New Philharmonic BMR HT Towers

[mSpot]

Yup--all of our speakers come with magnetic grills. They're one-piece rectangular for the HT and Monitor, and a two piece that looks like one piece with a curved bottom for the big BMR tower.

Hi Dennis, do you have any pics of your speakers with grills? There are none on your website. How much do they affect the sound?

 

[Beave]

Hi Dennis, do you have any pics of your speakers with grills? There are none on your website. How much do they affect the sound?

I did a Google image search and found this one picture with the full length grille, shown in the link below (there are pics of the old grille, then lower down there are pics for the new grille):

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/philharmonic-audio-bmr-monitors-tower-speakers.1127169/page-2

 

[tw 2022]

I don’t think the HT towers have less clarity at all compared to the regular BMR towers. One could argue that the HT might offer a bit more clarity in the lows due to the super low distortion from the purifi drivers compared to the Revelator.
the revelator and regular BMR tower just goes lower.

@Dennis Murphy would be able to clarify.

the ht didn't exist when the big tower came out , Dennis used the less expensive mid driver(bmr) to keep price down , extended the low end to about 20 hz at the expense of output ,,,, he built the ht tower with output as a primary concern.. the big tower costs less and sounds as good with music , having better extension....pretty simple formula if you take him and his stated goal as fact....

 

[Nkam]

the ht didn't exist when the big tower came out , Dennis used the less expensive mid driver(bmr) to keep price down , extended the low end to about 20 hz at the expense of output ,,,, he built the ht tower with output as a primary concern.. the big tower costs less and sounds as good with music , having better extension....pretty simple formula if you take him and his stated goal as fact....

I don’t think that Dennis chose the BMR midrange driver for expense reasons. He used the purifi drivers and Mundorf tweeter In the HT and the revelator and raal tweeter in the regular tower.
he used the BMR midrange drivers in pretty sure as a means to an end. From what I understand The BMR midranges are pretty much full range speakers and wide and controlled dispersion. not to mention super low distortion.
so that allowed him flexibility at the crossover and to integrate the drivers better.
this led to an even and wide dispersion across a huge bandwidth.

plus the smaller diameter of the BMR drivers allows for better integration of the MTM configuration in the speaker, since they can get closer in physical distance from the tweeter.

i am far from an expert. So Dennis can better answer this. But that’s what I gathered from previous discussions.

 

[tw 2022]

I don’t think that Dennis chose the BMR midrange driver for expense reasons.

i know he did... he's talked about it openly in the past, the bmr turned out to work well as a midrange despite it's low cost...that's why he chose it originally, as well as the performance level.. ... he was selling prior generations of bmr monitors at much lower prices... all the things you point to in the rest of your post are great points ...just a heads up , i've been following Dennis for several years (before he reopened)...

 

[Nkam]

i know he did... he's talked about it openly in the past, the bmr turned out to work well as a midrange despite it's low cost...that's why he chose it originally, as well as the performance level.. ... he was selling prior generations of bmr monitors at much lower prices... all the things you point to in the rest of your post are great points ...just a heads up , i've been following Dennis for several years (before he reopened)...

ok man. Pardon. I didn’t want to come off as knowing it all.

didn’t know you followed Dennis for so long and his previous comment about the BMR driver.
I stand corrected sir.

thanks !

 

[snaimpally]

Let’s not ignore how popular the Affordable Accuracy line was. In the end, he took the Dayton BR1 kit complete with the Dayton Silk Dome Tweeter and got it sound g better than the previous “upgrade” AA+ with Morel Tweeter.
,)

I bought this pair of the AA speakers and couldn't get over how good he managed to make these off-the-shelf Dayton drivers sound.

In terms of driver costs, if you read the Audioholics review, he notes that "The $4.5k/pair pricing is abnormally low considering the [$2500 worth of] parts used." Just received my HT towers today.

 

[Nkam]

I bought this pair of the AA speakers and couldn't get over how good he managed to make these off-the-shelf Dayton drivers sound.

In terms of driver costs, if you read the Audioholics review, he notes that "The $4.5k/pair pricing is abnormally low considering the [$2500 worth of] parts used." Just received my HT towers today.

congrats on the new HT towers!

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I bought this pair of the AA speakers and couldn't get over how good he managed to make these off-the-shelf Dayton drivers sound.

In terms of driver costs, if you read the Audioholics review, he notes that "The $4.5k/pair pricing is abnormally low considering the [$2500 worth of] parts used." Just received my HT towers today.

I wish the parts were only $2500.

 

[Nkam]

I wish the parts were only $2500.

yeah Im sure.

 

[NicC]

Hi guys. I've followed this thread with interest while researching a front speaker purchase. Being a teacher on school holidays, I've read COPIOUSLY on a lot of forums, tried to learn, admit I don't understand any technical details, read about diminishing returns and crossovers, gotten confused about what to buy, but like everybody here, appreciate great sound - television and music - spread 60/40 of our media time. I figure you guys can save me a lot of time and a lot of indecision. Based on what I've read, I like Dennis and his approach to business - following his passion/gift. I particularly appreciate value for money which his line of products offer enormously. I'm going to, however, ask a monumentally 'beginner-type' question, and I am asking here on this forum, in this thread rather than a shop, because you guys will give me the truth without trying to sell me something I don't want or need. I imagine (both) the BMR tower speakers will outperform my Dali Zensor 7 speakers that are currently teamed up with a Marantz SR5011 AVR and Emotiva XPA2 amp. My question is, would Dennis' speakers work well in that system or would I need to upgrade gear? My primary goal is to improve the music side of things (we are more than happy with the tv/movie sound quality already). More specifically, I once demoed a pair of Golden Ear Triton 1 speakers with a $20k Devialet amplifier connected to my phone, and I thought Bon Jovi was in the room with us. Never heard anything like it, I was blown away! I know it can be bad form to post in forums in seemingly random threads, but I truly respect Dennis for participating in discussions which involve his products, and you guys really know what you're talking about. I'm riding on all your technological coat-tails here. Oh, I also have a PSB centre speaker and Jensen floorstanding rears. So it's a modest setup but works quite well. Apologies in advance if this post offends guidelines.

 

[MarkS]

Welcome to ASR NicC. Your electronics ahould be fine with any of the BMR speakers, which will likely "outperform" the Dali Zensor 7 in a technical sense of having flatter frequency response and smoother directivity. Whether that will translate into better sound to your ears in your room is, however, not guaranteed.

If you haven't gone to stores to listen to some other speakers, I highly recommend doing that before committing to a major purchase.

 

[NicC]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate your reply and the welcome. Where I'm from (Brisbane, Australia), I fear I can only demo the 'big guys' which make great sounding products but at double/triple the price. I must say, the GE Tritons were incredible though! Currently, there's a demo pair of Triton-One-Rs near me costing not much more than a pair of BMRs! I do wonder though, how much difference the Devialet made - I suspect a lot! Thanks again Mark.

 

[Beave]

The amp probably wasn't nearly as big a factor as you might think. The two main variables for sound reproduction are the speakers and the room.

 

[MarkS]

Yes, most here think amps (especially solid-state amps) have little to no influence on the sound, and I am firmly in that camp.

My own speakers are GoldenEars, the bottom of the line Triton 7s. I'm quite happy with them, especially with room correction, which I think is generally more important than speaker selection.

KEF is carried in Australia, is it not? Those are very well engineered speakers, with narrow directivity compared to Dennis's wide-directivity designs. Worth listening to, if possible, just to calibrate your ears. Also try to hear Australia-based March Audio speakers, which also measure very well (and are also more narrow directivity).

 

[NicC]

That's actually good to know thanks Beave and MarkS. As you'd be aware, a lot of stuff I read is source, source, source ...

 

[Beave]

That's actually good to know thanks Beave and MarkS. As you'd be aware, a lot of stuff I read is source, source, source ...

Well, source makes a huge difference if by source you mean the recording itself. There's huge variability there. But otherwise, source isn't very important. And amplifier isn't critical either, except when lots of power is needed (due to low sensitivity speakers, low impedance speakers, large room, high playback levels, or some combination thereof). Room and speakers are the biggest factors, by far, in getting good sound (and eq if you can because even the best rooms cause issues in the bass).

 

[Everett T]

I guess I would be referencing them against the March Audio speakers, which have a slightly smoother, but narrower overall dispersion. And the Beryllium tweeter if that's anything to go by.
The BMR HT hasn't been measured as completely; I like to compare specs.

There's also the question of BMR tower vs BMR HT

I have two speakers currently that Dennis designed, one with the Satori Beryllium and the other with the RAAL 64-10, both tweeters sound excellent, I tend to like the RAAL more at normal listening levels and the Beryllium at moderate and I think Dennis' choice of the midrange and the hand of from it to the tweeter is more important then the actual tweeter material, IMHO. I use to think I could hear a hear a difference but I don't know now. I've also spent some time with his CAOW1 with Hiquphon ow1 soft dome and it too was wonderful sounding tweeter and speaker (3/4").

 

[Everett T]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate your reply and the welcome. Where I'm from (Brisbane, Australia), I fear I can only demo the 'big guys' which make great sounding products but at double/triple the price. I must say, the GE Tritons were incredible though! Currently, there's a demo pair of Triton-One-Rs near me costing not much more than a pair of BMRs! I do wonder though, how much difference the Devialet made - I suspect a lot! Thanks again Mark.

The amp likely made no difference and IIRC one the Devialets performed poorly on the bench. There will always be a bottleneck in the system but if the amp has adequate power to cleanly drive the speakers in *your* room and at *your* normal listening levels, the amp shouldn't be it as there are plenty of amps the fill that need at a very reasonable price to watt ratio.

 

[MarkS]

NicC has an Emotiva XPA2 amp: