Status Acoustics Titus 8T Floorstanding Speaker System Review

[haraldo]

Or you are comparing the reproduced sound to a live recording you made in your own home.

I can relate it to a concert in Brams sahil in Musikverein in Vienna with the Vienna Mozart orchestra (this is where they have new year concerts)

It's safe to say that any audio system I ever heard is nothing close to this, so that's a good reference.... That's where you should go guys

 

[monkish54]

How loud can you get those things, Gene?

With 1700 watts on tap per channel (I read), I'd bet 114-120db depending on distance. Although, I imagine you don't pump more than 1000 watts into 'em, so maybe 111-117db? The Acoustic Elegance TD woofers are supposed to be able to handle 1,000 peak (themal not xmax), no reason to doubt the 8T's woofers. With so many (high power handling?) midrange drivers, power probably isn't much of an issue with the 8T's.

I wonder how much power you could throw at them before a woofer flies at your head.

 

[TheWarrior]

I marvel at the design of this speaker. And studying the way in which its constructed, $50k is practically a steal. Just the time spent clamping and gluing each piece of HDF, not to mention CNC Routers cost $50k on their own! Sure you could cut the holes by hand, but for the bass module that would require cutting atleast 50 perfectly aligned holes, per speaker!

For my own purposes, I took from this the fact that the inevitable volume control issues of the Beryllium tweeter could be offset by better distributing the load across all 5 drivers, instead of using resistors. Less expensive than using 2 mid woofers as opposed to 4, of course not, but where's the joy of turning amplification in to heat instead of spreading it across a much larger radiating surface!

What confuses me tho, is that you can tri amplify this speaker. How do you control the tweeter level if it can have its own circuit, separating it from the 4 mid woofers? Would it be as simple (or silly and utterly expensive) as having a lower powered amp just for the tweeter?

 

[fuzz092888]

I marvel at the design of this speaker. And studying the way in which its constructed, $50k is practically a steal. Just the time spent clamping and gluing each piece of HDF, not to mention CNC Routers cost $50k on their own! Sure you could cut the holes by hand, but for the bass module that would require cutting atleast 50 perfectly aligned holes, per speaker!

Doesn't have to. You can buy one in kit form that, for $7K gets an accurate CNC machine capable of doing a full sheet of plywood and a water cooled 4kilo-watt router capable of doing full depth in a single pass. Although you do have to put it together, but that's what the directions are for

 

[TheWarrior]

I was trained on a Sabre, a 5'x9' and I honestly would be scared to DIY such a machine. Although I looked it up and they are considerably less expensive, and that machine now is about 10 years old. Say you and I team up and offer the Titan 16T on ebay?

Glad to see I am not the only one having a nice quiet day at home on a holiday! Happy Fourth!

 

[fuzz092888]

I was trained on a Sabre, a 5'x9' and I honestly would be scared to DIY such a machine. Although I looked it up and they are considerably less expensive, and that machine now is about 10 years old. Say you and I team up and offer the Titan 16T on ebay?

Glad to see I am not the only one having a nice quiet day at home on a holiday! Happy Fourth!

If I could afford the CNC machine kit I was talking about, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It's amazing how group funding websites like like kickstarted have allowed the production of incredibly cheap CNC machines and 3D printers. The model I'm referencing is the most expensive in the line and the $7K mark is with all the bells and whistles. If you have your own software and computer, your own router, and don't need full sheet capability, then you can get it done for less than half of that.

Yea sure, just as soon as one of these dang scratch off tickets yields a little money

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Weird, I clearly remember posting one of the first posts on this thread something like this: "Too bad Kimber cable interconnects weren't mentioned at all in the article" clearly referring to reoccurrence of Kimber brand 6 times on a single page.

Now I can't find that post anymore. hmmmm......

 

[Rich Davis]

Why is there a test performed outdoors?

I laughed for about 5 minutes after seeing that photograph. does the mfg of the test equipment instruct the user to move the speakers outdoors when performing those measurements? That's not a good methodology for testing a speaker, plus I would use the cables that the MFG recommends for their speakers when connecting to other components such as amps and pre amps. The reason is the mfg uses equipment/cables in their listening rooms when designing and testing their equipment, so they might have recommendations for obtaining similar test results.

It is insulting to my intelligence that a reviewer would take home audio speakers and move them outside to perform measurement tests. Every time I've been to an outdoor concert, wind has a HUGE factor on various frequencies, so I'm sure testing home audio systems outdoors is, well, kind of stupid, IMO. Aren't you supposed to use an anechoic chamber for those kinds of measurement tests instead?

 

[fuzz092888]

I laughed for about 5 minutes after seeing that photograph. does the mfg of the test equipment instruct the user to move the speakers outdoors when performing those measurements? That's not a good methodology for testing a speaker, plus I would use the cables that the MFG recommends for their speakers when connecting to other components such as amps and pre amps. The reason is the mfg uses equipment/cables in their listening rooms when designing and testing their equipment, so they might have recommendations for obtaining similar test results.

It is insulting to my intelligence that a reviewer would take home audio speakers and move them outside to perform measurement tests. Every time I've been to an outdoor concert, wind has a HUGE factor on various frequencies, so I'm sure testing home audio systems outdoors is, well, kind of stupid, IMO. Aren't you supposed to use an anechoic chamber for those kinds of measurement tests instead?

Outdoor testing is a perfectly viable way of gaining near anechoic measurements so long as you account for outdoor factors and don't test where it's noisy or on a windy day, gate your measurements appropriately, etc. If you don't know how to properly test speakers (based on your last sentence) then how can you criticize others on how it's being done? Besides, comparing being at an outdoor concert to what is being referenced is just silly. If you can't see why, then I'm not sure what to say.

As long as the cables aren't defective and are competently made they should perform near identically to higher priced cables. Although if you're buying these speakers I doubt you have any issue paying for Kimber Kable or the like.

 

[gene]

I laughed for about 5 minutes after seeing that photograph. does the mfg of the test equipment instruct the user to move the speakers outdoors when performing those measurements? That's not a good methodology for testing a speaker, plus I would use the cables that the MFG recommends for their speakers when connecting to other components such as amps and pre amps. The reason is the mfg uses equipment/cables in their listening rooms when designing and testing their equipment, so they might have recommendations for obtaining similar test results.

It is insulting to my intelligence that a reviewer would take home audio speakers and move them outside to perform measurement tests. Every time I've been to an outdoor concert, wind has a HUGE factor on various frequencies, so I'm sure testing home audio systems outdoors is, well, kind of stupid, IMO. Aren't you supposed to use an anechoic chamber for those kinds of measurement tests instead?

I'll give you the benefit of a doubt seeing how you're a new member and obviously lacking in knowledge on measuring loudspeakers.

This speaker was measured both outdoors (for accuracy) and indoors (to see how they integrated into the room). The outdoor measurements most closely approximate an anechoic environment by removing all echos but the floor. A speaker this large would be difficult to measure anechoically even if we had access to a chamber due to its sheer size and capabilities down below 100Hz.

Outdoor measurements (aka, GP) are the best way to measure subwoofers which is not only an industry standard but it's also what we do. It has the advantage over anechoic since most anechoic chambers are too small and/or have insufficiently sized wedges to produce accurate results below 100Hz.

Hopefully you will will read up more on the subject matter before making such insulting and ignorant postings in the future.

 

[haraldo]

I laughed for about 5 minutes after seeing that photograph. does the mfg of the test equipment instruct the user to move the speakers outdoors when performing those measurements? That's not a good methodology for testing a speaker, plus I would use the cables that the MFG recommends for their speakers when connecting to other components such as amps and pre amps. The reason is the mfg uses equipment/cables in their listening rooms when designing and testing their equipment, so they might have recommendations for obtaining similar test results.

It is insulting to my intelligence that a reviewer would take home audio speakers and move them outside to perform measurement tests. Every time I've been to an outdoor concert, wind has a HUGE factor on various frequencies, so I'm sure testing home audio systems outdoors is, well, kind of stupid, IMO. Aren't you supposed to use an anechoic chamber for those kinds of measurement tests instead?

The best way to measure speakers is probably in an anechoic chamber but the cost is prohibitive as in order to get good results way down in frequencies size of wedges and size of room must be enormous, I don't even comprehend what the cost is but it's probably way out of reach. lacking anechoic chamber, the outdoor testing is the only way to reliably measure a speaker I reckon, unless you want to measure the room modes and other influences of the room.

I guess Vandersteen Audio has facilities like this and for sure also Dunlavy Audio Labs used this as John Dunlavy could measure his speakers reliably in an anechoic chamber down below 20Hz.... I really don't see why Audhioholics should go the the step of putting so much money into this.... I believe what they do is industry leading and way better measurements than say... what they do in Stereophile, which is indoors at 50", many speakers don't integrate properly at such a short distance.... if Stereophile measures at bigger distance then room influence would take over.... There's been a wave of criticism from some manufacturers about this way of measuring, claiming that it just doesn't show reliably performance of some large array speakers...... I am not saying that it's this way or the other but just referring to what's been written and stated around Inet...

I reckon outdoors is way way better, Audioholics is the benchmark