Perlisten S7t Speaker Review and Measurements (Audioholics)

[PEQuestrian]

Heard a pair of these today in a treated 15x20 room about 6.5 feet apart, pulled out about 6 or 7 feet from the back wall. No room correction was used. They throw an incredibly wide soundstage, to the point where the outer edges appeared to come from the upper left and right corner of the room. Standing further back, it sounded like there were side surrounds playing. Focusing on specific instruments like hi hats, you can hear that the midranges and tweeter are sitting in the middle of the vertical driver stack when you're sitting fairly close and at higher volumes, they completely over-pressurized the room so this speaker might be a bit wasted in most people's living rooms. Another observation that they need a good amount of distance and room width to shine was how sensitive they were to toe-in. Like no other speaker I've heard, the sound (at 6 feet away) changed so much it was baffling. Very unforgiving sweet spot at that distance. With just a bit of toe-out beyond being directly pointed at your years, the phantom center became audibly separated which I bet is much less of a problem further away but anyone with an MLP 6 - 8 feet out considering these should be aware of that.

My main negative though was the lacking lower bass extension. The low end really sounds rolled off early, which became very clear when listening to a couple of other speakers back to back hooked up to the same sources. I get that there may be a conscious trade-off design wise but personally, I have a really hard time justifying spending over $10K on a huge speaker and still needing subwoofers to hear acoustic or e-bass notes not disappear at the lower end. There's a difference between tight bass and rolled off bass.

I do wonder how the Arendal 1528s compare to these in terms of bass extension.

 

[Ktacos]

Heard a pair of these today in a treated 15x20 room about 6.5 feet apart, pulled out about 6 or 7 feet from the back wall. No room correction was used. They throw an incredibly wide soundstage, to the point where the outer edges appeared to come from the upper left and right corner of the room. Standing further back, it sounded like there were side surrounds playing. Focusing on specific instruments like hi hats, you can hear that the midranges and tweeter are sitting in the middle of the vertical driver stack when you're sitting fairly close and at higher volumes, they completely over-pressurized the room so this speaker might be a bit wasted in most people's living rooms. Another observation that they need a good amount of distance and room width to shine was how sensitive they were to toe-in. Like no other speaker I've heard, the sound (at 6 feet away) changed so much it was baffling. Very unforgiving sweet spot at that distance. With just a bit of toe-out beyond being directly pointed at your years, the phantom center became audibly separated which I bet is much less of a problem further away but anyone with an MLP 6 - 8 feet out considering these should be aware of that.

My main negative though was the lacking lower bass extension. The low end really sounds rolled off early, which became very clear when listening to a couple of other speakers back to back hooked up to the same sources. I get that there may be a conscious trade-off design wise but personally, I have a really hard time justifying spending over $10K on a huge speaker and still needing subwoofers to hear acoustic or e-bass notes not disappear at the lower end. There's a difference between tight bass and rolled off bass.

I do wonder how the Arendal 1528s compare to these in terms of bass extension.

Most speakers tuned neutral in the low end need shelving filters to bring it back when the speaker is 7ft from the wall.

The toe in sensitivity is probably related to the narrow dispersion in the upper range of the speaker.

 

[PEQuestrian]

Most speakers tuned neutral in the low end need shelving filters to bring it back when the speaker is 7ft from the wall.

The toe in sensitivity is probably related to the narrow dispersion in the upper range of the speaker.

No doubt and personally, I have no issue with DRC or EQ'ing, on the contrary. However, there are many - especially in the customer demographic for a $16K speaker - who categorically reject any form of room correction.

But even for those who use DRC: in my experience, flattening midrange and higher frequencies is much easier to get right than trying to dial in bass response down to below where a speaker starts to roll off. The Perlisten simply didn't reach deep enough and trying to correct for that, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle against the drivers, muddy room gain and nulls.

So if we assume a need for EQ, I don't know that I would agree that this speaker is "the best in the world?" if there are options like the Revel F326be, Legacy Audio Focus SE or - depending on their bass extension - the Arendal 1528 available in the same size and price category.