TAD Micro Evolution One loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" beryllium-dome tweeter, 3.5" midrange with magnesium cone (concentric); 6.5", slot-loaded MACC woofer. Crossover frequencies: 420Hz, 2.5kHz, slopes N/A. Frequency range: 36Hz–60kHz. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m (anechoic). Impedance: 4 ohms. Maximum amplification: 150W.
Dimensions: 16.2" (411mm) H by 9.9" (251mm) W by 15.8" (402mm) D. Weight: 44.1 lbs (20kg). Optional stand: 25.7" (652mm) H by 14.8" (376mm) W by 18.1" (460mm) D. Weight: 35.3 lbs (16kg).
Finishes: Gloss Piano Black, flat-black side cheeks.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: QAMM000120WM, QAMM000119WM.
Price: $12,495/pair; stands, $1795/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 6.
Manufacturer: Technical Audio Devices Laboratories, Inc., 4-1, Meguro, 1-Chome, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8654, Japan. TAD Laboratories, 2265 E. 220th Street, Long Beach, CA 90810. Tel: (800) 745-3271. Web: www.tad-labs.com. US distributor: MoFi Distribution, 1811 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue, Chicago, IL 60660. Tel: (312) 738-5025. Web: www.mofidistribution.com.

COMPANY INFO
Technical Audio Devices Laboratories, Inc.
US distributor: MoFi Distribution
1811 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue
Chicago, IL 60660
(312) 738-5025
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
spacehound's picture

One on the 'marketplace', the other on the speaker itself.

I am pleased to see that TAD has now become a serious player in high end 'domestic' speakers, and quite a popular one. It is good to see a 'real' manufacturer, as opposed to what I call 'a few guys in a garden shed' making speakers and selling them through tiny 'specialist' dealers that only hifi 'enthusiasts' ever visit.
And a major manufacturer such as Pioneer has FAR more resources to call on than the 'garden shed' (or as a maximum, some small industrial unit) manufacturers so is likely to make better speakers. Who are these 'garden shed' outfits? You can guess the two I mostly have in mind :-)
It works, too. I live near Southampton, UK. There are no less than three central 'high street' television/AV/audio shops that carry a small stock of TAD speakers or will quickly obtain them for a 'listen' as they have dealt with Pioneer for many years.

Why do I like it? It is enlarging the marketplace so 'legitimising' it to some extent. The small manufacturers cannot do those things.

The speakers.
As a fan of Tannoy dual-concentric (coincident) speakers I have known that Tannoy have been right all along for fifty years plus, and other manufacturers such as KEF, and now TAD, are confirming that correctness.
However, at 12,000 dollars the price is a nonsense. You can buy Tannoys with ten or twelve inch 'coincident' drive units for that and they sound amazing. And KEF are not far behind.

Whatever you say about this TAD it remains a small squeaky speaker with no real bottom end. No sane person will pay 12,000 dollars for that. It just isn't hifi, though I am sure it is as good as you will get in a small box. Even calling a six and a half inch driver a 'woofer' is nuts, though nowadays everyone does it.

For both of my reasons above, were I to change from my present Tannoys, TAD is the first place I would look, though not at these particular speakers.

rortmann's picture

I suspect you haven’t even heard these speakers. They are truely brilliant with a stereo image that is incredible, mids and highs that are sublime. I’m only just running mine in, they’ve done about 100 hours now. The bass on these is nowhere near as bad as one might expect from a speaker that has such an incredible WAF. I’m in a very large room, it’s 12.8m x 6.5m x 3.1m. We don’t live in these poky little boxes that much of the world seems to enjoy.

I knew going in that the bass would not excel in this room and I bought a pair of subs to go with the TADs. I’m now just waiting in FedEx to actually deliver my minidsp SHD to arrive and I will properly integrate a pair of PerListen D15s subs and then do a Dirac calibration.

Go have a listen before posting your prejudice. These speakers are better in many respects than my Wilson Audio Watt Puppy 8.

prerich45's picture

This is Dave in Milton, nice review and nice measurements! The TAD looks really good with the Rel added on. I see you have given them the nod for Class A (Restricted Extreme LF)...with that said, you also mentioned that other companies can give the TAD's an sincere challenge. Would that statement lead me to believe that we may have other Class A (RE LF) speakers that are far less expensive than the TAD?

hb72's picture

thanks for interesting review! I see lots of text about bass and whether it is sufficient or not: here my thoughts about it:
31 squaremeters may be modest for US standards but is plenty for people living in large cities such as Tokyo, London, NY, also SF, people who also have & want to spend the dough on these beauties for their fancy city flats.

Also I'd like to invite friends of systems that reach below 40Hz (rather one octave pls, not a few semi-tones) to convince me about the indispensability of this very frequency range to great undivided enjoyment of (most) music (i.e. not earthquakes or car-crashes ..).

rzr's picture

This was a terrible review for a very nice loudspeaker. Stereophile has been losing it and this review continues to show this trend. Most of the article used either low-fi marantz, a home theater pre/pro in 2 channel mode, and an amp that has been out of data for over a decade. Why not go buy a $100 sony all in 1 box system at Best Buy to do the review?
The reviewer ups the ante and uses a better pre and amp from BAT, and guess what, the speakers perform better! Amazing when this happens. These speakers should have been reviewed using the BAT pieces 1st, then moved up to better upsacele pieces like the PS Audio BHK and Directstream DAC/Player and guess what, performance would skyrocket. If you want to continue to use a pre/pro and a proceed amp, you should think about going over to Sound and Vision.
The TAD corp should restrict you guys from reviewing any loudspeaker system that costs over $500 until you change your review process

supamark's picture

if you'd actually read the review you'd have noticed he explicitly states that he also works at Sound & Vision (hence the surround system). I've been reading Mr. Norton's reviews for like 30 years, I think he knows a little bit more about all this than you do.

Oh, and Kal Rubenson's review of the $4k pre/pro used:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/music-round-75

Since you've demonstrated that you don't actually read through articles, Mr. Rubenson summed it up thus:

"...the decidedly improved analog outputs benefit all audio functions, including analog multichannel pass-through. If your concern is primarily for music playback, can you do better spending $1000 or so for a separate multichannel preamp? No way. It's easy to recommend the AV8802A, despite the bump in cost: It offers cutting-edge features and outstanding sound."

The more you know!

PS - pretty sure the pre/pro is lifted directly from the $7k McIntosh pre/pro with the *identical* back panel - both companies are in the Harmon corporate fold.

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