tSc TSAT-1000-HT8-B Build Quality

Introduction

There’s the famous saying that I usually follow “if something sounds to good to be true, it usually is.” It does me well to avoid scams and snake oil gimmicks. Last year an unknown online speaker company came on the scene known as “The Speaker Company”. When they approached us, I kinda brushed them off as a “White Van” speaker scam that wouldn’t last. Little did I know these guys were well connected and part of the D&M Holdings group that also owns Denon, Marantz, Snell, McIntosh and other high end A/V companies. I soon started seeing a lot of buzz about this company on our forums and when I went to revisit their website, I was floored by how much it has grown both in product selection and design execution. It was time to put aside my preconceptions and give them a whirl. I mean how critical could one be of a 5.1 system consisting of 5 two-way satellites and an 8” powered subwoofer selling for under $400, especially when the speakers are only about the size of two stacked apples?

Build Quality

The TSAT-1000

For this price, I was expecting cheap particle board cabinets and plastic grills. Instead I was rewarded with a lacquered black finish (TSAT-1000s) that rivals some speakers costing 10X the price. The cabinets were very inert and the speaker heavier than its diminutive size would suggest. What really floored me was the wonderfully contoured enclosures, flush mounted magnetized metal grills and beautiful gold spring-loaded speaker terminals that could accommodate my 10AWG speaker cable without any issues other than you must apply a good deal of force to push the terminal down to feed your speaker cable through. From an aesthetics standpoint, these speakers look like they each cost the entire systems asking price. I was even surprised to find they used a felt material on the front baffle to help reduce diffraction. All of the drivers were recessed into the baffle as well. The latter point is something many more notable speaker companies have still yet to figure out that this helps ensure good off axis performance and it should be standard practice in all of their product designs.

The drivers of the TSAT-1000s utilize plastic baskets for the woofer which happens to be properly magnetically shielded with a bucking magnet and encapsulated can. The cone material is a doped aluminum with a butyl rubber surround. The tweeter utilizes a neodymium magnet structure with a poly-cell dome reminiscent of the pre-Harman Infinity speakers of the late 80s / early 90s. The crossover network was another big surprise to me. Instead of using a cheap 1^st order high pass filter with an electrolytic cap in series with the tweeter like so many competitors do at much higher asking prices, tSc put a lot of thought and high quality parts into the crossover network of this system. This helps explain why the performance exceeded my expectations. Almost half the cabinet is stuffed with high quality air core inductors, high grade polypropylene audio capacitors and ceramic resistors. From what I could tell, the TSAT-1000s employ 2^nd order high pass filters on the woofer and tweeter network. This cabinet is packed with quality parts and should make buyers feel good about purchasing a quality engineered product that just happens to be priced below the real market value.

ASW-8 Subwoofer

The ASW-8 subwoofer is a neat little sub. It features a downfiring 8” driver in a front firing vented enclosure. On paper, the 50watt BASH amplifier doesn’t sound too impressive but keep in mind this amp has 6dB of headroom which means it can pump out 200 watts under short term peaks. The ASW-8 sports two line level inputs and speaker level inputs but no speaker level outputs. If you plan on connecting this system to a receiver with no bass management facilities, you may want to consider stepping up to an ASW-10 which has both speaker level inputs and outputs. Both models have an auto on/off feature, variable low pass filter and 0/180 degree phase switch.

Getting inside the ASW-8, we see a nicely stuffed cabinet which appears to be molded from 5/8” thick MDF. The amplifier has a nice meaty power supply and the 8” driver with a 1” voice coil and 18oz magnet with a metallized stamped basket. The subwoofer is unshielded so keep that in mind if you plan on using this for a computer system. tSc claims the woofer uses a Santoprene surround featuring a ribbed shape to allow for a long travel without the woofer cone moving off center at either end of the stroke. The woofer cone seems to be a poly cone but has the appearance of an aluminum driver.

Editorial Note about Downfiring Subwoofers

Why use a downfiring bass driver like tSc does in their ASW-8? As you move further off the central axis, the ability of the speaker to radiate the sound diminishes. The rule of thumb often used is that when the wavelength (speed of sound divided by frequency) is about the same size as the circumference of the radiator, the speaker will begin to beam the sound towards the center axis, at the cost of off axis response. The directivity of the speaker increases. By placing a subwoofer facing the floor, one can gain advantage from this effect. The frequencies desired (low frequencies below 100hz), radiates omnidirectionally as desired, while the distortion products, that is to say frequencies 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 times that of the fundamental driving frequency are going to be attenuated significantly by the inability of the speaker to radiate them at 90 degrees. These high frequencies simply go away, lost in your carpet, and your ears do not have to hear them.

The downside of this approach is a reduced life expectancy, as the constant pull of gravity will eventually wear against the suspension of the speaker, moving the voice coil off the desired center position, leaving the speakers ability to push as well as pull diminished.

Set-Up

Since these speakers are designed to be mounted on a wall, all of my listening tests were conducted with them placed directly against a wall boundary. I tested them in two scenarios: as a 2.1 computer system in a nearfield listening position and as a 5.1 theater setup in my large theater room. On my PC, I had them connected to my Headroom Micro Dac and Preamp powered by a Panasonic SA-XR50 receiver while in my theater room I connected them up to my Denon AVR-5805mkii and DVD-5910CI DVD player. All cables were furnished by Impact Acoustics (Sonicwave TOSLink) and Bluejeans Cable (10AWG speaker cable and analog interconnects).