Soundsgreat's TL BS Speakers

[rikhav]

Hi all
I did got these speakers from Soundsgreat to have a listen to few months back (actually quiet a few months)

Also I thought of inviting few FM's I know to listen to it and give their views

Few senior members did come and listen to it and they felt something is lacking in the overall sound. It was hard for me to find faults mainly due to my inexperience and also because I had not listened to the speakers in any other setup

So I thought its not right to make others listen to the speaker as what they would listen to is the inability of my rest of the setu, rather then actual sound of the speaker

Many thoughts came to my mind that maybe my power amp has some biasing issues, or the pre and source has some issues. At that time Jls001 suggested me to try out the B1 and see how it goes. Sachin and Raghu were gracious enough of to assemble the B1 for me. Once it was in the chain, I could see a glimpse of hope. The sound did change and for good, but not to the level I expected it to. I just played it for few days and thought things will improve after it has completely burnt in. Still I felt I could not connect with the sound. Then came the 220 ohm resistor mod and it completely changed the sound of the setup, then the spiro mod.
One can read my and others views on what changes did the mods bring on the B1 thread

Now I have the speaker for I guess 2 more weeks, and then I have to send it back to Soundsgreat

So anybody who is interested to listen to them are welcome to visit me and can PM me


The speakers have 1 inch dome tweeter and 5.25 inch mid bass, both designed and made by Soundsgreat. I don't remember the exact specs of driver and xover. Will update once I know from soundsgreat

 

[jls001]

I also had multiple opportunities to listen to the prototype of Soundsgreat's new transmission line bookshelf speakers. The first thing that strikes you about this bookshelf is how deep they are - front to back. The height and width are like any regular mid-sized bookshelves, but the depth looks almost disproportionate to the other dimensions. It uses a 5-1/4 inch woofer and a 1 inch tweeter, both designed by Soundsgreat himself. It is the first time I am listening to DIY-ed speaker drivers.

Being a prototype, I guess he did not concentrate on giving the cabinet fine fit and finish. The rear baffle has a pair of binding posts somewhere in the middle (when measuring from the bottom or top). Immediately below that is the speaker's port, a large rectangular affair rounded at the edges.

We played around a bit with the placement of the speakers at Rikhav's place and we ended up with something like 2 foot from the front wall. The separation between the speakers was about 7 foot, but the speakers were placed assymmetrically - right speaker was closer to the sidewall and the left speaker very far away from the sidewall. In that (large) room, there wasn't much scope for better placement, so while listening one had to offset oneself to get balanced sound as the right speaker had stronger reinforcement from the sidewall.

What it sounds like:
The Odyssey Stratos power amp needs lots of time to get to ideal operating conditions - almost 2 hours. Before it reaches its proper operating conditions, the whole setup sounded a bit muddy. Mid bass was bloated, highs are with rolled off, and midrange shyly peeked out. Images weren't specific and refused to focus, though there was a hint of an unidentifiable something nice. The lower midrange tonality sounded a bit wrong (thin) and it sometimes sounded like it was "phasing" with reversed polarity.

But after two odd hours of warm up, it metamorphosed into a very different animal. The mid bass now sounded clean and tight, the mids - which was already generally nice - opened up, and the highs seem to have a new-found extension and clarity. The real sound stage emerged and it was now clear that the presentation was fairly forward with this electronics. The plane of the sound was slightly behind the plane of the front baffle of the speakers. The cabinet being small, and TL or no TL, it would need the bass reinforcement from the front wall. It didn't cross my mind to move the speakers back (to see if the bass improved) after they started sounding good. I honestly did not like the electronic pairing. To my ears, there was something wrong in the tone of percussions.

After two sessions at Rikhav's place, where he had moved his setup to a more music friendly room where he had also made one other major change (he had placed the speakers much lower than in the previous room), we moved the speakers to my place and listened to it in my setup for a number of days. It replaced my speakers. For the listening, I also used Soundsgreat's DIY speaker cables instead of my own speaker cables.

The main difference from Rikhav's setup and mine is that the soundstage gets pushed back subtantially. The sound plane is some 3 to 4 feet behind the front baffles. I am guessing this is due to difference in electronics, most likely the difference in preamplification (his passive transformer based volume control versus my active preamplification). The soundstage depth is similar to what I am used to hearing from my own speakers.

I could hear a midbass bump which I somehow could not mitigate by placement. Even when I took it to a distance I thought was too far away from the front wall, it continued to show up. It had an effect on the midrange too. Vocals sound really nice on these speakers. It handles varied musical genres with flair. The only time when it loses its composure was when the music became dense and complex. It however handled dynamic peaks well, and was surprisingly accomplished in digging out musical details. With my electronics, the tonality of percussions improved a lot. So I deduced that it didn't like passive transformer based preamplification. That also could be the reason for the forward-sounding soundstage.

After Rikhav got the B1 buffer, and after we had done the resistor mod, the sound improved very drastically. There were fairly drastic improvements in the soundstage (way deeper than before), bass response (sometimes it is startling how deep a 5-1/4 inch woofer can go), and the midrange filled up and bloomed (from the earlier thin-ish sound). Also, resolution and imaging have taken big forward leaps. The mid bass bump that seemed to affect the tonality also got tamed, but not completely to my liking. I am not sure if that is because of the driver or the cabinet. I wrote about my impressions post the mods here in the B1 build thread.

Area of improvement: the level of refinement of the tweeter needs to go up a few notches. The treble can sound a bit harsh on occassions. Also, the tone of some percussions did not sound totally right in my setup. It may sound different/alright in another setup.

There is no denying that Soundsgreat has achieved something wonderful with his drivers and cabinet. Keep it up! We await ver 2.

 

[ranjeetrain]

It's indeed nice to see genuine DIY work. Hope V2 sounds much better.

Oh DIY drivers? That's something really indigenous. Look forward to next project

Request to new members at the forum: Guys, don't pass on the opportunity to purchase these indigenous DIY stuff. It's not only a great way to make your money go longer, but also indirectly supports and motivates the DIYer. If DIYers can recover at least their BOM costs, they would be in a much better position to do more iterations of their products. As a result, DIY will keep getting popular and outcomes far better.

Our forum has a lot of talented DIYers. In stead of purchasing low end products from foreign brands, purchase something that's a DIYer's work. Your money will go further.