Tad reference 1
- Thread starter Smokin' Joe
- Start date
Excellent speaker! On the few occasions that I have heard them at a show, they were definite contenders for best of show. I see you cover up the rear window glass, do you also cover up the TV and center channel for listening?
Yes, one of the all time greats IMO.
The window get covered but the TV does not.
It's not a centre channel as such, it's a soundbar so the Mrs doesn't have to turn the stereo on and risk getting yelled at when she breaks it.
The window get covered but the TV does not.
It's not a centre channel as such, it's a soundbar so the Mrs doesn't have to turn the stereo on and risk getting yelled at when she breaks it.
+1, one of the best for sure, in some ways the best... that mid/tweeter is unmatched imo.
Feel free to buy mine if you like, l need to move some gear.
No, they are listed on Audiogon at the moment.
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I'm surprised you sold your first pair of Ref Ones. I'm not surprised you bought another pair. Like the speakers I've used for so many years, this is one of the few others that check all the right boxes for me. Too bad the relationship between Pioneer and Andrew went south. In any case, being a bonafide keeper, its irrelevant. I don't think you'll be making the same mistake of letting these go twice.
SJ, congratulations on you ref 1s.
I'm enjoying mine to no end. Truly one of a kind. Beat manyself acclaimed "reference " speakers out there for a fraction of the price.
Enjoy!
I'm enjoying mine to no end. Truly one of a kind. Beat manyself acclaimed "reference " speakers out there for a fraction of the price.
Enjoy!
SJ...congratulations on your getting Ref1s back in your system. Thank you to all you guys on this thread and others for the comments and experience with the big TADs. Pulled the trigger and made a switch; mine arrived yesterday and after many hours of prep and hauling prior speakers out and downstairs and these 330-lb beasts upstairs, they were finally in my room as of last yesterday. Get to see how they sound this morning after I cable everything back up and they finish acclimating to house temperatures (it was 35 degrees and lower in the days/nights they were in transit)...Thank you all!
No argument about how wonderful speakers are tad ref one's, but sadly i have a problem with them. Low volume levels everything is great, but in mid to higher volume levels upper octaves become very disturbing, very harsh. I really wonder if this is a burning issue or anything in my system or my room creates it.
You are the first person I've seen on the 'net to report this issue. It is identical to my experience with the speaker. Certainly you can try to synergize around the problem, but when you have a large, hard midrange cone with high-Q resonance peaks, it seems to me that harshness is the expected result of pushing that driver.
Few companies have the manfucturing prowess/capabilities to produce such a driver, but I don't think it's a coincidence that Pioneer is the only one to utilize beryllium anywhere south of the treble.
Electronics, cabling, power and acoustics are all capable of producing negative effects, and it is true that some speaker drivers develop more and more audible nasties at higher SPL so the problem can be anything. With experience it's possible to tell what it is by the character of the harshness/distortion. Good drivers sound the same at a wide range of SPLs, and the TAD1 is about as good as it gets. I can guarantee you it's not the problem, but a speaker like the Ref1 will highlight any problems with your system.
Beryllium is an ideal driver material because it pushes the first resonant peak of the break-up mode very high in the frequency range and it is completely avoided. You get the resolution of hard-coned drivers with very little "extra" added from cone resonances, this is the main reason to use Be, so it was probably a top design priority to avoid those issues. I think the extreme difficulty of making midrange cones out of Be are the reason they're not around. The prices of much smaller compression driver diaphragms are around $500, a TAD coax Ref driver would cost more than just about anything on the market if it was sold separately. I think they partnered with SEAS to make them, you can get a driver near identical to the Evo series from them, and they use Mg tweeter instead of Be and are very expensive. Be tweeters are ~$500. I could see $10k+/pair for the Ref series coax drivers.
I have a pair of Pioneer S-1EX which use the same tweeter and they are the best tweeter on the market imo, not harsh at all even at very high SPLs. I think they need some volume to "come alive" and start sounding good myself. Not the same speaker at all, but...
Room acoustics can be a problem, especially in smaller rooms, but it's usually not a problem until higher SPLs vs issues from electronics, power or cabling. To me, small rooms get to the point the SPL feels overbearing, with electronics issues it's annoying before that point and you want to keep the volume down, even lose interest in listening if it persists over time... it's poison really. Maybe if you can describe what sounds harsh or even record it?
Sadly, I have to agree. I had TAD CR-1's for 2 years trying to make them work for me. I got close. They were spectacular at low volume but mid to higher levels, it was a bit uncomfortable. I am sensitive to higher frequencies and with the TAD's, it was just too much. I tried EVERY amp that I could get my hands on. I so very much wanted to love them but eventually had to sell them.
I witnessed Andrew absolutely banging them in a fairly large conference room with no break up. He was using the very powerful TAD mono blocks. I had the same problem with my VR-9s until I bi-amped them with another pair of Lamm M2.2s. While it did not add power to the mids and highs per se, this saved them from suffering the back EMF drain and continued to start and stop at a dime as they do at lower levels. Apparently the stridency was a result of the power amps running out of gas after big bass hits or sustained high SPL play. In terms of the latter, some genres really suck up power. Surprisingly Classical is not one of them. Current Pop, Rock, folk and Jazz using electric basses and electric rhythm guitars are very much culprits. A higher current amp may solve the problem just as biamping did. They both deal with the same fundamental problem of zero crossing distortion in the critical hearing sensitivity range due to thermal bias drift.
It looks like, not a burn-in issue. I believe my system have enough quantity and quality to match tad ref1's(look my signature). I doubt that this problem is about burn-in or room dependent. My listenin room is 6,5 meter to 8 meter. Speaker's are on the 6,5 meter wall, distance between tweeters 2,6 meter(also my listening position distance), 2,8 meter ceeling. Maybe room does not give enough room to play accordingly at high levels. But what a speaker in an appropriate volume.
Just wondering... How is the TAD reputation holding up after the novelty has worn off? The speaker market is highly competitive. It created quite an about face for the company. Couple that with a marquee designer and it made quite a splash. Deservedly so IMO.
The TAD Ref novelty hasn't worn off as far as I can see. The question is, what will Pioneer do going forward now that Andrew is gone? They announced that they were leaving home audio. Not sure if that has actually come to pass. If they did, then there's a chance that this generation of TADs will become even more desirable.
Agreed,...the CR1 and REF1 have been out there and the number of very happy owners (and sellers who regret their sale of them) continues to grow.
Andrew has left but remember 1 man is NOT a company...they have plenty of talented people and at least 1 lead designer left reported to be of considerable skill and contribution to both CR1 and REF1.
My only question on the immediately prior post is why with TAD do we use words like "novelty" to diminish the reputation of a world-class speaker when noone seems to do this with Wilson, Magico, ML, etc...here???
Wishing you and your families a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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