Philharmonic Audio - Dennis Murphy - Page 60

We all knew something was wrong all along.

Now it is confirmed.

I am upgrading from TV speakers.
I just got into this whole audio thing a few months ago and noe I am hooked...I don't have the budget for surround so I am just going to add a rhthmik FV12 or may be epik legend for my 14 x 28 room. Problem is I can't hear any of these subs so I I am taking the word of the good folks here and going with it

Hi Everyone, I'm anticipating the CAF so I can finally hear the Phils...is there anything that I need to know in advance? Best day to attend, should I make a weekend of it....etc. I've never been to an exhibition and am excited. Let me know please, thanks...

Many display rooms at these audio shows are small hotel rooms, with concrete floors and possibly concrete walls too. Some rooms are fine and some are terrible sounding. You should expect that speakers in them won't sound anything like the same speakers in rooms in your home. So be prepared for that. Experienced speaker designers know how to make the best of these sometimes limited rooms. If you go on Sunday, they have had time to sort out the best speaker/listener positions and what music to avoid playing.

Bring some CDs of your own with music that you are familiar with. That helps when listening to new speakers.

Be prepared to see and hear a lot of nonsense about how speakers and amps ought to work .

Wear comfortable shoes.

Good advice, all. It's not a very big show--nothing like RMAF--so you can easily check everything out in one day. I have a double-size room, which I'm hoping will be large enough to show the phil's to full advantage. I had a huge room last year, but they doubled the price.

+1

BTW whatever happened to the Dennis Fanboy Club T-shirts ...I guess these would be a bit hit at CAF too...

I still want my "I <3 Dennis" T-Shirt!! Maybe a picture on the back!

Elemental design and EPIK along with SVS are probably your best bet as what you get for what you spend... If you can wait a few weeks to get more money, i would recommand going the elemental design a7s-650 DIY build... I got it 2 month ago (a 2000$ subwoofer for 1100$ that you build yourself) It is very easy to build, i pratically never built anything before that. It's VERY powerfull, has the sound quality of a sealed build (better than ported for SQ) and it doesnt take much space on the floor. Look at this link

http://cinemamaisonquebec.proboards....lay&thread=523

it's in french but you will see all the pics of the different step

I've searched for month on this site subwoofer section before ending with that one which was the cheapest for price other than completely building everything( including cutting woods) from ground.

Martin

Thanks for the update Nuance.

I'm a bit confused though. Wouldn't the snapped midrange wire result in no output from that midrange driver which would have been immediately apparent when playing?

I guess not. It made it sound thin and recessed, which was the problem I was hearing while they were in my house; My wife and TJHUB noticed it too. The reason we didn't say anything is because we wanted to hear them in a better room (acoustically speaking), so we waited until hearing them at Terry's house. They sounded better, but as I noted in the GTG thread, the midrange still sounded wrong.

I am sure Dennis can better explain the sound and why there was any output at all.

Thanks Nuance.

Hopefully Dennis will post about this as find it very educational.

Nuance, I am so dissappointed for you not to hear the 2s, but you will soon. Obviously there was something bad wrong and there it is.

azb120, sounds good, very good sub.....and if you just had tv speakers....he he...., then you will most definitely be in for the biggest audio treat, even better than rice crispy treats......popcorn and coke at a movie.

hehe..I cant wait man.....its been 34 days since i placed the order for my Phil2s , the Neo8 are stuck with the customs ...

Ha Ha, you will be very happy....sent pm.

Sorry about the Neo8s, they are excellent as well.

Thank you Sir !

Here is a design

I think Dennis should throw the T-shirst with the logo in the box with Phils ....sort of like an extra layer of protection during shipping

Well, I just spoke with Nuance. I still can't explain the measurements he took. All I know is that the sound I heard when I hooked up the 2's out of the return boxes exactly matched his description of the sound in his room. As I explained to him, if you use a good speaker along with a speaker with less presence and range, the good speaker will dominate. The stereo pair still won't sound as good as they should, but some people might not think there was anything wrong even though one of the midranges was completely MIA. They might just think they sounded like "one of those warm British speakers." So it wouldn't be a Eureka moment where everyone went running over to the speakers to see what was wrong. This would be particularly true of the Phil's, because the woofer runs up to 600 Hz, so there was still a lot of midrange information in the mix. In any event, azb120is coming over Sunday to hear them. I'll play them fixed, and with one of the midranges out, and he can give you his reactions.

Ha Ha, now all we need is a Caricature Artist's rendering of the Dennis character!!!

I don't understand how the measurements wouldn't pick that up either.

I would also think that the imaging would be totally screwed if one of the midrange drivers went out. I know when my old Magnepans blew a fuse and the midrange went out on one speaker, it was instantly noticeable.

Did Nuance take his measurements from a stereo pair or a single speaker? If it was a single speaker, it was a 50/50 chance he measured the undamaged one.

A mono measurement of only the working speaker, yet stereo listening to the working + nonworking speakers ;P


It was totally screwed. ALMFamily described it:

"When I sat in the sweet spot, I closed my eyes for a while and then opened them and tried to focus on Terry's Panasonic to see how well the speakers "disappeared" for me (I did this with all speakers). I struggled to get past the feeling that I could point to which speaker was producing specific sounds"

Here is the post with the measurements. It looks like both speakers were measured.

That does raise a problem but there are plenty of speakers that don't disappear but still have somewhat decent imaging - some instruments centered between the speakers. With one speaker missing the midrange, I would have expected a lot of skewed images.

Hi Swerd,

I disagree. Unless the AC is on, or it's haunted, a "room" does not make any "sound". An acoustic source has to. They will certainly interact, based primarily on source type and polar characteristics, then the room contents. I have now been to dozens of shows, been an active participant with firsthand knowledge of the scenarios in several..and there is no excuse whatsoever for "terrible sound". None. If my (hotel) "room" sounds terrible, then my acoustic sources - speakers...and knowledge suck. Period.
Don't expect them to then magically transform into great speakers in your home.


The major differences should only be in the bass/Schroeder transition frequency and possibly spatial presentation. HF reproduction should vary only slightly between a hotel room and living room, unless the off axis has huge peaks that are masked by a large room, padding, etc.


Now that is great advice. The only problem is when it turns out to be ABBA or something similar. I am still incredulous at some of the tracks folks want to hear, so see if the speaker "sounds good" to them. I have no clue what a "good" reproduction of Mama Mia is supposed to sound like, no such reference event exists in my acoustic memory, but to each their own.
I'll usually allow one such track before I hit the stop button...


Nah. It's the crazy wiring, wood block, "Quantum" X,Y,Z, etc, etc. he needs to be prepared for....and the sticker shock.

cheers,

AJ

I really don't have a satisfactory explanation for the measurements. I brought it up it in the first place, so I'm only trying to understand exactly what happened. To flip the coin a little, though, if both speakers really measured that well, then why would would people think the mids were recessed and the overall sound thick and foggy? I designed 4 of the speakers at the event, and used the same techniques to measure and voice them. They all should have sounded very similar, except for some added depth in the open-back designs (Phil's and SoundScapes). No one thought the SoundScapes sounded off (other than amp distortion), and the SS10's and Phil's measure practically identically from 32 Hz on up.

Prior to the GTG, the most common description of the Philharmonics I had read was along the lines of "They disappear like nothing i've ever heard". All of a sudden you get to "These speakers didn't disappear very well"?

Disappearing is itself one form of "imaging". It's best described as mono imaging, which translates to stereo imaging.

Very impressive.

I wouldn't say my pair 'disappears' but they sound pretty good.