AXPONA NYC 2011

TAD—JA's Best Sound At Axpona

John Atkinson  |  Jun 27, 2011

Best sound apart from violinist Arturo Delmoni, that is. I am reviewing TAD's Compact Reference CR-1 three-way stand-mounts ($37,500/pair plus $1800/pair for stands) for a Fall issue of the magazine so I was interested in seeing what kind of sound TAD's chief engineer Andrew Jones was getting from the CR-1s in the room TAD was sharing with its New York dealer, Triode Picture+Sound. Though there were a pair of Atma-Sphere tube monoblocks in the room, the speakers were being driven by TAD's solid-state amplifier with the source Andrew's MacBook Air running Decibel and feeding data to a TAD DAC via USB. I listened to several hi-rez recordings at 176.4kHz and 192kHz from Chesky and ex-Sheffield Labs engineer Bill Schnee, whose recording for Bravura Records of a band led by drummer Simon Phillips had one of the best recorded drum sounds I have heard. Even in the cramped and crowded hotel room, it was obvious that these speakers, with their coaxial, beryllium-diaphragm midrange/tweeter and reflex-loaded 8" woofer with a 4" voice-coil, were doing something out of the ordinary with respect to freedom from compression.

COMMENTS
xrandom's picture
Submitted by xrandom on June 28, 2011 - 7:25am

A couple of 1800 $/pair stands should sound ALONE, connected to the amplifier.... IMHO.... and additionally they should also sound quite well...

Jim N's picture
Submitted by Jim N on July 2, 2011 - 1:10am

Having listened to the mentioned brands' top of range models (and lower models also), and many other high-end brands, my conclusion is clear:

* TAD Reference 1 is maybe the world's best speaker (the only speaker I have listened to that is in the same excellent class is JBL DD66000 Everest)
* The TAD speakers finish is the finest in the world

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