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Perlisten speakers

MrPeabody

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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.


I always enjoy seeing an approach to speaker design that I hadn't seen before. Judging from that vertical directivity plot, the DPC-Array works well, doing just what it was intended to do. The horizontal directivity also looks good. In the vertical directivity you still see the familiar pair of "eyes" indicating the phase cancellation at crossover frequency and at specific angles above and below the horizontal plane. But these eyes are a good bit further apart, angularly, compared to most speakers. Conventionally, this would be done using very tight vertical spacing for the tweeter and woofer, and thus no waveguide, unless the waveguide is sort of squashed, vertically. This waveguide is like that, but still the overall shape of the DPC-Array assembly is circular, and the tweeter at the center isn't very close to the woofers. There is some evidence of comb filtering effect at higher frequency, but it is mild and most likely not audible. An interesting speaker for certain.
 

hardisj

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I did reach out to them about a month and a half ago. This was the reply (sent to me on March 13):

Hi Erin,

Great to meet you. Great that you are taking the technical side of testing as we think it is very important. Way too much fluff in audio these days. We also use Klippel and is a great tool for getting every ounce of performance out of our speakers. We design our speakers 100% and are not using SB Acoustics. This is an easy assumption to make with the cool Textreme Carbon Fiber cones. The Textreme material has a phenomenal response and really well controlled distributed break-up. It’s about as close as you can get to Beryllium in performance.

We have limited parts right now and are of course gearing up for release in the USA. Parts are landing very soon beginning of next month. Delays in Shipping with Covid have been commonplace so hard to tell exactly the date of release.



Keep in touch!



Regards,
<name removed>
 

hardisj

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@Matthew J Poes (of Audioholics fame) informed me he is a dealer for Perlisten. Matt said he won't be testing their speakers as that is an (obvious) conflict of interest but I am hopeful that means I can possibly have a better avenue to obtain some review samples or at least he can get some stuff to James for review (even if it is limited in complete SPIN data as @MZKM mentioned above).

I will also follow up with the above contact to see if inventory status will allow them to send me a sample of one of their products to review.
 

MZKM

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We design our speakers 100% and are not using SB Acoustics. This is an easy assumption to make with the cool Textreme Carbon Fiber cones.

Oh, didn’t know there was an actual Textreme company selling the material. I thought it was a new tech developed by SB.

You can even buy tennis racquets made from it.
7t42g605-prince-textreme-warrior-100t.jpg
 
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Matthew J Poes

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@Matthew J Poes (of Audioholics fame) informed me he is a dealer for Perlisten. Matt said he won't be testing their speakers as that is an (obvious) conflict of interest but I am hopeful that means I can possibly have a better avenue to obtain some review samples or at least he can get some stuff to James for review (even if it is limited in complete SPIN data as @MZKM mentioned above).

I will also follow up with the above contact to see if inventory status will allow them to send me a sample of one of their products to review.

since Erin has let the cat out of the bag. Yup! I became a dealer. I didn’t intend to. I had no desire to sell speakers. It came about sort of accidentally really. My acoustic consulting business exploded lately. I began working on larger and more comprehensive projects and found myself being asked to provide recommendations for good speakers. As someone who takes a strong stance on solid engineering and good measured performance, I was struggling. There are not a lot of brands I like. Many are merely ok to me. Especially when it comes to speakers that meet my expectations for sound quality and output in a dedicated cinema. Perlisten is a pretty unique product in that regard. It’s output puts it in a class similar to companies like mid level Pro Audio Technology, Grimani Systems, etc. yet is a much nicer looking product for use in residential environments. It also has a sound quality that is a lot more like someone might expect from so called audiophile speakers. When a client explicitly asked for Perlisten, the opportunity to sell directly to my clients came to be. So...I’ve moved to the dark side.

which means I have moved to resale as well. I haven’t decided how far I will take this. As of right now I am a dealer for Grimani products (Sonitus USA and Grimani Systems), Dutch & Dutch, and now Perlisten. I am strongly considering adding an amplifier line to go with these speakers.

I probably need to change my status on the forum. I am guessing there are some rules about retailers. But for now I am sharing this more to be open and honest. I will continue to work with Gene and review products. Not anything I sell. For now I want to only sell things I really believe in. I will review whatever is sent to me. Next in the list is a new headphone from Anker. Let’s see if I believe in this thing. My expectations are pretty low.
 

Descartes

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since Erin has let the cat out of the bag. Yup! I became a dealer. I didn’t intend to. I had no desire to sell speakers. It came about sort of accidentally really. My acoustic consulting business exploded lately. I began working on larger and more comprehensive projects and found myself being asked to provide recommendations for good speakers. As someone who takes a strong stance on solid engineering and good measured performance, I was struggling. There are not a lot of brands I like. Many are merely ok to me. Especially when it comes to speakers that meet my expectations for sound quality and output in a dedicated cinema. Perlisten is a pretty unique product in that regard. It’s output puts it in a class similar to companies like mid level Pro Audio Technology, Grimani Systems, etc. yet is a much nicer looking product for use in residential environments. It also has a sound quality that is a lot more like someone might expect from so called audiophile speakers. When a client explicitly asked for Perlisten, the opportunity to sell directly to my clients came to be. So...I’ve moved to the dark side.

which means I have moved to resale as well. I haven’t decided how far I will take this. As of right now I am a dealer for Grimani products (Sonitus USA and Grimani Systems), Dutch & Dutch, and now Perlisten. I am strongly considering adding an amplifier line to go with these speakers.

I probably need to change my status on the forum. I am guessing there are some rules about retailers. But for now I am sharing this more to be open and honest. I will continue to work with Gene and review products. Not anything I sell. For now I want to only sell things I really believe in. I will review whatever is sent to me. Next in the list is a new headphone from Anker. Let’s see if I believe in this thing. My expectations are pretty low.

Cool I asked them to become a dealer but never heard back from them!
 

ctrl

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Very cool design and it's always fascinating when modeling leads to a "new" design.

The brochure says 4-way, but since the woofers all play on the same volume, it seems to me to be more of a 3.5 way design??

Controlling the vertical dispersion with a pair of additional tweeters and continuing this control with the woofer pairs is extremely interesting.
Looking at the DI of the S7 (red lines at DI) compared to a "normal" loudspeaker with a large waveguide, D&D in this case (blue lines at DI), shows the advantage of the approach.
S7 1620037055004.png D&D (measured by @hardisj) 1620037087035.png

As always, nothing remains without consequences, by the fact that the two additional tweeters are ultimately only directly on the baffle, their horizontal radiation is not controlled by the waveguide (and not by inter driver interference, like in the vertical), which leads to a sudden change in the horizontal radiation (blue line in the spectrogram) around the crossover frequency to the tweeter.
1620037259072.png
Something a standard loudspeaker with Waveguide normally does not show. It's hard to say how pronounced this effect is, according to the manufacturer's measurements, not very. I'm curious how the horizontal frequency response of the speaker will look like.

What happens at the transition to the woofer cannot be seen, since the spectrogram only shows frequencies from 1kHz-20kHz. What happens at frequencies below 1 kHz remains a mystery until the speaker is measured :eek:

It is somewhat curious that in the CTA2034 diagram the sound pressure level of the power frequency response never reaches the axis frequency response. With such a design (W-W-M-T-M-W-W), I would expect the power frequency response at low frequencies to be equal to or above the sound pressure level of the axis frequency response (blue circle in the CT2034 diagram above).
I would only expect this to be the case if only the horizontal frequency responses were included or it's just an inaccuracy or I am wrong.
 

MrPeabody

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For the genesis of this approach, see here:

https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/journal/?elib=7835

And implementation:
Stereophile Snell XA review

Thank you for that reference. Certainly there are strong similarities between this Perlisten speaker and the Snell XA Reference, but I think that the Snell that would be the better one to identify as the possibly inspiration for the Perlisten is the XA90ps. With both of these Snell speakers, the fundamental idea is that as wavelength gets longer, the two drivers are spaced further apart, such that the vertical thickness of the main forward lobe remains roughly constant through most of the audible spectrum (the obvious exception being for frequency so low that the vertical separation of the two drivers is necessarily a small fraction of the wavelength).

There is however a conspicuous distinction between the Perlisten and either of those two Snell speakers. Whereas with the Snell speakers the drivers above and below the tweeter are larger drivers operating at longer wavelength vs. the tweeter, with the Perlisten the drivers above and below the middle recessed tweeter are also tweeters, apparently no larger than the middle tweeter. It seems likely that all three tweeters operate at the same range of wavelength, and as such, the theory and the effect would seem to have only superficial similarity to the Snell speakers. My guess is that the phase offset for the middle tweeter vs. the two flanking tweeters is crucial to the effect. Perhaps the optimal phase offset is achieved simply by virtue of the physical fore/aft offset, or perhaps the optimal amount of phase offset is accomplished partly through the design of the crossover.
 

Matthew J Poes

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Thank you for that reference. Certainly there are strong similarities between this Perlisten speaker and the Snell XA Reference, but I think that the Snell that would be the better one to identify as the possibly inspiration for the Perlisten is the XA90ps. With both of these Snell speakers, the fundamental idea is that as wavelength gets longer, the two drivers are spaced further apart, such that the vertical thickness of the main forward lobe remains roughly constant through most of the audible spectrum (the obvious exception being for frequency so low that the vertical separation of the two drivers is necessarily a small fraction of the wavelength).

There is however a conspicuous distinction between the Perlisten and either of those two Snell speakers. Whereas with the Snell speakers the drivers above and below the tweeter are larger drivers operating at longer wavelength vs. the tweeter, with the Perlisten the drivers above and below the middle recessed tweeter are also tweeters, apparently no larger than the middle tweeter. It seems likely that all three tweeters operate at the same range of wavelength, and as such, the theory and the effect would seem to have only superficial similarity to the Snell speakers. My guess is that the phase offset for the middle tweeter vs. the two flanking tweeters is crucial to the effect. Perhaps the optimal phase offset is achieved simply by virtue of the physical fore/aft offset, or perhaps the optimal amount of phase offset is accomplished partly through the design of the crossover.

As you already noted, I would not consider the Snell to be the genesis of this idea. They are both using an array of drivers vertically. That’s about it. Snell is a classic expanding array. Expanding arrays don’t really allow for beam forming and so cannot control the vertical dispersion as well. Both methods typically allow a symmetric lobe however.

the array used by the Perlisten is for beam forming purposes. If we had identical data to compare, the Snell would show a less flat DI, it would be upward tilted. The directivity would look more like a pyramid shape in the vertical domain. Where as the Perlisten looks more like a pencil. Which in my opinion is a better idea. It ensures that the vertical reflections are maximally attenuated over the widest bandwidth and whatever reflections remain have a constant spectral balance.

beam forming like this hasn’t been utilized in consumer audio much at all. This is a fairly unique and innovative design in that regard. Nothing on the market in the past is quite like this. One of its side benefits is that the substantial overlap of the three drivers in the array allows for very high sensitivity. The tweeter array has a sensitivity of about 112dB. That ensures very high output capability and very low distortion. The Snell didn’t have that and wasn’t nearly as sensitive in the high frequencies.

The only speakers capable of this kind of low distortion output would be compression driver based waveguide systems. Even then, most wouldn’t be as low distortion. I am a big fan of such speakers but reality is compression drivers have much higher distortion than dome tweeters. It is not uncommon for a compression driver to have over 1% THD at any volume level it would be used at. It just doesn’t get much higher than that until we’ll beyond a reasonable listening level. Done tweeters can have distortion levels that are silly low, .1%, but by 90dB have risen dramatically. Getting 105dB peaks at a seated position of 4-5 meters in a 3000 cubic foot room or more from a dome tweeter is usually next to impossible. Go up to 6000 cubic feet and it is impossible. That is what I like about this approach. It allows a best of both worlds. The benefits of direct radiating drivers like some tweeters and the clean output and dynamic range of compression drivers.
 

Matthew J Poes

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that is pretty different for a number of reasons.

first, it has nowhere near the dynamic range of these.

second, that is used to make the horizontal dispersion variable with some amount of horizontal directivity control. That part isn’t as strong and it’s all done actively with DSP. It is beam forming. Which is why I said beam forming hasn’t been used much. I am not saying nobody did. Lexicon had a beam forming speaker as well and the lexicon had very good horizontal and vertical control. It too was output limited though.
 

hardisj

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I will also follow up with the above contact to see if inventory status will allow them to send me a sample of one of their products to review.

I followed up.
Hi Erin,
Good to hear from you again. We have very little product right now so not at this time. We are sold right back to the factory line and the shipping situation has been extremely difficult recently. Dealers have been waiting for a long time due to these shipping delays and thus we have very little available for reviews. We have diverted it all for sales.
Everyone who is manufacturing is facing the same issues and hopefully it will get better.


Still a no go due to inventory. I imagine it will be quite a while before I would get such a sample as they are focusing on their dealers/customers (which is understandable). I figure if they wanted a 3rd party review to help them with exposure they could spare a set and James at AH is supposed to have his review out soon. I'm probably not going to pursue this any further. I don't want to annoy them and I don't think getting me a set is really something they are concerned with in the near term. That's just kind of my "feel" of the situation. Hey, maybe they know the speaker will test well and then everyone will want one which will make their supply issues even worse! :D

So with that said, if you guys want me to test their products it would probably be more helpful to email them and ask them yourselves in a couple months.
 
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MZKM

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It is somewhat curious that in the CTA2034 diagram the sound pressure level of the power frequency response never reaches the axis frequency response. With such a design (W-W-M-T-M-W-W), I would expect the power frequency response at low frequencies to be equal to or above the sound pressure level of the axis frequency response (blue circle in the CT2034 diagram above).
I would only expect this to be the case if only the horizontal frequency responses were included or it's just an inaccuracy or I am wrong.
I commented on the same thing. They show vertical data in the polar, but not at lower frequencies. Maybe they did exclude a lot or all vertical data in the Spin as they couldn't measure the vertical off-axis due to the height (and them not wanting to put it on it's side like Erin did with the JBL tower).
 

richard12511

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since Erin has let the cat out of the bag. Yup! I became a dealer. I didn’t intend to. I had no desire to sell speakers. It came about sort of accidentally really. My acoustic consulting business exploded lately. I began working on larger and more comprehensive projects and found myself being asked to provide recommendations for good speakers. As someone who takes a strong stance on solid engineering and good measured performance, I was struggling. There are not a lot of brands I like. Many are merely ok to me. Especially when it comes to speakers that meet my expectations for sound quality and output in a dedicated cinema. Perlisten is a pretty unique product in that regard. It’s output puts it in a class similar to companies like mid level Pro Audio Technology, Grimani Systems, etc. yet is a much nicer looking product for use in residential environments. It also has a sound quality that is a lot more like someone might expect from so called audiophile speakers. When a client explicitly asked for Perlisten, the opportunity to sell directly to my clients came to be. So...I’ve moved to the dark side.

which means I have moved to resale as well. I haven’t decided how far I will take this. As of right now I am a dealer for Grimani products (Sonitus USA and Grimani Systems), Dutch & Dutch, and now Perlisten. I am strongly considering adding an amplifier line to go with these speakers.

I probably need to change my status on the forum. I am guessing there are some rules about retailers. But for now I am sharing this more to be open and honest. I will continue to work with Gene and review products. Not anything I sell. For now I want to only sell things I really believe in. I will review whatever is sent to me. Next in the list is a new headphone from Anker. Let’s see if I believe in this thing. My expectations are pretty low.

Where are you located?
 

MZKM

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James' review with measurements for the Perlisten S7t is now up on Audioholics:
https://www.audioholics.com/tower-speaker-reviews/perlisten-s7t/conclusion
And it looks like a full Spin and not one using limited vertical measurements like one speaker did before.

Vertical dispersion control is very well done (limiting any potential harmful influence of poor ceiling & floor bounces).

Horizontal dispersion is ok, smooth but a directivity mismatch around 3kHz.

This issue around 3kHz is in the Spin by James but not in the Spin by Perlisten.

Bass is also less extended than in the Spin by Perlisten.

So not Genelec levels of perfection for the Spin, but it’s pretty damn good especially considering the high sensitivity (+3dB from average for towers), hopefully max SPL is similarly good (distortion @95db is low so I would imagine so).

Still, $15000-$17000 is a lot in absolute terms.
 
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617

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Measurements are about what you would expect. The little waveguide thing appears to work pretty well.
 

restorer-john

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Well, I'm glad someone has finally actually seen a pair of these speakers, so we know they exist. Maybe they can update their website now.
 
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