New "Minions" on AA....

[SCAudiophile]

Update: WOW! Only 153 hours and these are already showing what makes them great!!! Vanessa Fernandez ,Dead Can Dance, Dire Straits, Stevie Ray, Bela Fleck, Tomasz Stanko, Miles Davis, Trilok Gurtu, NDR Big Band, Big Phat Band, Dadawa, Xe Hun Tian, and everyone else is here in the room, or so it seems, striking how real and musical. I am almost scared to think how good these will be at 500 hours!

[mchydro]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

Update: WOW! Only 153 hours and these are already showing what makes them great!!! Vanessa Fernandez ,Dead Can Dance, Dire Straits, Stevie Ray, Bela Fleck, Tomasz Stanko, Miles Davis, Trilok Gurtu, NDR Big Band, Big Phat Band, Dadawa, Xe Hun Tian, and everyone else is here in the room, or so it seems, striking how real and musical. I am almost scared to think how good these will be at 500 hours!

Keep those reviews comings Mark! I'm very happy for you and excited for what I can eventually experience myself!

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by vinod_david

SCAudiophile, you posted lots of photos with those awesome cables and your room in that other forum (WB...) in which your are a senior member. Here in AA you posted less pics, sad.

Nice post....editing mine to get this back on a positive track.

I've updated all photos on my system listing to get all those I've posted across various threads here in one place;

https://www.audioaficionado.org/show...t=37143&page=8

hope that helps.

[crwilli]

Back to our regularly scheduled joy of new TADs! Keep the updates coming . Exciting thread!

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by crwilli

Back to our regularly scheduled joy of new TADs! Keep the updates coming . Exciting thread!

Absolutely! All photos updated in one spot on my system thread (have to expand them, will work on that next);

https://www.audioaficionado.org/show...d=1#post822642

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

Nice post....editing mine to get this back on a positive track.

I've updated all photos on my system listing to get all those I've posted across various threads here in one place;

https://www.audioaficionado.org/show...t=37143&page=8

hope that helps.

I will assist him...

[SCAudiophile]

All set Ivan,..thanks for the offer of help! Photos were updated and all resized earlier today.....

One thing I forgot to mention along with latest photos; in some there are Ultra5s footers with spikes on the speakers and in the final config at present, they are not on the R1s and they are resting on carpet. The ULTRA5s will soon be back on the R1s (no spikes) once I get new coupling bolts (expected tomorrow) thanks to Ivan. Given the nature of the carpet and sub-floor here and the load-bearing ability of the short threaded section of the bolt (about 1/2" long and small diameter) that goes into the ULTRA5 compared to the large section (larger diameter, about 2" long) that goes into the speaker, when the speakers were leaned to attach the feet and then lowered back into position to be leaned to the other side to attach the 3rd footer, the spikes being massive as they are "bit hard" into the floor and did not move. The resulting stress on the small end of the coupling bolt was a bit too much and I noticed that the footers were bent on the first side of the speaker that underwent the most stress. Part of this is due to the amount of recess tapped into the bottom on the R1 and the ULTRA5 being apart from the base by about 1/2". Very desirable sonically but for a 330 lb speaker bearing down on the small end with the speaker at an angle, then restored, and tilted again to the other side, the force vectors were apparently a bit too much.

Lesson Learned: I would not recommend use of spikes on these speakers even with carpet. In retrospect, the R1s have enough sheer mass and the 3 point pattern given the surface area of the ULTRA5 footers bases is more than sufficient to couple them to any surface including carpet.

If this is not clear, let me know and I'll try to clarify it better.

[SCAudiophile]

Good morning all! Had my other set of multi-ribbon jumpers re-terminated with Furutech CF-202 (R) Banana plugs. The Bocchino banana plugs are first rate sonically and build quality giving me great results over the last couple of years and the Bocchino spades' quality and heft is obvious from the photos but the TAD R1 binding posts are huge as stated previously and I had to use a screwdriver to open up the veins on the bananas manually to get them to remain in the large holes in the binding posts. Obviously not a great long-term solution as they will loosen a bit over time. I had these 2 pair of jumpers re-terminated as they have a further 2 additional layers of ribbons over my first pair.

The Furutech CF-202 (R) Bananas are serious stuff, they feature a carbon fiber & non-magnetic stainless barrel assembly that when turned counter-clockwise, causes the mechanism to variably deploy and lock the banana in the binding post with fins that can be expanded to just the right size to fit whatever binding post you have and feature other notable things in their build as well including a damping ring. In short they lock in, stay there and sound great.

Burn-in on the speakers at a slower pace due to work/life realities continues. It's amazing to me just how good these speakers are and that's after only 225 hours or so. Stunning!

Photos;

[SCAudiophile]

I know I'm not writing much about the new R1s with the exception of a few sentences here and there. The answer is very simple; they are still maturing and have about 240-ish hours on them. Unlike many times in the past, after the initial week or so where I did near round the clock staggered break-in, now I am only able to run them about 8 or 9 hour per day. The side benefits of this seem to be three-fold;

- crossover electronic components get run-up aggressively and sustain new peaks each day for a solid 8-9 hours after which they are able to ramp down and then repeat next day...

- I am getting to hear much more clearly how each 8-hour day matters to these speakers and most days, hear subtle and not so subtle improvements coming out...

- these speakers are so amazing to me in what they are doing out of the gate and with this gradual buildup that I'm spending alot more time listening and reflecting on what I'm hearing each day than I am posting about it...this is FUN!!!

Suffice it to say, they are fantastic, world-class speakers and I'm very grateful to have them.....

More later,...

[SCAudiophile]

TAD R1s just crossed 300 hours,...the gold standard for Wagner's The Ring (IMHO) is on from Disc1 (and I will finish it in the days ahead with back to back listening....); I've never heard it so completely and beautifully(!), these speakers recently opened up and became nimble and accurate in the bass with incredible lush, coherent and pleasing mids and treble), sound stage is off the charts; truly a stunning set of speakers(!);

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...3&d=1484920566