Basic Audio Advice – These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound
A somewhat strange coincidence occurred not long ago. I found an old commentary describing the speakers I used to own, part of a discussion explaining why I have never wanted to settle for small speakers.
At the same time, I saw that a fellow on Audiogon was selling the electrostatic tweeter array for the very same speaker I owned, the RTR 280DR.
Let me tell you, it really took me back; I haven’t seen a pair in over twenty years. The RTR 280DR you see pictured below plays full range, but there is an optional electrostatic tweeter array that is designed to sit on top of it, which provides a radical improvement in the mids and highs.
The sound of the 280DR with the electrostatic array was dramatically better than any speaker I had ever heard up to that time.
Here is the story from the old listing talking about the RTRs, sparked by a discussion of Demo Discs.
Fooled Again
I was duped into buying my first real audiophile speaker, Infinity Monitors, when the clever salesman played Sheffield’s S9 through them. I desperately wanted sound that incredibly real in my playback system, and so I agreed to buy them then and there.
It was only later when I got home with them that none of my other records sounded as good, or even good for that matter. That was my first exposure to a Direct to Disc recording. To this day I can still picture the room the Infinity’s were playing in; it really was a watershed moment in my audiophile life.
And of course I couldn’t wait to get rid of them once I’d heard them in my own system with my own records. I quickly traded them in for a pair of RTR 280DR’s. Now that was a great speaker! A 15 panel RTR Electrostatic array for the highs; lots of woofers and mids and even a piezo tweeter for the rest. More than 5 feet tall and well over 100 pounds each, that speaker ROCKED.