There is a new speaker designer in town, well sort of. Dennis Murphy, who has been desiging crossovers for Salk Sound and others, has come out with a line of speakers called Philharmonic Audio. Top of the line drivers in cabinets designed by Paul Kittinger, who also has designed cabinets for Salk Sound, at affordable prices. These got rave reviews at the CA audio fust just recently. These look very interesting indeed. www.Philharmonicaudio.com
Interesting design and driver selection. They also offer far more measurement and specification info on their site than 99% of speaker manufacturers. That's good to see. I hope they do well.
Chris, yes they are a very interesting design. They are the same basic design as the 11K Salk Sound Scape's, which Dennis of course designed the crossover for. I like the separate woofer enclosure to reduce unwanted vibrations. I also think the open back dipole planar midrange should really increase stage depth, and a Raal ribbon tweeter to top it off. I had a talk with Dennis a couple nights ago about the Philharmonic 3 speaker, a great guy to talk too. Definitely one of the good guy's in this business. His prices are basically his cost with $50 from each sale going to the Washington Philharmonic Orchestra. Thats impressive. I'm thinking Mahogany with a red dye would be nice .
Indeed. I'd like to hear them. Typically, I'm not a 3-way speaker type of guy. More like a 1-way type of guy lately. But, each design has its merits and you never really know until you get your ears on it. The planar driver is certainly interesting. Ribbon tweeters can be difficult to integrate.....so presumably there is some genius in the xover.
Ok, it's update time. Philharmonic 3 in ribbon mahogany with a merlot stain. Photos were from the cabinet maker. I don't think he has cleaned his camera lens in a while ;). The drivers are now in and the speakers will be broken in before shipping. Will post thoughts after some time spent with them.
I would like to give my initial thoughts on these speakers. I have been listening to them for about four days now and I think they are starting to settle in a bit. Lets start with the bottom end, and who doesn't love a great bottom end, sorry back to the speakers. Bass out of these speakers is very tight with quick transient response and good presence. I really can't believe how quick they are for an 8" driver, they are actually faster than my Totem Sttaf speakers with a 5" driver. They also reach down very deep. I don't know how deep in my room, maybe I should get a radio shack spl meter and see what my room is doing. Anyway, the bottom end is deep, tuneful and tight. The neo 8 mid driver is also very quick and accurate. I've never heard a planar before, but I really like it. Voices are clear and open with no boxiness what so ever. These are also dipole mids so you can adjust how much fill goes into the back of the cabinet to control the reverse wave. I have about 1/3 of the module filled, which ads a nice open and deep sound stage. The highs are very smooth and accurate. I didn't really know what to expect with a ribbon tweeter, as I have never heard one of these before either, but it is very nice. One thing I would like to note with regards to the ribbon tweeter compared to my previous silk dome tweeter is hard to explain, but I will try. With the silk dome's, highs would bounce around the room a lot, catching your attention. With the ribbon tweeters this doesn't happen. It's very even response is smooth but very detailed as well. Now this could also have a lot to do with the Xovers and not so much with the tweeters, I will let Dennis comment on that. The sound stage is large and deep. On some material I heard instruments exceed beyond speakers by a few feet with no sound appearing to come from the speakers at all. These speakers have a big sound with lots of presence, and depending on how much fill is added in the top module, can be more forward or laid back. They don't seem to be all that picky with room placement either. I am really enjoying these speakers, and they seem to be improving all the time.
On a side note, I have placed "Big Fat Gliders" from Herbies Audio Lab under these speakers which made moving them a lot easier to move as well as an improvement in tighter bass and detail. Also, I will be replacing the decoupling pad they come with, with some of Herbies decoupling pads underneath and on top of a MDF board with the top module set on top of that. I am told this should yield some improvement, but will report back after some time with this change.
The room is 15 x 25. They range from about 1 to 2 feet from the back, as this wall is a bay window, and a little over 3.5 feet from the side walls. Here is a photo.
That's a good sized room.....which I think you'd need with those bad boys. It's interesting that you'd get bass that tight with them pulled out only a foot or so, but I expect the rounded front wall created by the bay window is your friend. Does that bottom unit have a bass port in the back, or are they sealed ?
Chris, the ML-TL ports out the top of the bass module. This makes it very room friendly. These speakers are in about the same place as the Totems were. I might try them a little farther out into the room, but they are nice where they are now and don't intrude a too much.
