Philharmonic Audio - Dennis Murphy - Page 138

Unfortunately, I would have to charge shipping because I have to have it in hand to rotate the tweeter (it involves cutting away some of the mdf in the drill hole). Otherwise it could be shipped directly to you from across the Pacific free of charge.

So Dennis, any chance you want to throw together a smallish sealed center with the tang band, fountek, and a pair o them SB 18s for those of us (read: me) with wide off axis listening positions??

Don't know how smallish it would be with 6.5" woofers. I am developing a wmtw with the ER15's, tang band, and RAAL. I might also do one with the fountek.

sounds good to me, as long as I can afford it!

Loving the looks of the Slims!

I came to AVS looking for recommendations on floor standers and was redirected here. Read around 100 pages on various forums and the Philharmonic Audio line really are getting some great feedback.

Firstly, in regards to the slims (whenever they're out), how would they pair with a Plinius SA Reference? 300 into 8ohms, 450 into 4 ohms.

Secondly, anyone compared the Philharmonics line to the Sonus Faber Venere 3.0? This speaker is on the top of my list right now. I like the idea of a more laid back/relaxed sound, though I'm willing to give that up for neutrality and detail if Philharmonics really are that good.

Thanks in advance.

Hi The Slims haven't been formally introduced yet--that will happen at the Capital Audio Fest in July. There's only one pair in a customer's hands so far, so I don't think you can expect much feedback. That owner will post a review, hopefully within a week or so. I haven't heard the Venere, although it certainly looks interesting. The Phil may go a little lower than the Venere, although it's not as sensitive. The Phil also has the RAAL ribbon tweet and an open-back midrange, but it's the sound that counts, not the driver types or configuration. Aside from that one impending review, I don't think you'll find any more info on the Slims until the July audio show. Oh--any amplifier with an honest 100 watts will do fine with the Slims. They're a very easy load to drive.

That sole owner is me. I am working on my review of the slims and hope to have it out soon. In the meantime, all that I can say is that they are phenomenal and as neutral as one can get. They sound open, airy and go low, really low. They have all the qualities one can ask for in a speaker.

Looking forward to reading your review.

Here is my completely biased 2 cents. I was in the same place you are. I saw the Sonus Faber Venere's and immediately wanted them. They had the WAF that I needed in order to get tower speakers. I had some mammoth Eosone RSF 1000 that my wife hated and figured every tower speaker would be an eye sore. It probably did not help that I was running RSF 400 towers as surrounds. I was set to take about 216 mile drive to listen to some. I had already auditioned some Bowers and Wilkins and Paradigm speakers at a couple of dealerships. I was cruising through these forums and happened upon a set of speakers made by another company that Dennis had designed and made the crossovers for. I was able to go audition a pair that could be considered the slightly bigger brother to what I was looking at but still using the same RAAL tweeter. I loved that tweeter and immediately knew I did not need to look at any other speakers and placed my order shortly after.

Now having said that if the Phil Slims had been out before I placed my order I would have given them serious thought, especially with the upgraded finish possibilities. Sorry Dennis but the Phil 2's and 3's did not meet WAF.... The Phil Slims would have. I have asked Dennis a couple of questions through PM and he has been very helpful, as he has to anyone who asks questions here on the forums. I like his work on other speakers so I am pretty sure I would like these also. I unfortunately am not versed enough in speaker sound nuances to wax on in colorful prose about them. I will tell you I know what I like when I hear it, and so far the speakers that Dennis has had a hand in have sold me.

I am also looking forward to reading your review.

Hey--no apologies needed. The 3's are definitely guy-type speakers, and not all guys. There's a reason I'm coming out with a new model that doesn't look like a church steeple.

Don't know about 3.0, but 2.5 certainly doesn't measure as well as Philharmonics:
http://www.hometheater.com/content/sonus-faber-venere-25-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures

I'd vouch that the Phils could compare favorably to some of Sonus Faber's speakers that are higher up on the food chain. Just to offer some perspective about value, the Phil Slims houses a variant of the Scan-Speak Revelator woofer. The smaller 5.5" version of the same woofer was used in Sonus Faber's Cremona speakers, which retailed for $7,500 a pair. The Cremona also used an OEM version of Vifa's XT25 tweeter, a really well regarded ring radiator but not nearly on the same level as a RAAL ribbon in my opinion. Of course drivers aren't everything and comparing speakers of different lines from different companies can be an apples to oranges thing.

it goes without saying however that the crossover design in any of Dennis's speakers does justice to the quality drivers, you can rest assured.

Oh, and Sonus Faber makes really pretty cabinets.

Wow! that is a significant dip at 7K! While I realize that FR curves are only a beginning in looking at speakers. But, a 11db difference between 7k and 10k? I guess these frequencies are outside of the fundamental frequencies of most instruments…. but it still seems that it would 'color' the sound.

From a lot of the reviews on those 2.5 it seems that people like the sound signature of the speaker. I think that dip is intentional to make the sound appear more warm and to "color" the sound. Again some people like it others not so much. One thing to add is the off angle response of a speaker. Look at Dennis off-axis all the way up to 60 deg and look at how pencil straight is stays. That is usually a very good characteristic to have and usually leads to much better control when placed in a less than ideal room.

Has the Philharmonics also been measured by HTM? If so please post a link because I could not find it.

Naturally, no, but you can look at the measurements posted on Mr. Murphy's Philharmonic Audio site.

In that case, it is not an apples to apples comparison.

For a minute there I thought that maybe HTM had reviewed & measured Dennis' speakers.

You're comparing near-field on-axis response above 200 Hz for two sets of speakers. What's not apples to apples here? Or are you saying you don't trust the OP's posted measurements?

I consider them to be apples to apples only when the measurements were subjected to the exact same identical set of measurement data/criteria performed by the exact same objective 3rd party. Far too many variables come into play otherwise.

For a random example, compare the NHT Classic Three's measurements on HTM & S&V (not to mention Soundstage, and Stereophile). The same speaker model's measurements look nothing alike on them.

That's certainly a valid point--you don't know whether they're being measured at the same distance, or what the mic position was relative to the tweeter, and there will be differences in resolution, smoothing application (I don't use any), and microphone
calibration. But none of that would explain the big dip in the mid treble. That's either a conscious design decision, or there is some kind of phase issue between the drivers. I'm assuming it's the former, although I would have expected the depression to be a little lower down--more like in the 2500 - 3500 Hz
region. That will give a more relaxed feeling to some recorded material and perhaps make for a seemingly more spacious sound.

And I think that's the sound that I identify with Sonus Faber...relaxed, spacious, but definitely not possessing a flat FR. I actually like the sound of SF's, but wouldn't trade my Phils for nuttin'.

Here is a look at another SF, the Minuetto, compliments of Stereophile. One can see the familial resemblance....



Fig.2 Sonus Faber Minuetto, acoustic crossover on tweeter axis at 45" corrected for microphone response, with nearfield woofer and port responses below 300Hz and 1kHz, respectively.

But that's more in line with what I would have expected from the 2.5--a U-shaped response centered in the lower treble at the crossover . The dip for the 2.5 is higher up, completely out of the range of any fundamentals that
an instrument would generate. It's kind of strange.