Tidal Speakers owners

Quanmer, Let me first say that I am by no means an audiophile and I will admit that I am pretty ignorant about much in the field of audio reproduction. I am, though, a music lover. The most important thing when listening to the reproduction of music for me is how natural it sounds to my ears. I say "my ears" because what sounds natural to me may not sound natural to someone else.

That being said for several months now I have been looking to upgrade from my Gallo 3.5 speakers. I really enjoy the Gallo's but I did want a pair of speakers that were more expansive when playing symphonic music.

I live in a moderately sized condo so when researching different speakers the size of the footprint was the first criteria I used when choosing or eliminating speakers from which to choose. There are many excellent speakers out there but if they are too big I just could not use them.

Next, through reading reviews, owners impressions and in only a couple of listenings I looked for speakers with, again to my ears, the most natural sound. Natural to me is what music actually sounds like in real life. There are speakers that can give overly romanticized or beautiful sound, that "leaves a tear in my eye" sound. That is not for me. I have listened to the Boston Symphony Orchestra numerous times along with listening to several smaller concerts at Jordan Hall here in Boston. No matter how beautiful the music and how much it moved me it never gave me that "tear in my eye". This may not be clear to anyone but myself. Next there are speakers that separate every note and performer to the point that instead of hearing a whole you end up listening to each note and performer individually. I find this highly distracting and again, not natural. In my experience music in real life has notes and performers overlapping and melding together creating a whole. Along this same line imaging is neat but the overall soundstage is more important to me especially when listening to symphonic or "wall of sound" rock music. I want to hear a 3d or real life soundstage. What was really impressive with the Piano's was I could feel the ambiance of the venue where the recording was done on live material. My only other audition was of the Magico V2, a very fine speaker. It was very detailed but somewhat dry to my ears. This can be very seductive but for me not natural and not something I would want to listen to on an ongoing basis.

Next, price. I was comfortably willing to go up to $35K. Beyond that price limit would have made me uncomfortable. Simple as that.

Bottom line the Tidal Piano's more than met all the criteria I listed above. I am really looking forward to how they sound in my listening area. At that time I will give my impressions of them in greated detail.

Hello, I’m a Tidal Contriva owner and not an active (writing) Audiogonner, but I’m reading this forum for over a year now. English is not my mother language but can read and write Fortran and Pascal very well. I’m a music lover over 40 years and have experience with audio apparatus as well.
I did also play the bedroom guitar (acoustic and electric) and love this instrument and know how is must sound. Here are my findings about the remarkable Tidal Contriva (Not the SE or Diacera):

The speaker has very, very little or no sound made by itself and is one of the very few, which can make a very realistic view of the performers in depth, width and height and get the dynamics right.
This was always a compromise, or there was space and depth and little dynamics or there was great dynamics but no relation to space and depth.
Most speakers with great dynamics do emphasize the first attack and do a bad job with the signal after this first shot. Smash in your face and no real space and depth.
Phase shifts in the signal are responsible for the “Place in Space” and the brain does the calculations with this information and not so much with the relative loudness of the signal. When this is not correct, the brain is working overtime to correct and compensate this (mis) -information. Speakers which are more right in time and space (filters with respect to phase) are less “real life dynamic”, again the brain in uncomfortable with the smoother dynamics and interpreted this as less realistic.
For me this was resulting in buying the Avalon Opus (4-way) (after IMF, B&W, Thiel and more) and feed them with one of the fastest amplifier in the world: the Atma-Sphere MA1. For years this was very involving for me, but then I was beginning to miss the dynamics such as produced by Wilson Audio. Changing cables or amplifiers didn’t add any speed.
I do have two separate (both shielded and balanced) 230 VAC circuits with old fashioned circuit breakers (silver, copper and/or gold fuses) and a dedicated to audio only ground pin, 28 meters (92 feet) in the Dutch clay, and all this doesn’t make the Opus any faster. Yes there is more “gestalt” and the total picture is more life but not live. You can hear all the differences and they worked out very well and makes listening more pleasant. I have done almost anything to the acoustics which is possible in a normal medium sized family living room and end up with 2 large tube traps behind the curtains, carpets on the floor and walls, a air suspended audio rack and the use of Zilplex (a better and less costly alternative for the acoustic system resonators). And to make a long story a little shorter: I found all this “wanted audio aspects” in a speaker from the “unknown” TIDAL company.
I contacted Jörn for just over a year ago and this did result in buying the Contriva in 2011. Jörn and his right-hand Felix personally delivered and installed the Contriva’s in my living room. The Contriva’s are revealing, fast and spacious and oh so naturally sounding. No sound of there own, real dynamics (at low and high volumes). No ceramic sound, but it differs of course from the less stiffer paper cones. The result of using Accuton (Thiel & Partner) is Imo that you can hear more micro information while the cone is doing the macro dynamics and that (with a well engineered filter network) the phase relationship is not corrupted. This means that you can hear a cymbal in space like in the real world: explosive and with all that beautiful “tingle”, “tangle” and “shimmering” and staying on the same position. Not so perfect (engineered) speakers can’t do that and throws the sound (for a short while) in front of the speakers, moving back to the original position after the pulse (attack) is gone and giving the space related micro information again, not disturbed by the large scaled dynamics.
My brain is not working in overload anymore, at least a lot less then before the Tidal Contriva’s.
Sometimes it just appears if the music is going a little bit slower then before, I mean that a second is lasting a fraction longer then before. It’s more relaxing, involving and not tracking attention to itself or it should be the perfect piano lacquer and the beautiful lines of the mighty Contriva.

Regards
Robert (Maceear)

Hello Maceear!

Excellent description of the Tidal sound. What you mention about music sounding slow is something I have noticed so many times with my Piano Cera. But at the end of the day it is just real sounding, satisfying and engaging.

Happy Listening,

Mike

Maceear, surprisingly, it's the first time, I felt someone coincide 100% of my feeling, you describe Tidal so well, even your is not Diacera or SE, but I 100% second you and know you are very honest to what you heard.

Hello All,

With the slower sounding music I do not mean a slow sounding speaker (It is extremely fast like I did explain) but the lifelike relaxed presentation and the fact that the speakers are invisible soundwise, makes you more relaxed. It is perhaps a bit of a strange explanation but it feels like that in a positive way….

Robert