@JanErik1986

1 year ago

I have the RSTL version. When they were bought in 86 for 12 000 £ there were only a handful of them on the marked with the newer drivers instead of the KEF B139. They are awesome, and the bass is so "free" it's not even comparable to most other things on the marked even today. For comparison i had an SMS PB13 ultra, that simply blowd the TDLs out of the water in pure pressure and is a pure monster for movies - but the simple fact still stands that the dept and the bass from the TDL RSTL still sounds much more open and "free". A youtube video simply can't show it as you simply need a transmission-line speaker to experience this sound.

Measurements agree too, while the SVS PB13 ultra in 16Hz mode does play down to around 15Hz in room, my AVR calibrated the RSTLs near flat down to 11,5Hz!

Unfortunately the TDL bass drivers (not sure if the B139 is also affected) all have a common fault. The wires from connector to voice coils are to short to handle the bass drivers insane travel distance, and over time they will get a bad connection all the way at the voicecoil. If this happens to any of you TDL RSLT owners out there, the speaker might sound and feel blown cause it's a bad connection and it's connected in parallel (it fooled me at first, and i've worked with speakers my whole life), but it's repairable - although like me you might have to replace the spider changing the parameter of the driver a bit - but still worth it, and any decent AVR will easily compensate for the slight change in frequency response.

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