Salk Sound Soundscape 8's & More at the 2012 Audioholics Get Together Event

We got to listen in the Salk Signature Sound room. Jim Salk brought three sets of speakers to the 2012 Audioholics Get Together Event, but what they were really focusing on were their SoundScape 8 tower speakers. These are the little brother to the Soundscape 10 and 12's and use the same ribbon tweeter and Accuton midrange, but the Soundscape 8 uses two 8" woofers in front in addition to dual 12" side firing passive radiators. Sensitivity is 87db SPL @ 1w/m which means it can be driven by any reasonable amplifier, and it can play down to an impressive 25Hz. Now, Jim Salk designed these speakers to sound natural without adding any colorization to the sound - authenticity was the design goal. And we'd have to say that when we walked into the Salk room and began listening it really did sound real. We listened to some piano tracks and the sound was so convincing that if you closed your eyes, it felt like you were sitting in a lounge and the piano was right there in front of you. The price point for these is $8,000/pair.

Something else that impressed me was that when I walked into the room I thought I was listening to the Soundscape 8's, but in fact I was listening to a pair of bookshelf speakers. I'd love to tell you about them, but they aren't even named yet. Jim had brought them to the show to gauge consumer interest and maybe even cull a name out of the adventure as well.

Salk Sound is a custom speaker builder, so it's not unusual for them to have to build speakers to suit. There was a customer from New York who had a small space but wanted a custom speaker that sounded as good as possible in the space. Jim looked around and interviewed him regarding his needs and the music styles he listened to. What he found was that the customer really wanted the highest quality, best-performing drivers for a small cabinet. As a result, Salk teamed up their favorite ribbon tweeter with the Scanspeak Illuminator driver. This driver isn't all that sensitive but it plays very deep in a small cabinet and it's smooth and accurate. It's also expensive (about $4k/pair), however, so the demand might not have been there, but after the response from the show, Jim decided to move these speakers into production. Next comes a name and then they can go on the website for sale.  Pricing will come later...

Our thought is that these should definitely be called the Andrew Gash bookshelf speakers…

For more information, visit: Salk Sound