TDL Studio 0.5

[Haselsh1]

If anyone hears of a pair of these speakers coming up for sale in mint condition would you please pm me. I would just love to own these.

[Filterlab]

Ahhh, the TDL transmission line, a bass wonder. Needs a little additional damping though.

[Haselsh1]

That's why I prefer the little baby of the bunch. I found years ago whilst demo-ing them that the bass was much more under control. They really suited my prog rock tastes but I ended up buying Castle Harlech's instead. As usual, I now find I'd much rather have had the TDL's.

[Filterlab]

I had a pair of RTL3s, they were great speakers. Shame the modern 'TDL' isn't the real TDL, but luckily ebay yields a few from time to time. :)

[DSJR]

My favourite smallish TDL was the Studio 1M. Big enough to "do" bass quite loudly, smooth balance and neat appearance. I knew the designer of the bass/mid drive unit and knew TDL/IMF back to the early-mid seventies.

The RTL3 can be improved in my opinion by changing the resistor across the bass coil (?) from 15 Ohms approx to around 30 Ohms IIRC. The mid comes up in level a bit, the treble and bass isn't as exposed and the loading is improved. The slightly recessed mid is an IMF/TDL trademark (and ProAc's too, but I won't go there).

[Haselsh1]

A yes to all comments noticed about these speakers. I have to be honest though and say that I never did like the RTL speaker range. My faves were always the Studio series with the 0.5 being the one for me.

[Tanx0r]

I purchased a couple of Studio 0.75m's last sunday (a pair popped up on a dutch auction site), they are now hooked up to my old Marantz PM-80 mkII together with a couple of KEF Reference 104.2's for lots of A/B'ing.

I love the tight low end and insanely detailed stereo imaging of the TDL, the KEF sounds a bit less harsh in the upper mids then the TDL does making them sound better with bad mixes, I guess that's just something I will have to get used to (bad mixes sounding bad).

The TDL's low end kinda spoiled me and now I feel the KEF low end sounds boxy. Below 50-55hz it starts to become inaudible while the TDL pushes straight on through till 30hz, a frequency range that seems to be absent on a lot of cd's by the way since it eats up too much energy on cheap speaker sets. My opinion about the KEF low end might change though as I have only been comparing the two for one day now.

The drag with having two pairs of great speakers connected though is that some albums sound better on one, whil other albums sound better on the other and you end up unable to decide which ones are the better speakers.

Love the TDL, love the KEF too. I want to keep both but how do I tell the wife? :lol: Just kidding, she was the one who actually advised me to keep both the TDL and the KEF .

If I see any more TDL (studio series, the RTL aren't as good) pop up I will give you a shout.

By the way: This is my first ever set of transmission lines (dad owns a pair of IMF RSPM mk.IV - I blame him for making me buy TL's) and I must say the lows are sounding much clearer and more natural then I have ever heard with any subwoofers.

[Haselsh1]

Hey, dare I suggest you take a listen to the CD version of George Michaels 'Patience'. There is a track on there called 'John and Elvis are Dead' and the bass would be astounding on TDL's. In fact, the bass is atounding on my 100 quid Tangents, so, I guess it's going to be truly astonishing on TDL's. I keep checking ebay but the Studio 0.5's are just so rare.

[WILDMON]

I have a pair of these for sale,great condition black ash finish for 160 gbp,if anyone is interested.

Thanks

[WILDMON]

Btw all TDLs can be improved by rewiring the internal wire with some decent cable,i used cat5 and the improvement was quite substantial.if your confident with a soldering iron,changing the caps to better quality ones improves them further,you dont have to spend a lot either.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I have a pair of these for sale,great condition black ash finish for 160 gbp,if anyone is interested.

Thanks

Maybe you should put this into 'Private Exhibitions' with some photos.
http://theartofsound.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=22

[Haselsh1]

You know it's such a shame that these took so long to appear on the market as I just ran out of patience looking for some. I now have a brand new pair of Dali's.

[DSJR]

For a hundred and sixty notes, you can afford to buy them and store them for when the restlessness bites.

Go on, you know you want to...

Having caught up with this thread, I'd say the main issue with 0.75M's is their power handling and maximum volume, together with the tiny bass unit used. You can't have owt for nowt and John Wright really pulled the mid and top down hard on these to get the bass extension. Play some R&R loudly and the bass driver will fail by going open circuit, hence my earlier suggestion of the Studio 1M, which doesn't wallow at all, but goes very much louder IMO. TDL only killed it due to dealer apathy and no UK rep at the time...

The first generation of RTL's, especially the RTL2 were huge fun, but very badly finished. The SE version of the RTL's looked far better, but had the tweeter knocked down too much in level to compete with the AE109, a ballzup speaker designed to work with Marantz's "KI" horrors... OK, I'm being opinionated, but those around at the time would have heard the same things I did, I'm sure.........

[WILDMON]

Maybe you should put this into 'Private Exhibitions' with some photos.
http://theartofsound.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=22

Thats a good idea Grand Wazoo,will do that soon

[speakers-1989]

I am a very happy owner of a pair of TDL Studio 0.75M. These are the best speakers I have ever had in my life. I will never sell these as they are very rare. These 0.75M's I have are the special John Wright releases, as my ones have a very rare driver, only 50 of them were made.