Tidal Contriva Diacera SE Loudspeaker review from The Audio Beat

[cmalak]

The Audio Beat - Insightful reviews for audiophiles and music lovers





Does anybody have any experience with Tidal Loudspeakers? These and other models from Tidal have gotten great feedback at audio shows and there is a growing and vocal following of these speakers on the various audio forums. Very expensive though

[Talk2me]

They are not well known, yet. But every review I have read on thier products, has been outstanding.

[Face]

The drivers alone are about $10k.

[quanmer]

I have a pair of them, this speaker stopped me for searching better one.

[chessman]

Originally Posted by quanmer

I have a pair of them, this speaker stopped me for searching better one.

quanmer, welcome to the board!

Can you expand that observation a bit? What else have you owned/auditioned?

[quanmer]

chessman, I owned several spkrs before Tidal, there were ATC, B&W, W/P 8. Also auditioned many different spkrs in stores or friends' house, such as Magico Q3, Amati, Cello, etc., the most similar one was Marten Design Coltrane.
Coltrane has same drivers (Accuton ceramics), but sounds completely different from Tidal.

Tidal is very balanced and transparent, the first impression was no so kick ass, after few minutes sitting in front them, I realized the music is very different through Tidal, they are so coherent, musical, seductive, and best of all, no fatigue for long long listening session. I hear all details (micro) as much as all spkrs I heard before, even more, yet in neutral way, I can feel the player,/singer/instrument intention for performming much much better than all spkrs I have heard. Image is well depicted but not in sharp-edged, soundstage is in proper dimension instead of over sized.

My friend who owned Marten Coltrane, he was keen to Tidal in the beginning, he thought that Tidal is not as "vivid" as Coltrane. After 3 times listening Tidal, he bought a pair of Sunray, and sold his Marten Coltrane. FYR, his Coltrane is a special version one, listed 70K in US, (I forgot the model). And now he commend Tidal is a real stuff, and Coltrane is good yet overpriced "toy".

[chessman]

quanmer, thanks! That is very helpful.