Have a little Tact

A friend of mine who has been a life long devotee of a particular olive coloured hi-fi has recently been told about Tact amps etc. He wants to know more from impartial reviewrs and users. (i.e. NOT the comics)

I remember that they used to be discussed here and was wondering if any of you lot could offer any useful insights.

Be gentle.

 

Tom,

I've heard TACT stuff twice, both times at Bristol.
The first time I was seriously impressed. Room acoustics for Bristol are generally not good. The dem consisted of some Japanese style drumming at seriously loud volumes. It really did the job.

The second time around, I was a little surprised to be hearing the same track, one year one.
Either way, I'd taken my own CDs with me that time. With real music it was distinctly underwhelming, just no life in the music.
So, VERY impressive when used with dem disks, not so good with the real thing.

Lets just say that it didn't make me want to change from my own Olive style boxes.

 

Are you asking about the digital amps or the room correction systems?

 

Both or either. We've not heard them so are interested to hear your views.

 

I have a Tact RCS 2.0 which I bought on the spur of the moment to see if it lived up to the hype. Initially I thought it was a waste of money but after spending the best part of a day going through the learning curve with it I found it to be very good. Room correction aside you can tweak the response of your system to your taste, so if your system is a little light on bass, or maybe a bit too bright you can correct it with the RCS. As the manipulation is done in the digital domain you don't suffer the normal drawbacks of conventional tone/equaliser controls.

Having said that, the RCS is not totally transparent. I've recently changed my DAC which now is more fussy about jitter than my old DAC making the insertion of the RCS into the digital chain more obvious highlighting that the sound-stage is narrower with a general drop off in PRaT. I have a Meridian 518 which does a very good job of reclocking it's input which goes some way to restoring the loss induced by the RCS. Apparently the newer RCS 2.2X is quite an improvement on the older RCS 2.0 it's possible that may have corrected the problem.

Regards
Gary

 

We had a thread here recently which started with a discussion of the Tact room correction system, moved onto AV and developed into an interesting (yawn) slinging match between two of our most beloved and respected members.

Tact Room Correction - for the gory details.

Merlin, of course, has had considerable experience of Tact systems and might be tempted to comment here. My own experience is far more limited and, for what it's worth, my views are:

1. Tact correction in the digital domain at low frequencies is superb and gives a bass which is as fast and balanced as just about anything available. To achieve comparable results you would need a good, well set up, parametric equalizer and, probably, bass traps and the like.

2. I would rather not use the system for the mid-band and high frequencies as I don't believe that electronic treatment is the answer for room treatment at these frequencies.

3. Some people have said that Tact correction robs the sound of 'life' and this may be related to 2. above. As GaryG says, the system is not totally transparent.

Incidentally, if your friend wants to hear the views of 'impartial reviewers and users', you've absolutely come to the right place. :lol:

 

I wonder what is the difference between these and the one offer by Tag McLaren Audio newer processors.

 

I'd like to add to my comments about the general principal of using equalization outside the bass frequencies.

Some people advocate that the best placement for speakers (not including subs) is at least 1 metre away from rear or side walls. In this way the reflected sound arrives at the ears at least 3ms after the direct sound. Owing to a property of human hearing, sound arriving this late is treated as 'less important' than direct sound and one tends to hear the frequency spectrum of the speaker, not the room. If you then 'correct' for frequency abberations caused by room reflections the sound will be perceived as unbalanced by the listener.

The reason that equalization is advocated for the bass is that at the lower frequencies the wavelength is considerably longer (the wavelength of sound at 100Hz is approx. 10 feet; 20 ft for 50Hz). At these frequencies standing waves occur, dependent on the room dimensions, and nodes and anti-nodes are formed. These are perceived as immediate and are not 'corrected for' by the hearing mechanism. Thus bass can be perceived as boomy or lacking in bass, depending on the position of the speakers and the listener. Equalization can correct this (for a specific listening position or zone).