New Philharmonic BMR HT Towers

[ryanosaur]

Yes, peaks but not sustained. I want to listen at realistic orchestral levels, especially because sometimes I will be accompanying it with a real grand piano in a large room 57x34x12. I understand some will say I must use pro speakers, but I am trying to see if something like the HT towers or Perlistens can provide enough spl where I can use them for everything instead of having two separate systems.

To me, orchestral classical music is all about dynamics, timbre and sense of space. It appears the HT towers excel in all of these; the only question is do they produce enough spl at 15-20ft away.

That is a very large room. I would say that considering the size, you can't rely much on any boundary support and you are probably closer to being something like -18dB at that distance from the Speakers.

While Dennis is a very good designer, I don't know that he had a use case like this in mind...

Do you use something now in this room that you play along with? How loud do you usually have it set?

 

[cavedriver]

Yes, peaks but not sustained. I want to listen at realistic orchestral levels, especially because sometimes I will be accompanying it with a real grand piano in a large room 57x34x12. I understand some will say I must use pro speakers, but I am trying to see if something like the HT towers or Perlistens can provide enough spl where I can use them for everything instead of having two separate systems.

To me, orchestral classical music is all about dynamics, timbre and sense of space. It appears the HT towers excel in all of these; the only question is do they produce enough spl at 15-20ft away.

in that big a room? Highly doubtful. I have the towers and yes, they can get loud, but not with the dynamics of a "big" speaker that could fill that kind of space. Consider that at the orchestra in real life the peaks are supposedly up to 110 dB or perhaps a bit more, and you want to project that level to people 20 feet from the speakers, you're looking at ~130 dB at 1 m, and I really don't think the HT's are designed for that.

 

[ryanosaur]

I'm not one to talk somebody out of a Speaker, but @cavedriver is pretty much on the same wavelength as I in this math...

I Don't even know that Perlisten would hang...

Frankly, I'd be looking at talking to Jeff at JTR about his Noesis 215 RM or RT. *shrugs Not as pretty, but still supposed to be good, and they are rated at usable output up to around 128dB iirc.

 

[paradoxical3]

This is kind of what I expected, but I am surprised how close I am getting from my current setup so figured it'd be worth asking. I repurposed my old HT speakers the Elemental Designs EDC6's with the DE250 compression driver. While I'm waiting on my Buckeye amp to arrive I am driving them with a cheap Fosi amp and without cranking the gains I am hitting low 90s at 15ft, after DIRAC calibration. But in fairness, the elemental designs are a 93db sensitivity compression driver design, so....extremely efficient. I can honestly probably be satisfied with the same volume level (low-mid 90s) at 15ft if it means getting a really nice dual use system.

Excuse the mess since I am still building the room (waiting on GIK Acoustics order to arrive plus a bunch of electronics), but hoping to make it a triple use room - recording, live parlor concerts, and 2 channel listening. I am excited to see what a ceiling cloud and diffusion on the brick/freestanding in front of the glass does to the sound of both the piano and the speakers. Even with the carpet the room is pretty reverberant.

 

[cavedriver]

This is kind of what I expected, but I am surprised how close I am getting from my current setup so figured it'd be worth asking. I repurposed my old HT speakers the Elemental Designs EDC6's with the DE250 compression driver. While I'm waiting on my Buckeye amp to arrive I am driving them with a cheap Fosi amp and without cranking the gains I am hitting low 90s at 15ft, after DIRAC calibration. But in fairness, the elemental designs are a 93db sensitivity compression driver design, so....extremely efficient. I can honestly probably be satisfied with the same volume level (low-mid 90s) at 15ft if it means getting a really nice dual use system.

Excuse the mess since I am still building the room (waiting on GIK Acoustics order to arrive plus a bunch of electronics), but hoping to make it a triple use room - recording, live parlor concerts, and 2 channel listening. I am excited to see what a ceiling cloud and diffusion on the brick/freestanding in front of the glass does to the sound of both the piano and the speakers. Even with the carpet the room is pretty reverberant.

nice space, lots of light, definitely need that cloud, hope it's big considering all those exposed floor joists. When you're done with all the treating perceived power demand will go up, maybe not a lot but some for sure. I'm still learning about them but Danley seems like a potential source of a system you could rent and then later buy. Certainly they are highly regarded and have rental providers across the country:

Home | Danley Sound Labs

Danley Sound Labs is a visionary in the audio industry providing loudspeakers, subwoofers and other innovations to venues around the world.

www.danleysoundlabs.com

 

[ryanosaur]

This is kind of what I expected, but I am surprised how close I am getting from my current setup so figured it'd be worth asking. I repurposed my old HT speakers the Elemental Designs EDC6's with the DE250 compression driver. While I'm waiting on my Buckeye amp to arrive I am driving them with a cheap Fosi amp and without cranking the gains I am hitting low 90s at 15ft, after DIRAC calibration. But in fairness, the elemental designs are a 93db sensitivity compression driver design, so....extremely efficient. I can honestly probably be satisfied with the same volume level (low-mid 90s) at 15ft if it means getting a really nice dual use system.

Excuse the mess since I am still building the room (waiting on GIK Acoustics order to arrive plus a bunch of electronics), but hoping to make it a triple use room - recording, live parlor concerts, and 2 channel listening. I am excited to see what a ceiling cloud and diffusion on the brick/freestanding in front of the glass does to the sound of both the piano and the speakers. Even with the carpet the room is pretty reverberant.

View attachment 358955

Wow... That room screams acoustic nightmare to me! Good luck getting that beast tamed.

I'm almost more confused now in how you will be using the room and your plans on setting up the audio system and how you will be using it.

Regardless, a 93db rated Speaker has a serious advantage over even just a true 90dB rated Speaker, requiring half the Power as the 90dB one to reach those peaks at full distance.

Admittedly, I don't know Perlisten first hand, but I still think you would want to be looking at a much more specific design goal from a Speaker Manufacturer than what Dennis at Philharmonic or the crew from Perlisten had in mind. That's just my 2¢.

I think you can indeed find a single use system that will do what you want, but you may just need to shift your focus. In that room, the Perlistens will likely be a better fit than something that is such a Wide Dispersion Speaker as Dennis' designs are. While the HT will fill the room with sound, you have so many hard and reflective surfaces that will be interacting with that widely dispersed energy.
That said, if you changed your layout some, you may be able to use the HTs to better advantage...
However, I don't know how well they would support the possibility that they would be used as live accompaniment to a Piano performance... even if it were only you in the room.
The same is often said about people that want to do karaoke with their AVR. *shrugs... Yes you can, but it's not really the right tool for the job.

 

[Nkam]

This is kind of what I expected, but I am surprised how close I am getting from my current setup so figured it'd be worth asking. I repurposed my old HT speakers the Elemental Designs EDC6's with the DE250 compression driver. While I'm waiting on my Buckeye amp to arrive I am driving them with a cheap Fosi amp and without cranking the gains I am hitting low 90s at 15ft, after DIRAC calibration. But in fairness, the elemental designs are a 93db sensitivity compression driver design, so....extremely efficient. I can honestly probably be satisfied with the same volume level (low-mid 90s) at 15ft if it means getting a really nice dual use system.

Excuse the mess since I am still building the room (waiting on GIK Acoustics order to arrive plus a bunch of electronics), but hoping to make it a triple use room - recording, live parlor concerts, and 2 channel listening. I am excited to see what a ceiling cloud and diffusion on the brick/freestanding in front of the glass does to the sound of both the piano and the speakers. Even with the carpet the room is pretty reverberant.

View attachment 358955

you don’t have to sit that far away do you?

yeah of course that room is gonna have a lot of reverb. It’s huge.

i would sit as close as I could in that room. You are gonna have a longer than usual RT60 decay.