Home Theater Direct — Local services in Wylie

About four years ago I purchased my first HTD speakers, a level THREE five channel setup, for a den. My wife and I are both kind of audio nerds so we were directly comparing it to a Polk Tsx series five channel setup, and our (then) pride and joy living room setup of KEF Q700 towers with center and Q300 rears. I assumed the KEFs would remain on top as far as critical listening goes, and for a while they did, but I'm sure reading this review you know where I'm going. If this review is too verbose TL;DR buy the Level THREE speakers, they are amazing.

Starting with the packaging these are packaged very well; outer box with a padded inner box. All speakers come in large cloth 'socks' that prevent microscratching. They even come with gloves to wear during positioning if you are so inclined! I have veneered and restored some speakers as a hobby, the HTD Level THREE ebony veneer is nicer than anything I am capable of, way nicer than the KEF's veneer, light years better than Polk's faux wood, even nicer than Polk's nicer offerings from the 80's (Monitor Series 9) Four posts in back for bi wiring, Q700s had that, the 750's they sell now don't. So big win for HTD in terms of craftsmanship. When I first got my Level THREE towers I put them right where I put the Q700's. The soundstage was narrower, not as much punch to bass, but the clarity was incredible. Everything sounded much more forward. Vocal solos felt intimate in a way the KEFs could not reproduce. This intrigued me because it was the opposite of what I was hoping for. I thought nothing could top KEF for imaging and clarity, and out of the box the Level THREE Towers crushed that expectation. The midrange dome on the Level THREE speakers ensures that nothing is lost or recessed in the 2khz range. The KEFs use a wave guide over the tweeter and mid that blends really well and I worried that going from a Uni-Q driver to a series of drivers would cause beaming, as far as I can tell it does not.

Reading reviews of the HTD Level THREE speakers many people comment on the quality of bass, so I knew that something was wrong on my end. I contacted HTD and they walked me through their setup based on the shape of the room the left channel was too close to the wall. After some adjustment both speakers were moved roughly a foot forward. My receiver (Marantz 8012) was bi-wired and a menu setting was switched from 'small' to 'large', and the bass was there, Tight, accurate, and extends down to at least 60hz. Recently we added the HTD branded 2 channel amp, with HTD's own bi-wire cable. Buying an amp and wiring from the same company that made the speakers felt counter-intuitive, but from my research there isn't anywhere else that offers a bi-wire cable where the woofers take a bespoke gauge and oxygen free copper while the mid and tweeters get a silver tinned oxygen free copper cable with a coordinating gauge. We have always used receivers, so I was unsure of how appreciable a difference a $350 two channel amp would have over a 9 channel receiver that runs 125 watts peak per channel. The HTD amp runs at 125 watts RMS, the only one that compared specification-wise from Parasound was $300 USD more. Adcom had similar prices. Again reading reviews told me that people who bought the Parasound were disappointed comparatively to the HTD amp. We chopped up the cables, applied heat shrink and banana plugs, put a record on, and our minds were blown. As an audio nerd a moment of pure satisfaction is rare. These speakers have me at a point where I can't think of anything better for less than 6k. Spending more money for a pair of speakers might not yield a better result, in fact I can think of a few popular pairs that are substantially worse! (Klipsch R Series)

Recently I poked a hole in one of my speaker grills by accident. I sent them an email during the worst of the 2021 ice storms that have been hitting Texas. I received an auto reply due to their warehouse and offices being damaged, so I would take any recent negative reviews about response times with a...

Update up on my original review…3/2/22 Brian Wines from HTD, one of the owners, contacted me and we discussed my issues, I must say that he was truly concerned and wanted to know my thoughts on what I felt were my problems and issues, he stated that he listened to my call with tech support and felt that there was a misunderstanding on my issues with the tech I talked with.

I was very impressed that he (HTD) cared for my problems and my thoughts on this. I will say that he was very helpful, we discussed how to improve my issues and experience , he also let me in on future improvements. The call ended with him telling me if I had any other issues to please call him direct.

I am leaving my original write so all can read the original problem however I am upgrading my initial review from two stars to five just based on the support alone, think about it, how many companies now a day give a s*^t enough to reach out the the customer, not many.

Bottom line I received new information to improve my use of the system and experience, and he took some of my suggestions as a customer to possibly find ways to provide some videos on implementation of the whole house audio .

Thank you Mr. Wines and HTD for reaching out to help me.

2/21/22 Disappointed, I read a lot of reviews, and watched all the videos, but none explain that when using the 1240ADS and the Lync touch pads it doesn’t control the audio for your Alexa, or if you add a source you also have to use the source and streaming device to control the audio levels….what are the touch pads for them if I have to go into one app to adjust the sound and then the streamer to adjust the sound and the. The lync touch/ App to adjust the sound……so what’s the point of the touch pads or the App, I called HTD and they told me that it’s just an Amp and and the touch pads and do “intercom”. Spent money on this from HTD assuming that I had a good system, well, I could have gotten better equipment for the same price that would stream music form my phone and/or streamer and would have been better. So far for this new build I am not impressed by HTD, much better systems out there and I should have gone another direction, very disappointed at this point…..a Yamaha surround system or even a wireless Sonos would have been much better and more cost effective and had much better control and quality sound. Will Not recommend HTD to others and family, not anymore the more I find as I hook everything up and I have to use multiple devices to play my music and control the volume.

Furthermore the Lync touch pads are of poor quality plastic, the metal sleeve that the pads go into break at the weld point, 3 out of my 6. Wish I would have read more reviews like this and realized that the equipment is not...

This review is long over due. First thing I can say is WOW! These guys are awesome and make a quality product that they stand behind.

I purchased a Link12 unit with their high-end speakers almost two years ago. I had intermittent issues for the first year and my professional installer and IT company tried and tried to resolve the issues and contacted HTD support multiple times. Each time with no luck. Mike and Rickey were both very responsive and always willing to help. While maintaining a professional attitude they both seemed insistent that the issue was on my end and not the equipment.

I eventually got escalated to Chris Ashmore, I believe the head of product design, and not only did he find resolution to some of my issues within a 15 minute phone call, he also “schooled” my IT professional on networking about a week later. Again, in a very professional and polite manner. Chris is a wealth of information, understands not only his products, but everybody else’s products that aren’t even related to audio. He unknowingly helped me fix a network printer issue I had been having by simply walking me through some changes over the phone that my IT professional could never get corrected. While I was hesitant to start touching cables and moving network cables around, Chris gave me assurance that, with his guidance, we were going to get through this without issue. Guess what? He was right!

After swapping controllers, gateways, touchpads, and even one of my amplifiers, the issue was on my end the whole time. When I build my next house I will be ordering another HTD system, and I will not hire an Audio Video company to install it. I will not hire an IT guy. I’m going to hire a college kid looking to make some side cash and tell him to call Chris at HTD and follow everything he tells them to do. Turns out my professional audio installation company and professional IT networking guy were worth their weight in salt. Chris and the rest of the crew at HTD are worth their weight in gold! And they have great quality...