Philharmonic Audio - Dennis Murphy - Page 125

I do every night.

The final movement of Mahler's 2nd Symphony, "Resurrection", gets me every time.

Cheers,
OldMovieNut

Yep. By my wife. She doesn't get it when I sit in the dark and listen to music for hours. Recorded music is just a background thing for her. I can get her to go to concerts, though. She endured Crossroads 2010 with her daughter, her daughter's husband and me for darn near 12 hrs.

Cheers,
OldMovieNut

More questions!

So... I nailed down my center. Jim is going to build me one based on Dennis's design with a Fundtek tweeter. (I asked Dennis about 4000 plus questions on this alone.) I was worred the MTM design would not cut it. Then I really wanted the RAAL. Then I wanted a RAAL with a WTMW design.

Dennis pulled me out of the clouds and kept me on budget...

If any of you have a Dennis deisgned center feedback would be wonderful!

Now on to surrounds. I am looking and looking for surrounds... I saw a fair amount of reviews for the PhilMonitor 2's...but nothing really for the new monitors. Any feedback? Anyone using them for surrounds? Overkill? How are you mounting them?

In the end I am sure I am going to bug all you...and Dennis to death..and then go with Dennis's recommendation, but why break tradition now. I still have 921 more questions to ask Dennis before I just do what he first suggested.

If Dennis charged by the hour for advise...he would make more profit than he does by "selling" speakers.

I've got the Salk SongCenter Front ported, with the RAAL tweeter. I think it matches the Phil 3's perfectly and I've been extremely happy with it.

As to surrounds, I didn't end up going with the Philharmonitors. I ended up going with a different brand that fit the bill a bit better for my tastes. I don't listen to multichannel music so the surrounds are only for movies, but I think they're tremendous and I have plans to add a few more eventually and upgrade some of the ones I have because I ended up liking them so much.

Have you heard the Philharmonitors?

I haven't. I heard some other monitors that have been said to be similar to the Philharmonitors, but ended up wanting dipole/bipole surrounds instead. After having sampled your work with the Phils, I have no doubt as to the quality, but there was something about the other design I gravitated towards for surrounds, well that and the ability to pump hundreds of watts of power into them without fear of blowing them up.

To each his own. I've developed a couple of bipole-dipoles, and they're fun, but they're more for special effects than reproduction of the input signal. Sometimes that wash of sound can be effective in a HT setting, but I've also found it annoying at other times.

I don't like bipole or dipoles for surrounds. They make everything sound too diffuse. Rain and crickets should be spacious and hard to pinpoint. Gun shots should not be. I think monopoles are best as they can sound spacious but don't always sound spacious.

From what I read...anyone and everyone correct me if I am wrong on any count:

Bipole-Dipole try to recreate the experience of a movie theater... Movie theaters have multiple direct radiating speakers all around the theater and therefore it is hard to pinpoint any of the background sounds. When the movies are getting mastered, however, they use direct raidiating speakers.

There are people in both camps Bipole-Dipole and direct raidiating speakers for surrounds. In general, dipole-bipole envelop you better in background sound...but for the occasion where there is a location specific sound ...you loose that (unless you believe the hype of some speakers like Klipsh).

Thus, this recreates a movie theater type environment but you loose the directivity for the small percent of time that there is directivity for rear sound.

Another negative of bipole-dipole is that they can ONLY be used as surrounds and they are a little picky on how they are hung in a room (so allot of rooms can not accomidate them).

Now direct raidiating can't envelop you as well in background effects but it does a decent job if positioned properly and when there is directivity of sound in the rear channles it can do this. In addition, your options in placement are better and you can use these speakers for things other than surround sound if you should ever choose to do so. This is also how movies are mixed etc.. So the purests argue for this rather than the movie theater experience because the theaters are comprimising the orginal sound...

Now fast forward to 7.1...where you get another set of speakers which more closely mimicks a movie theater... (or can if you get rear surrounds) and you get the best of both worlds...at a cost.

Now to get back (at least a little) on track ...you have speakers like the PhilMonitor with a ribbon tweater that have excellent sound stage and off-axis response... Which should in theory again give you the best of both worlds.

Sticking to a 5.1 system for now... I am again researching everything to the Nth degree trying to figure it all out.

It seems after reading...allot... The opinion has waxed and wained over the last half dozen years to the count of about 70/30.. (Not very scientific at all btw) 70 in favor of direct raidiating speakers for surrounds and 30 in favor of bipoles-dipoles.

Or you can add heights and use PLIIz which helps disperse the monopole surrounds for movies but can keep directivity for multichannel music if you don't have room for rear surrounds.

I had some of the same feelings, but I don't feel like I lose nearly as much as with other bipole/dipole surrounds. I compared them to the EMP E41Bs and the Phil 3s as side surrounds and was pleasantly surprised. I felt I had struck a pretty happy balance between accuracy and that enveloping sound, plus they kept me on budget which is always a good thing.

How about having your cake and eating it too? Get a speaker that's both a dipole AND a monopole. I have a pair of Revels (Performa2 S30) that have a selection switch to change the operation from dipole to monopole. It also offers the option to automatically change based on a 12V sensor. That's how I have it setup. When watching movies, the speakers will automatically switch to dipole mode and when listening to MC music it switches to monopole mode. If you have a high end receiver with select-able speaker amp assignments you could program it to switch between two sets of speakers for dipole/monopole duties as well.

Because a jack-of-all trades are usually master of none... Not saying that is the case with the Revels since I never heard them. I have seen others that do same type of thing: Flaunce and SVS to name a couple. Not sure if you can as easily switch modes but you can do both.

That being said..what is cost and what do they sound like in both modes?

Trying hard not to derail Dennis thread here... So back to Dennis's speakers:

Center with Fundtek and New Philmonitors... Any impressions. Who has them? Who went with ST Center instead? Something else?

Anyone using Philmonitors as surrounds? How did you mount them?

The day promised Mosses on mount high is nigh upon us... Next week I will be getting my Phil 2's.

That being the case I thought I would ask all here... What are your top 3... I wish I knew "xxx" about my Phil's when I got them. I am just trying to anticipate things like fill in the upper unit, or spike feet...or I don't know

I have read through this entire thread and a couple more on other websites. I have learned a fair amount ...but would still like those that have gotten cozy around their speakers some insight I may be able to use.

Thanks all... Full review pending probably next month. I want to give it full time to run through paces...compare apples to apples to oranges to gorillas. The good, bad, and the oogly.

Congrats! I've seen your messages in several forums, our experiences are very similar, as is our ultimate choice, even down to the subwoofer.

The only important thing you need to know is hooking the top to the bass cabinet. If by chance instructions are not provided get in touch with Dennis. Everything else is fun - placement, amount of fill, audition tracks.

Gently Used Philharmonitor 1's For Sale

These gently used Philharmonitor I's feature the same Fountek ribbon tweeter used in the Philharmonic I, and the 6.5" version of the 8" SB Acoustics woofer used in the Philharmonic I and II.
The .5 cubic foot cabinet is mirror gloss black with magnetic grills. They are in as-new condition. These are an excellent bargain at $600/pr. A full set of measurements is available on request. If interested, e-mail Dennis at
info@philharmonicaudio.com.

So tempted on the Philmonitors. Must resist...

Any real difference between today's Philmonitor and the Philmonitor 1 besides the cabinet ...think you Dennis this cabinet is a Dayton PartsExpress cabinet (which was causing him pains cause it is a tad bit "soft" and his cabinet guy hated routing these out) vs. the new cabinets which are made by the folks at Alexis...all else I think are the same? Same stats?

Dimensions on these?
Edited by Newbie01 - 3/9/13 at 9:33pm

Hi. The two versions of the monitor sound very much alike, but the only thing in common is the ribbon tweeter. The original monitors with the PE cabinets used the Seas ER17 woofer, which is the 6.5" version of the 5" woofer used in the Salk SongTower. The current monitor uses the 6.5" version of the 8" SB Acoustics woofer used in the Philharmonic 1's and 2's. The crossovers are completely different in terms of components, but the acoustical properties are nearly identical. If I flipped back and forth between them, I doubt that you would know which was playing.

Thanks Dennis... So response, etc are almost identical to the current stats on web site? Do you have the dimensions of these by any chance?

SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!

Were these the ones that Chamerci couldn't set up right in his room? Great deal someone got here. I really wanted to pick them up but I've got too many speakers right now.

Hi. The monitors are totally sold. But stay tuned. I'll have a really interesting pair of custom monitors based on the old ACI Sapphire speaker pretty soon, and for not a lot of money. Focal woofer, ring radiator tweeter, Sapphire cabinets, a crossover I just designed.

Doh...guess you snooze you loose

Someone got a great set of speakers! After listening to the Ascend 170SE for the last week plus... I really appreciate both how much the 170 SE give...and how much they are missing...but heck..they are just $300 bucks for two. I am sure they will be fine for surrounds.

In a week or so I will have my new Phil 2's... I can't wait! Well..yes I can. Dennis...go enjoy life...don't worry..they will get here when they get here

If you didn't stop to answer my 932 questions I am sure you could have made 50 more sets of speakers by now.

Dennis shipped my Phil 2's today!

So I have some questions for everyone... I have the old Chinese Cabinets. Since these come with grills...

In Dennis's instructions he says: "Each RAAL tweeter is supplied with two foam pads that can be attached magnetically to the face of the tweeter. These pads have two functions. The first is to improve vertical dispersion above 10 kHz, although the impact is very subtle. The second is to allow easy adjustment of the high frequency response. If you find the high frequencies of the Philharmonic 3 too prominent for your room or tastes, placing the pads closer and closer together will gradually attenuate the highs. The pads cannot, however, be used with a grill. For this reason, the Philharmonic 3 tweeter on speakers supplied with grills has been voiced flat when no pads are in use. There will be a moderate rise in the upper treble response for speakers not supplied with grills with no pads attached. This will provide a greater range of options with and without the pads. The response will be flat with the pads widely spaced, and will be down 5 dB at 15 kHz when the pads are very close together."

Now I did read through the threads and saw people with the older cabinet's used the pads...


So what are other people doing with pad settings using the older Chinese cabinets? Do they just keep the grills on? Are they voiced flat like the Phil 3's are now?

Thanks! I can't wait!

Congrats! My Phil 2s (older cabinet style) arrived today. I've been playing around with the pads and so far I like it the best with one pad at the top and one at the bottom (essentially the farthest apart they can go). These sound awesome. Much better than the umpteenth set of speakers that I've auditioned in my home.

So it was your speakers holding up mine! Just kidding...I told Dennis multiple times that I am in no rush, but now that they are shipped... I WANT THEM.

I did what no one is supposed to do... I bought them without hearing them. Largest blind purchase I ever made... Dennis integrity made me trust him enough to do that.

He told me no fewer than 3 times to not buy something from him because it was over kill.. How many people would do that?

Yup--you two got the last of the cheap Phil 2's. VicTorious got the most problematic B-stock cabinets, and you got the ones with only a small dent in one of the woofer boxes. (You paid more.) Hopefully FedEx will cancel
their planned cabinet toss derby for tomorrow, and those puppies will arrive with no further dents.

You think you want yours? My Phil 3's have been sitting unopened since early November at my mother's house 1,600 miles away. I just closed on a house Monday so I think I'll fly to Memphis soon and pick them up along with a bunch of other stuff I dropped off there when I moved from Florida to Toronto 4.5 years ago. The good news is my new house is a few times larger than the Toronto house so these will have plenty of room to breathe.

I couldn't be happier with my "problematic B-Stock." The one cabinet with a minor blemish is definitely not noticeable, and they sound fantastic. I also have a couple extra bucks in my pocket.
Edited by VicTorious1 - 3/13/13 at 9:40pm