Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Update

I wrote here a while back that John Geisen of Wellington Audio in West Palm Beach and I would be going to Austin Hifi later in the fall at the beck of Creston Funk, importer of Tocaros. We were summoned as Tocaro dealers to hear what turned out to be ‘upgraded’ Tocaro 40D’s -- 40E’s. I am writing this because based on what we heard, my earlier report on the 40’s and 42’s here and on my website, now requires a significant revision.

You may remember I wrote that the 42’s (40’s in larger enclosures plus a wood laminate tweeter -- still no crossover), while being predictably more open on top (tweeter) and a bit weightier on the bottom (larger enclosure), were also inexplicably more relaxed, easeful -- less tense. And they appeared to break in a lot faster than the 40D’s had. What is clear now is that what I took to be a break-in problem with the 40D’s (and made such a fuss about) was actually not break-in but another issue that an upgrade has successfully addressed. The new 40‘s, to be called 40E’s, sound as easeful as the 42‘s. We are told that on the matter of break-in, both the old D drivers and new upgraded E drivers actually break in at the same rate -- the faster rate that I experienced with the 42‘s.

The story, it turns out, is that Tocaro designer/builder Miguel Herrero, while working on an upgrade to the tweeter in the 42’s, realized he would have to make a modest alteration to the D driver as well to enable it to match the performance of the new tweeter. The result of that D driver upgrade was that the overall quality of the 42’s improved fairly dramatically, getting rid of the only quality of Tocaros that some people found objectionable: a bit of tension, a hint of dryness that while it diminishes over time with natural break-in nevertheless remains present to a degree. And then, for fun...or logic, he put the new “E” driver into the 40‘s as well and, no surprise, found the same improvement.

What I was listening to and reported on earlier were 40’s with D drivers and 42’s with the new E drivers. What Geisen and Neill heard on this visit to Austin was a pair of pre-production 40’s with the new E drivers. They were still not as open (or weighty) as 42’s but they were notably more appealing than their predecessors, with no loss of anything anyone could regret that I could hear. The principal improvement, as I say, was a new sense of ease that was apparent even on first hearing. This resulted in a sense of instrumental and vocal quality behind the traditional Tocaro fast, percussive, direct, and tactile front wave. They were still absolutely Tocaros, just happier ones, happier right out of the box. I can even imagine that a few listeners will prefer the new 40's to 42's -- those who respond especially to the sometimes magical coherence of a single driver speaker.

Henceforward, 40’s, like existing 42’s and 45’s, will come with the new drivers -- all will be designated E’s.

I’ll have new 40E’s here early this winter (it’s already winter in New England!) and will report again if I hear anything new.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.  


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  • Update - Bob Neill 11/27/1314:21:51 11/27/13 (1)

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