha, getting 5 speakers with all different veneers, I never thought of that. That would be pretty unique.

 

[Swerd]

Build some DIY speakers out of pallets, like do your best and randomly throw some drivers in there from old Panny Thrusters and the like. Nail them to your living room floor for like a month. After that I'm pretty sure you'll be allowed ANY Salk model.

Something like these, right?

 

[ryanosaur]

Something like these, right?
View attachment 32618

That’s exactly what I was thinking...
What’s the saying? Highs like ssssss and bass like b-b-b-b-b!

 

[Pogre]

That’s exactly what I was thinking...
What’s the saying? Highs like ssssss and bass like b-b-b-b-b!

Bass like buh buh buh buh buh!

 

[2channel lover]

What a nice looking setup! Nice and clean.

I remember your process here. You were very thorough and did your homework. I'd love to hear it if I'm ever in your neighborhood.

Thanks Pogre...I do remember we were both building or upgrading around the same time. My system is probably not tweaked as tight as your is...I've run Audyssey once with initial setup and again when I added the Atmo speakers but that's been it for tweaking. It was a fun build...really enjoyed the process.

Now that I've had nearly 2 years with it, the only upgrade itch that keeps coming back is getting a music streamer that can handle all playback...the laptop/wifi setup is okay, but not as stable as I would prefer for long playlists, for parties, gatherings, etc. And it doesn't handle hi res files well at all, but that's mostly a wifi issue I think.

I consider the neighborhood to be pretty large......If you're ever in the ATL metro, please DM me, let's do it! IIRC you're out west...likewise, I'd like to hear your SVS Ultra setup.

 

[NINaudio]

My wife has 100s of cds and I've been slowly but surely ripping them all to our pc. She's been listening to music more and more often and I'd daresay she would be upset if something happened to the system now. Comments like "Oh I love this song. I never knew there was that much bass in it before!", and "Out of all your speakers I think the Ultras sound the best." just warms my heart. I never thought I'd see the day where she'd comment on sound quality or have a speaker preference!

I need to rip more of my wife's CD's. Maybe she'll have a similar reaction? I can only hope...

 

[NINaudio]

If I recall my conversations properly, Maple will give the best nuetral background for receiving a colored dye. The Curly Maple is of course the more affordable, with Quilted and other Figured Maple coming in at a slightly more premium price. The other wood veneers have too much inherent color (think yellow tones) to give a good background... (ie, blue die on a yellow/orange wood won't look blue).

This is a cool site to look at types of veneer and see what they might look like:

Wood Veneer Sheets Stock List (Species A - G)

Here is our "picture list" of burl, quilted, curly, and other figured wood veneer sheets. We have photographed every veneer in our inventory so you'll know exactly what you are getting in your order.

www.veneersupplies.com

Our OPs Waterfall Bubinga is very nice. Also Spalted Beech, Zebrawood, Tamo Ash... Just too many f'n options!

I do like the Zebrawood veneers also. I seem to prefer veneers that give straight horizontal lines on the speakers themselves.

 

[Pogre]

I need to rip more of my wife's CD's. Maybe she'll have a similar reaction? I can only hope...

After I showed her how to work everything one morning before work and got a bunch of her music on there she started warming up to it. Now she looks forward to mornings when I'm working and she has the whole system to herself. I've come home and she's had it cranked up pretty good a couple of times. It is a good feeling!

 

[NINaudio]

After I showed her how to work everything one morning before work and got a bunch of her music on there she started warming up to it. Now she looks forward to mornings when I'm working and she has the whole system to herself. I've come home and she's had it cranked up pretty good a couple of times. It is a good feeling!

If I ever came home and my wife had the house bouncing I'd think that it was an invasion of the body snatchers type situation!

 

[Pogre]

If I ever came home and my wife had the house bouncing I'd think that it was an invasion of the body snatchers type situation!

It definitely wasn't love at first sight. There for a while anytime I would even mention the word "speaker" I got the hairy eyeball. Luckily, she is a music lover (even if it is mostly country, barf).

I spent some time tweaking and dialing everything in and she's never heard her music sound so good. I mean, I could deal with it if she didn't care one way or the other but it's nice to have her on board.

I don't know how on board she would be if I were to start talking getting some new expensive speakers tho. That might be enough to make all my warm fuzzies go away...

Start randomly playing some of her favorite songs here and there and point out How awesome it sounds. Point out some finer details that you wouldn't normally hear on a lesser system. That's how I started!

 

[snakeeyes]

It definitely wasn't love at first sight. There for a while anytime I would even mention the word "speaker" I got the hairy eyeball. Luckily, she is a music lover (even if it is mostly country, barf).

I spent some time tweaking and dialing everything in and she's never heard her music sound so good. I mean, I could deal with it if she didn't care one way or the other but it's nice to have her on board.

I don't know how on board she would be if I were to start talking getting some new expensive speakers tho. That might be enough to make all my warm fuzzies go away...

Start randomly playing some of her favorite songs here and there and point out How awesome it sounds. Point out some finer details that you wouldn't normally hear on a lesser system. That's how I started!

Ya I’m finally getting my better half to start using the Fire TV remote. (thanks to Disney+). She has accepted (reluctantly) that TiVo can’t do everything.

 

[2channel lover]

I do like the Zebrawood veneers also. I seem to prefer veneers that give straight horizontal lines on the speakers themselves.

I love a lot of what people have done with the awesome veneers Salk is capable of...but it took all of 2 seconds for me to decide on the veneer...over a 20 yr period I saw my natural cherry B&Ws aged to a nice rich color...the Salks are natural cherry.

Yeah I know...boring, but I hope to watch them age as well.