Perlisten speakers

[Deleted member 4708]

The R series does not come with grills. They are an optional assessory. It may be because the S series it is beryllium that it is recommended for the kids. Matthew probably knows.

I do think they are striking speakers without grills.

I said "mid" grills - the grills for the 1.1 inch mids are mandatory. I was not referring to the entire 7 inch grill for the mid/tweeter ensemble.

 

[Randy Bessinger]

I said "mid" grills - the grills for the 1.1 inch mids are mandatory. I was not referring to the entire 7 inch grill for the mid/tweeter ensemble.

Oh, sorry. I totally misunderstood. My bad.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

Ultimately, it boils down to thermal load capacity and efficiency or to certain limits of THD, often 3% or 10% THD is taken as "load limit". I don't know what Matthew's statements refer to. I suspect the former.


The sensitivity of the two speakers, as you stated, is almost identical. According to the independent measurements, the Revel even has a small advantage (+0.7dB).
Thus, the thermal load capacity of the drivers is the deciding factor.
The manufacturers specify 300W (Revel) and 600W (Perlisten) as the maximum recommended amplifier power.
Thus, according to the manufacturer, the S7t speaker can deliver about 5.3-6dB more peak (long term) sound pressure level than the Revel F328Be.

Revel F328BeView attachment 171270 Perlisten S7t View attachment 171271

For 10dB higher power handling, the S7t would have to have about a factor of >3.2 higher thermal power handling.
That is a hell of a lot.

The tweeter of the Perslisten speaker with a 28mm voice coil is most likely more resilient than the 25mm tweeter of the Revel. But whether it is enough for the factor >3.2 I would rather doubt.

Unfortunately, we lack the data on the power handling of the individual drivers or at least their voice coil diameter (for a rough estimate of the power handling differences).
Therefore, only the manufacturer's information on the recommended amplifier power remains.

600W is double 300W - that means 3db SPL difference if I remember correctly

Revel is a traditional crossover. 1 driver for mid 1 for the tweeter. Traditional crossovers do not overlap drivers.
In other words above 260Hz or so, the crossover from Revel uses 1 driver for any given frequency. Most of the frequency response is 1 driver.

Perlisten uses:
4 drivers up to 500 Hz.
2 drivers from 500 to 1.3khz
3 drivers from 1.3 khz to 4 khz (2 mids + tweeter)
1 driver above 4 khz

Perlisten S7T uses 1 driver only above 4 Khz. I believe this matters.

 

[ctrl]

600W is double 300W - that means 3db SPL difference if I remember correctly

You're right, of course.

It's complicated
But my comments do not refer to the manufacturer's specifications (no problem with that), but to the following quote:

One thing I still don't entirely understand is the dynamic capabilities. In response to people comparing the measurements of the S7t to the Revel F328Be, I remember @Matthew J Poes mentioning that one thing that doesn't show in the measurements is that the Perlisten will get 10?dB louder. How is this possible?

(Highlighting by me)

I wanted to point out with my remarks that not all statements, to an without question very good loudspeaker, are realistic, but can be due to the self-induced enthusiasm of the reviewer and referred to the maximum thermal load capacity of the loudspeakers. The thermal load capacity of the installed drivers in the Perlisten speakers definitely do not allow a 10dB higher power handling than the Revel F328.

Since I assumed that measurements on THD related limits (3% or 10% THD) would not be available from the same source and under comparable conditions.

But Matthew then clarified that the quoted statement of him explicitly refers to a THD limit of 3% and does not mean the thermal load limit of the speakers:

You don’t need the driver thermal power handling. You need the actual maximum SPL test data. There are a handful of maximum SPL test methods used in the industry and all five different results. The Perlisten figure of 117dB comes from a THD limit. It’s 3% THD at 2 meters. My 10dB comment was based on the only figure I had from Revel, which I don’t have immediately at my fingertips. It was a higher distortion threshold. I then Asked Dan the SPL of the Perlisten at that distortion and we extrapolated out what the likely difference would be for the maximum SPL of the Perlisten, which we knew, vs if the Revel was pushed to that limit. we came to 10dB.

It was an estimate. To know for a fact both would need to be measured in exactly the same way at the same time. Keep in mind that over most of the treble range the Perlisten has three tweeters operating at the time time. The beam forming tech offers a significant SPL advantage over most single tweeter designs.

Unfortunately, we do not have distortion measurements of the two speakers from an independent source.
But we do have measurements from @hardisj of smaller speaker models that use the same mid-high units as the F328 and S7t.

EAC Revel PerformaBe F226Be
EAC Perlisten S4b

Under fair conditions in the low frequency range, the F328 should actually be able to keep up with the S7t, if the three 8'' woofer are high quality.

So then let's compare the harmonic distortion of the two speakers in the range above 500Hz:

It is probably safe to assume that the Revel mid-high unit will reach the 3% limit slightly earlier than the Perlisten unit, due to the THD peak around 2.3kHz (this could be the increased HD3 of a breakup resonance of the Revel midrange driver).
Whether it will be equal to 10dB sound pressure level difference I can not predict.

For 104dB, Erin did an HD measurement of the F226 speaker, there the mid/high unit of the F226/F328 is not far from the 3% THD limit:


So I would agree with Matthew's statement, with certain reservations.

Perlisten S7T uses 1 driver only above 4 Khz. I believe this matters.

For the absolute maximum power handling of the speakers, the tweeters or midrange drivers will probably set the limit - if the motors of the woofers are equipped with correspondingly large voice coils in both speaker.

If the two midrange drivers of the S7t are only equipped with 1'' voice coils, their thermal power handling might even be lower than the single midrange driver of the Revel.

600W is double 300W - that means 3db SPL difference if I remember correctly

If you meant that I made a mistake in calculating the power factor for 10dB higher maximum SPL of the S7t compared to the F328, then I have to agree with you there too (it's not 3.2, but 10x) - will correct the statements in the original post.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

Wild guess - it's better not to produce the heat than to dissipate it.
Perlisten mids start at 1 KHz - not a lot of air needs to be moved at that point. Carbon used is also lighter than aluminum in Revel and much stiffer.
Given how rigorous any THX certification is I'd like to believe their specs are correct and not made up.

I finally got my Benchmark AHB2 - such a precise and powerful system. I like this SHD/Benchmark AHB2/Perlisten S7T combo.

 

[yodog]

Wild guess - it's better not to produce the heat than to dissipate it.
Perlisten mids start at 1 KHz - not a lot of air needs to be moved at that point. Carbon used is also lighter than aluminum in Revel and much stiffer.
Given how rigorous any THX certification is I'd like to believe their specs are correct and not made up.

I finally got my Benchmark AHB2 - such a precise and powerful system. I like this SHD/Benchmark AHB2/Perlisten S7T combo.

The thx certification is legit but comes at a price to get the certification. But it’s definitely no gimmick as far as the qualifications go (thx dominus)

 

[yodog]

Wild guess - it's better not to produce the heat than to dissipate it.
Perlisten mids start at 1 KHz - not a lot of air needs to be moved at that point. Carbon used is also lighter than aluminum in Revel and much stiffer.
Given how rigorous any THX certification is I'd like to believe their specs are correct and not made up.

I finally got my Benchmark AHB2 - such a precise and powerful system. I like this SHD/Benchmark AHB2/Perlisten S7T combo.

The thx certification is legit but comes at a price to get the certification. But it’s definitely no gimmick as far as the qualifications go (thx dominus)

I didn’t read all 18 pages but does everyone know all the drivers used in the s7t are all made by sb acoustics / satori line up? The tweeter is satori’s latest release Be Dome w/ waveguide. Saw it on madisound on sale for $339 each, down from $449 or something. The 2 inch domes are satori 2.5” midrange domes with the deep chamber, and the woofers are from the satori textreme lineup that’s the same as their Egyptian papyrus woofers except using a different cone material. To me it looks like an sb acoustics/satori speaker and i guess they made some back door deals to not have to admit their awesome speaker is largely because of the hard work the ex scanspeak engineers put in when creating the satori drivers along with the hard workers from Indonesia who make the drivers/woofers/tweeters a reality.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

The thx certification is legit but comes at a price to get the certification. But it’s definitely no gimmick as far as the qualifications go (thx dominus)

I didn’t read all 18 pages but does everyone know all the drivers used in the s7t are all made by sb acoustics / satori line up? The tweeter is satori’s latest release Be Dome w/ waveguide. Saw it on madisound on sale for $339 each, down from $449 or something. The 2 inch domes are satori 2.5” midrange domes with the deep chamber, and the woofers are from the satori textreme lineup that’s the same as their Egyptian papyrus woofers except using a different cone material. To me it looks like an sb acoustics/satori speaker and i guess they made some back door deals to not have to admit their awesome speaker is largely because of the hard work the ex scanspeak engineers put in when creating the satori drivers along with the hard workers from Indonesia who make the drivers/woofers/tweeters a reality.

I keep seeing this again and again. The Perlisten does not use Satori drivers. There is no relation to SB Acoustics. They are completely custom drivers made in house by Perlisten and designed by Perlistens engineers.

The reason for this confusion is the driver material. Only one company makes thin ply carbonfiber. The cones aren't made by Perlisten or SB Acoustics, they are made by this company and shipped to the driver manufacturer for assembly. This is also true of Beryllium diaphragms. You can't just make those yourself, so there is really only one major supplier of these, and as such, all beryllium tweeters have diaphragms from the same supplier.

Now that doesn't mean the cones and diaphragms are all the same. One of the cool features of this carbon fiber material is that its thickness can be varied along the length of the cone to change its parameters. For example, thicker toward the middle and thinner toward the edge. If or how this is done would be up to the driver manufacturer.

Which is all to say, These are not SB Acoustics Satori drivers.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

The thx certification is legit but comes at a price to get the certification. But it’s definitely no gimmick as far as the qualifications go (thx dominus)

I didn’t read all 18 pages but does everyone know all the drivers used in the s7t are all made by sb acoustics / satori line up? The tweeter is satori’s latest release Be Dome w/ waveguide. Saw it on madisound on sale for $339 each, down from $449 or something. The 2 inch domes are satori 2.5” midrange domes with the deep chamber, and the woofers are from the satori textreme lineup that’s the same as their Egyptian papyrus woofers except using a different cone material. To me it looks like an sb acoustics/satori speaker and i guess they made some back door deals to not have to admit their awesome speaker is largely because of the hard work the ex scanspeak engineers put in when creating the satori drivers along with the hard workers from Indonesia who make the drivers/woofers/tweeters a reality.

I also need to further note that the assertions you make here are illinformed nonsense. You clearly have no way of knowing what you claim to be true, but there are a number of obvious clues to why you are wrong.

First you claim that the woofers are the same. Well, James showed raw pics of the woofers.

That is the Perlisten driver.

This is the Satori driver. First, its a half inch larger in diameter. Second, its clearly a totally different basket and it has a neo magnet, not a ferrite magnet.

Now the midranges. you claim them to be the 2.5" SB Acoustics midrange? Well that is problematic because that would be way too large. The midrange, as you call it, is the exact same diameter as the tweeter. SB Acoustics doesn't even make a textreme midrange in that size.

Now let's look at the midrange and tweeter assembly:

Erin from Erin's Audio Corner took this when he took his apart. Do you see any SB Acoustics stickers? Do those look anything like SB Acoustics drivers? Does that waveguide match the waveguide sold by SB Acoustics? Clearly not. It is clearly not a pair of 2.5" midranges, as they couldn't possibly have fit there.

Here is the SB Acoustics Satori tweeter and waveguide. You can see they don't match. Completely different construction. Completely different magnet assembly as well.

SB's Textreme tweeter. Again, clearly looks wrong. Wrong magnet assembly.

 

[Everett T]

I keep seeing this again and again. The Perlisten does not use Satori drivers. There is no relation to SB Acoustics. They are completely custom drivers made in house by Perlisten and designed by Perlistens engineers.

The reason for this confusion is the driver material. Only one company makes thin ply carbonfiber. The cones aren't made by Perlisten or SB Acoustics, they are made by this company and shipped to the driver manufacturer for assembly. This is also true of Beryllium diaphragms. You can't just make those yourself, so there is really only one major supplier of these, and as such, all beryllium tweeters have diaphragms from the same supplier.

Now that doesn't mean the cones and diaphragms are all the same. One of the cool features of this carbon fiber material is that its thickness can be varied along the length of the cone to change its parameters. For example, thicker toward the middle and thinner toward the edge. If or how this is done would be up to the driver manufacturer.

Which is all to say, These are not SB Acoustics Satori drivers.

Weird they immediately go to SBA? Understanding the material and it's manufacturing they'd realize that the material look would be the same for any driver manufacturer.

Test – TeXtreme

www.textreme.com

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Weird they immediately go to SBA? Understanding the material and it's manufacturing they'd realize that the material look would be the same for any driver manufacturer.

Test – TeXtreme

www.textreme.com

I think a lot of folks don't know how drivers are made. That most drivers are made from various subassemblies and parts that come from various third parties. It is fairly rare that a company would be totally vertically integrated such that they make the voice coil, magnet, pole piece, frame, cone, surround, adhesive, etc. Often many of these parts come from companies that specialize in just that, but I think many just assume this stuff is done totally in house by big manufacturers.

I just don't understand why its treated as some grand conspiracy. What value would that have?

 

[Everett T]

I just don't understand why its treated as some grand conspiracy. What value would that have?

I really do believe that a lot of it came out of Wilson Audio and a couple of others back in the mid 90s early 2ks when certain consumers were obsessed with the BoM mainly because they couldn't justify spending such high prices.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against another person's value perception or doing their due diligence, just some have just taken it to an extreme position and assume that many manufacturers are just making up arbitrarily high prices.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

I really do believe that a lot of it came out of Wilson Audio and a couple of others back in the mid 90s early 2ks when certain consumers were obsessed with the BoM mainly because they couldn't justify spending such high prices.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against another person's value perception or doing their due diligence, just some have just taken it to an extreme position and assume that many manufacturers are just making up arbitrarily high prices.

If they want to bring such products to market of equal quality for less money and stay in business, they should try.

I've tried to bring a few things to market recently and when the realities of production at scale came in, I realized it was so expensive that my dreams were simply not reality.

I wanted to bring a 16 channel amplifier to market using Purifi modules (Higher current 7040 module) with a custom power supply that would allow all channels driven to achieve maximum output into 8 or 4 ohms. Aluminum chassis. Once I had everything priced, producing 100 of these would have cost me ~$10,000-$12,000. I was told that an economy of scale wouldn't be realized until more than 1000 units were produced. A minimum of 20% margin is needed to allow a 5% profit after typical lean overhead to sell and support a product of type and quality. That doesn't really account for warranty support, a large failure of a 3rd party module would bankrupt such a lean company. That implies that bringing to market a 16 channel high end amplifier would cost about as much as you could buy it for from larger companies, and the price I would have to sell it for would likely have been seen as absurd. As if I would be getting rich. 5% is all I expected to take home at the end of the day, thats nothing.

Similar issue with speakers. I've worked on designs before and when they utilize a lot of custom made parts, there are huge upfront costs. You could be "in the hole" over $100k just to produce a single speaker and it could take multiple production runs just to break even. Again, add in additional margin to support warranty work, product support, advertising, etc. It just all adds up.

I am currently working on some other possible products and I am sure it will be the same problem. Trying to get it produced cheap enough that it can be brought to market at a reasonable price, while utilizing the quality of materials that I feel are needed to differentiate it are going to be a problem.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

The thx certification is legit but comes at a price to get the certification. But it’s definitely no gimmick as far as the qualifications go (thx dominus)

I didn’t read all 18 pages but does everyone know all the drivers used in the s7t are all made by sb acoustics / satori line up? The tweeter is satori’s latest release Be Dome w/ waveguide. Saw it on madisound on sale for $339 each, down from $449 or something. The 2 inch domes are satori 2.5” midrange domes with the deep chamber, and the woofers are from the satori textreme lineup that’s the same as their Egyptian papyrus woofers except using a different cone material. To me it looks like an sb acoustics/satori speaker and i guess they made some back door deals to not have to admit their awesome speaker is largely because of the hard work the ex scanspeak engineers put in when creating the satori drivers along with the hard workers from Indonesia who make the drivers/woofers/tweeters a reality.

Perlisten makes their own drivers. Owning most the production for the speakers is one of their bragging points. There are no 2 inch domes in the S7T.

 

[lewdish]

Hello,

i randomly found Perlisten (never heard about them before).

They do publish measurements with their speakers.

View attachment 108144

They do provide a spinorama (smoothed) which shows a very good directivity.

View attachment 108145

This large speaker is bass shy which I guess is on purpose since they also sell subwoofers.
Horizontal directivity looks good. Vertical a bit less but still ok. I am not sure the 3 tweeters are improving the vertical much.

View attachment 108148

Graphs extracted from here. The 15 inch sub has the following response:

View attachment 108149

I expect them to work well together. They also sell a center, a smaller tower and others subs. I have no idea of the prospective prices.

Link seems to be dead, can you re-link?

 

[tifune]

Hi @Matthew J Poes , in the recent vid you did w/ Gene re: Dirac ART, you mentioned that you had asked Perlisten about an active model and they replied not much would be gained. Is that something you're able to elaborate on at all? I don't know anything about EE or crossovers, but this is the first time I've personally heard that claim. I'm assuming they meant real-world audible differences would be negligible, perhaps similar to the small variations in the LS50W II vs passive Meta. but, I have no idea how/why or how common this is?

 

[Vacceo]

Hi @Matthew J Poes , in the recent vid you did w/ Gene re: Dirac ART, you mentioned that you had asked Perlisten about an active model and they replied not much would be gained. Is that something you're able to elaborate on at all? I don't know anything about EE or crossovers, but this is the first time I've personally heard that claim. I'm assuming they meant real-world audible differences would be negligible, perhaps similar to the small variations in the LS50W II vs passive Meta. but, I have no idea how/why or how common this is?

I cannot speak about Perlisten, but I can about the LS50 Meta and their active counterpart, the LS50 WII: the actives deliver further extension on the low frequencies. Sure, not by a lot and it is still a good idea to unload on a subwoofer, but the extension is there.

Wild guess - it's better not to produce the heat than to dissipate it.
Perlisten mids start at 1 KHz - not a lot of air needs to be moved at that point. Carbon used is also lighter than aluminum in Revel and much stiffer.
Given how rigorous any THX certification is I'd like to believe their specs are correct and not made up.

I finally got my Benchmark AHB2 - such a precise and powerful system. I like this SHD/Benchmark AHB2/Perlisten S7T combo.

I wonder how much better things can get with better materials. I´m saying this because Perlisten itself also produces the R line using far more humble materials like paper and silk yet the results are not that, that far from the carbon fiber and berillium.

 

[Sam Ash]

I cannot speak about Perlisten, but I can about the LS50 Meta and their active counterpart, the LS50 WII: the actives deliver further extension on the low frequencies. Sure, not by a lot and it is still a good idea to unload on a subwoofer, but the extension is there.


I wonder how much better things can get with better materials. I´m saying this because Perlisten itself also produces the R line using far more humble materials like paper and silk yet the results are not that, that far from the carbon fiber and berillium.

I presume you've had the opportunity to hear both. Can you elaborate your experience a bit, that would be helpful.

 

[Vacceo]

I presume you've had the opportunity to hear both. Can you elaborate your experience a bit, that would be helpful.

Yes, and I actually own the actives. The passives start loosing the bass around 80-90 Hz whole the actives get you around 70hz with authority.

Truth is, for both, you'd still need a subwoofer for full range, but the actives have a bit further extension.

 

[Sam Ash]

Yes, and I actually own the actives. The passives start loosing the bass around 80-90 Hz whole the actives get you around 70hz with authority.

Truth is, for both, you'd still need a subwoofer for full range, but the actives have a bit further extension.

Sorry, I was taking about the difference between the Perlisten S and R series. I thought you may have had the opportunity to listen to both.