I visited as many rooms demonstrating speakers as I could. I did this from the perspective of a DIY speaker hobbyist who wants to sample the technologies and trade-off decisions used in the development of some of the world's nicest speakers. I am looking for insight into what works and what doesn't. I am looking for inspiration. I'm also looking for commercial speakers that I can recommend to friends and family who don't DIY.
Moving from room to room, there are a lot of variables at play. Some rooms are big, while others are small. They have different acoustic qualities (big rooms sound a lot better). The source material is different, and typically something I'm not familiar with. It's entirely possible for the combination of source material and room acoustics to give me a bad impression of a good speaker. Sometimes I didn't come away with much of an impression at all... just sort of a run-of-the-mill speaker that doesn't stand out as good or bad.
My 2 favorite speakers were the BMR monitor and the BMR tower in the Philharmonic Audio room (306) . Dennis is a friend of mine, but that's my honest assessment. The BMR monitor provides incredible detail, balance, and bass extension for its size and price. Most people I know (non audiophiles) would be perfectly satisfied with the bass extension and dynamics of the BMR monitor. It looks classy, too. I'm a fan of ribbon and AMT tweeters, and I really like the RAAL. Dennis uses it expertly, by crossing it over high to another wide dispersion driver: the BMR. The box tuning is great as well, and he gets the most out of the woofer.
I do prefer the sound of the BMR tower to the BMR monitor. The MTM presentation comes off a little cleaner to me, and with a bigger woofer in a TL design, the tower digs deeper, too. It also has increased SPL capability compared to the monitor (not that this came into play at the volumes we were listening at). The BMR tower pulled off the best audio presentation I heard all day, and probably did so while costing less than any speaker outside of room 306. That's really a phenomenal achievement.
My next favorite speaker was the Perlisten S7T in the Montrose room. This speaker was the most similar to my own DIY multi-way line array designs, and I think it has enormous potential. I had seen the measurements and read the reviews and I was very excited to see them at CAF (which was a surprise). Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the fact that the speaker is just too low. It's a 51" tall speaker, but because of the design, the tweeter is only about 30-31 inches off the ground. That means I'm listening to a musical presentation that is perceptibly below my ear height. Perhaps it's my DIY tendencies coming out, but if I were to bring these speakers into my theater, I would be forced to go through the trouble of building a platform about 8" tall, that would be big enough and strong enough to support these heavy speakers.
Paired with a couple monster subwoofers, the presenters from Tenacious Sound were not shy with the volume. In this setup, the S7Ts offered effortless dynamics. The presenters were also happy to take requests. I really have to hand it to them for putting together such a great room. They got one of the bigger rooms, and set it up along the diagonal. They obviously had lots of clean power on tap. A very impressive set-up from a couple of nice guys. I did move around the room to see whether I could perceive the narrowing horizontal dispersion that was measured. I could. Despite that, I found the presentation to be a little "forward". I believe this is because the speaker measures very flat, even though it has a very narrow vertical beamwidth. According to Toole, the biggest impact of vertical reflections is a perceived shift in tonal balance. This is typically a welcome change that makes the speakers sound a little less bright or analytical. I do believe that it's more ideal to reduce the vertical reflections, for a cleaner presentation with better transients and dynamics, but the voicing of the speaker should be adjusted a little away from flat. This is a very minor complaint, and perhaps the speaker would be less marketable if voiced a little warmer, but I think it would sound better. If I owned these, I would plan on a bit of EQ to taste.
I was able to hear my favorite recording of a drum solo on the S7Ts. Unfortunately, the recording is so dynamic that is has to be played about 20 dB louder than compressed commercial offerings, and the presenters didn't account fully for this. They played it decently loud, but it could have still been louder. It honestly didn't have the same authenticity I'm used to at home, which is uncanny. I managed to get a center seat in the 2nd row when something from Amused to Death by Roger Waters was playing. For whatever reason, the extension of the soundstage well beyond the width of the speakers didn't work for me. It's not my favorite music, but I've listened to it at home and there the effect works. It may have to do with the set-up being along the diagonal, which I think is generally favorable to combat room modes when there isn't time to do a whole multi-subwoofer placement optimization, but it may have hindered this particular presentation.
Overall I am very thankful for the opportunity to hear the S7T, and I was very impressed with its capabilities. For me, it did have a couple of minor imperfections, but I think those could be addressed. At that point it could be an endgame speaker, if such a thing exists.
I plan to write more impressions of other speakers in a follow-up post, but I wanted to get the best stuff out of the way first. Anyone attending the show should make sure not to miss the Montrose room, or room 306.
