It all depends on how smooth the early reflections are I would imagine, an ultra wide dispersion speaker with an early reflections bump is going to be more audible than a narrower dispersion speaker with that same bump just due to being lower in level. The original BMR appear to be smoother in the early reflections and therefore the wide dispersion wouldn't make an off-axis peak more pronounced at the listening position. At least that's my take based on my understanding of the research and my past listening experiences.
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Philharmonic BMR Monitor Semi-Objective Review - Road Show Stop 1
- Thread starter Steve Dallas
- Start date
It all depends on how smooth the early reflections are I would imagine, an ultra wide dispersion speaker with an early reflections bump is going to be more audible than a narrower dispersion speaker with that same bump just due to being lower in level. The original BMR appear to be smoother in the early reflections and therefore the wide dispersion wouldn't make an off-axis peak more pronounced at the listening position. At least that's my take based on my understanding of the research and my past listening experiences.
When I first look at Erin's EIR graph, I had problem identifying the "glare issue". The deviation is 1 to 1.5 dB in a frequency band. I think this is more to a personal taste on the higher frequencies.
I don't think so, it's all relative of course but I have extensive experience with the KEF R3 and it has even a less pronounced bump around 2700Hz but it sounded just a bit harsh and was fatiguing after awhile, Erin noted the same thing when he reviewed the R3. I think the early reflections are just much more important than most of us want to believe, any peaking in the ER curve will show up in the PIR curve and be audible, especially when it doesn't match the listening window.
I agree it is relative. However, based on the EIR, the soft dip in 3-5K could be as sensitive if we start to look into 1 dB difference. The EIR published included early reflection. It will be difficult for most people to understand what exactly "glare" is. This is the challenge of writing a review. This means many different things for different people. For some people it might be an issue for some it is not an issue. With all the benefits that BMR provides, if we were lead to focus on "a small issue" that might or might not be, this would diminish all the benefits of the speaker. The author made it clear saying this bothered him and I respect that. From the objective EIR side, this is 1-1.5dB difference.
I mentioned above making a more shallow version of the Mid-Range Compensation that Audyssey builds into their room correction. IIRC, it's a very narrow -3dB crater in the FR, but over a very narrow band.
I made mine about -1.5 dB at the deepest, and widened it into a gentle swale, probably about 2.5x the band of the Audyssey dip.
For me, at the time, it made a very significant difference.
I can't identify what caused that difference other than a very minor attenuation. If it was early reflections or all reflections, or whatever. I do not use it anymore: it was simply an experiment.
I will stand by the proposition, however, that 1-1.5 dB can be significant.
I found KEF Q950 and R900 to both be fatiguing, FWIW.
OP
Steve Dallas
Major Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #366
As the OP of this thread and owner of a pair of these speakers, here are my thoughts about Erin's review:
1. When you review very good speakers, it is easy to focus on the few negatives rather than effusively praise the positives, because that is what is interesting.
2. If you read pages 1 and 4 of this thread, you will see that I both heard and measured a broad rise in the 2KHz area. It was more pronounced in one room vs. the other.
3. In post 65, I show that 2KHz peak in my media room in-room measurements. (Also seen in office measurements on page 1.)
4. In post 66, I pull it down with PEQ.
5. Later in this thread, I comment on making two Dirac presets: one limited to 500Hz and one limited to 10KHz, and I use them for different material, based on hearing that peak at times.
6. In my conclusions, I mentioned that these speakers belong in rooms in which wide directivity is rewarded, as they really light up the side walls.
7. After 14 months with the BMRs, I re-purchased a pair of KEF R3s to test whether their narrower directivity provides a more precise horizontal soundstage in my room and concluded in the affirmative, while discussing the trade-offs of both speakers.
8. Erin's PIR matches my measured IR above 1KHz pretty well.
9. While the peak is mild in the on-axis measurement, it seems to be accentuated by reflections, which means it will be minimal in larger rooms.
And the most important point of all:
10. This is still a VERY good speaker! The ultra-wide directivity works better in some rooms and/or some levels of treatment. Otherwise we are picking nits here.
1. When you review very good speakers, it is easy to focus on the few negatives rather than effusively praise the positives, because that is what is interesting.
2. If you read pages 1 and 4 of this thread, you will see that I both heard and measured a broad rise in the 2KHz area. It was more pronounced in one room vs. the other.
3. In post 65, I show that 2KHz peak in my media room in-room measurements. (Also seen in office measurements on page 1.)
4. In post 66, I pull it down with PEQ.
5. Later in this thread, I comment on making two Dirac presets: one limited to 500Hz and one limited to 10KHz, and I use them for different material, based on hearing that peak at times.
6. In my conclusions, I mentioned that these speakers belong in rooms in which wide directivity is rewarded, as they really light up the side walls.
7. After 14 months with the BMRs, I re-purchased a pair of KEF R3s to test whether their narrower directivity provides a more precise horizontal soundstage in my room and concluded in the affirmative, while discussing the trade-offs of both speakers.
8. Erin's PIR matches my measured IR above 1KHz pretty well.
9. While the peak is mild in the on-axis measurement, it seems to be accentuated by reflections, which means it will be minimal in larger rooms.
And the most important point of all:
10. This is still a VERY good speaker! The ultra-wide directivity works better in some rooms and/or some levels of treatment. Otherwise we are picking nits here.
Agreed but I don't think it's helpful to think of this stuff as "1db differences" with respect to the PIR curve by itself, I personally always use the listening window and Early reflections when evaluating speakers because I think they are the most important by far, a single curve just isn't enough information and the PIR is mostly the ER curve anyway. A 1 db peak may not be a big deal by itself but when it's a broader range and doesn't match the direct sound is when it can be a bigger problem in my experience. The ER directivity curve is key here, it should be increasing or flat, when it comes back down it shows a directivity mismatch and more importantly a stronger early reflections response.
I think this is interesting, must of us are “serial offenders” you own one pair of speakers at the time . And sometimes even brought in the old ones to the shop when picking up the next pair ?
So even if many audiophiles have owned a lot of speakers they have not really compared them .
auditory memory is very short.
We “learn” the speakers in their acoustics ( what many thinks is burn in , but our brain adapts an accept the new normal).
I will have a data driven approach when selecting the next pair . And the BMR’s are still in the contest .
Btw no one manufacturer really questions a raving positive review “thanks for the gloving review but you methodology is such that you can’t possibly make these conclusions”
I do understand, many readers seems to nitpick every negative remark and just gloss over the positive ones as a given , that’s how we as humans tend to read these things .
I wish there was better ranking system than the preference score, I still think it’s useful if one weighs in its limitations . But getting a true sense on how things perform related to other speakers or how good a speaker could possibly be is not easy.
I try to find context when I read reviews . For example food critic can nitpick details on a gourmet restaurant, that’s actually their jobb , but the given context is that this is still is much better than chicken McNuggets .
So finding some issues is part of it .
So even if many audiophiles have owned a lot of speakers they have not really compared them .
auditory memory is very short.
We “learn” the speakers in their acoustics ( what many thinks is burn in , but our brain adapts an accept the new normal).
I will have a data driven approach when selecting the next pair . And the BMR’s are still in the contest .
Btw no one manufacturer really questions a raving positive review
“thanks for the gloving review but you methodology is such that you can’t possibly make these conclusions” I do understand, many readers seems to nitpick every negative remark and just gloss over the positive ones as a given , that’s how we as humans tend to read these things .
I wish there was better ranking system than the preference score, I still think it’s useful if one weighs in its limitations . But getting a true sense on how things perform related to other speakers or how good a speaker could possibly be is not easy.
I try to find context when I read reviews . For example food critic can nitpick details on a gourmet restaurant, that’s actually their jobb , but the given context is that this is still is much better than chicken McNuggets .
So finding some issues is part of it .
I think it is a long time between the BMR V1 and BMR V2 reviews. Maybe I was expecting to hear a bit improvement that we made on the V2 vs the V1 (Of course I'm bias as I'm the co-creator for BMR and Tower). For example, the improved second order crossover to improve the sensitivity and the slightly better mid range performance comparing to the V1. The V2 in our opinion is closer to the BMR Tower than the V1. The "issue" with the Raal tweeter on V1, IMO, isn't really audible except testing. The improvement from the Raal tweeter while is easier to spot on paper doesn't impact as much as the crossover re-alignment and increased sensitivity.
The "high output" and "Home theater" thing have been discussed several times. For my real usage, I recently replaced all my BMR V1 in my theater to V2. The increased sensitivity "supposed" to help but it doesn't really make auditable difference after Audessey. I sit 14 feet from the screen. The screen is 152" in size. The room has a slightly vaulted ceiling and is fully light controlled. (The JVC NX7 is awesome for the 152" screen). I usually listen at 65-70 dB (Denon Audessey calibrated). I turned it up to 75 dB tonight but half way through the movie, I lowered it down to 68. This is an audiophile and kick-ass home theater...
The "high output" and "Home theater" thing have been discussed several times. For my real usage, I recently replaced all my BMR V1 in my theater to V2. The increased sensitivity "supposed" to help but it doesn't really make auditable difference after Audessey. I sit 14 feet from the screen. The screen is 152" in size. The room has a slightly vaulted ceiling and is fully light controlled. (The JVC NX7 is awesome for the 152" screen). I usually listen at 65-70 dB (Denon Audessey calibrated). I turned it up to 75 dB tonight but half way through the movie, I lowered it down to 68. This is an audiophile and kick-ass home theater...
ROOSKIE
Major Contributor
65db is pretty meek. I think quite a few people listen well beyond that. I can even imagine such low volumes for my best times.
I regularly listen at SPL levels averaging in the High 80's, (even from time tome low 90's) and peaking at 100db or more.
Remember ( I know you know this but for others who are new) SPL is reduced with distance so at 4meters or so you need more capability in 1meter refence to provide high output.
I check my SPL regularly and am very familiar with my volume levels.
That said there is a difference between the SPL in a SWEEP and the cumulative SPL or room equilibrium state of pink noise. They are not the same thing at all. C, B, Z, A or whatever weighted averaged SPL is much lower than a RAW sweep.
That said I may be concerned about the compression as in louder sessions I seem to become far more sensitive/aware of subtle quality issues.
I believe the review mentioned 10% HD at 100hrz - that is not in the data, (I see 1%@86 & 2.5%@96 there which is good). I see much less. It hits 2nd order 10% at 70hrz and 3rd order at 10% at 60hrz all at 96db levels.
I am very familiar with the SB acoustics woofer measuring higher levels of HD when pushed hard- it is not really a beastly bass oriented woofer. I don't think that presents the issue that many would like to think and certainly it has been covered over and over again that this is not a well understock aspect of loudspeaker performance. Who knows. It is easy to measure so the testing is commonplace, I firmly believe that that is all we know - it is easy to measure. Toole covers this, Geddes did some testing and found that in waveguided tweeters very high HD levels were not an issue but edge diffraction and increasing turbulence there at higher SPL was. We don't see this tested because it is very hard to test. IMD is not tested often as it is very difficult to test.
-I'd much rather know how this affects the performance but it is hard to test well.
I have a pair of BMR's available to test now and have heard only a few tracks so far. Let's see what is what here over time.
As of now they are very wide as to be expected and the effect is very very nice. I can't see why anyone would absorb any of this beyond normal room furnishings typical of a comfortable space. This is a speaker purposely designed to fill the room with natural diffusion. I could see using diffusers as Floyd Toole recommends in his book and skipping any sort of absorption. That will only screw up the very well balanced wide directivity and resulting lush sense of room filling sonics.
If the directivity seems overly wide this may not be the right speaker for the intended buyer. If you like wide this is it. It is also clearly extremely sophisticated sounding - as in no question I am excited to hear more.
One thing I will note is that my Revel M126be while smaller, seems to be more dynamic on peaks - it actually is able to startle me more than any bookshelf I can remeber. It is also a clearer- cleaner sounding speaker. It also doesn't quite fill the room as fully and dare i say "magically" as the BMR. That room filling quality seems to be the BMR's money hour and I can see why. We will see what comes with more listening and some testing with measurement gear.
I expect (unlike my R3 and M126be shootout where the R3 lost easily) that "choosing" a favorite over the M126be and BMR is going to be very hard and maybe not possible. I also have the JBL 4309 and L82 here and the M16.
Say @hardisj when you do the compression test what amp are you using there?
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ROOSKIE
Major Contributor
I 1st thing that I heard when I fired up my M126be's was how real two drum sticks hitting each other sounded. Actually made the M16 sound like a "tin can."
Go try some thing from the BE line and see what you find.
My JBL 4309's sound pretty darn live. I think that even dispersion well into the treble helps and that waveguide and tweeter just crush dynamic highs. They also have SPL for days as long as you HP them at 60-90hrz.
I have the BMR to compare now and will over the next week.
ROOSKIE
Major Contributor
I believe the OG woofer was famous for being a bass beast that can also do an okay 2-way. Mainly a 3 way monster monitor speaker woofer. They stopped making that woofer though.
So yah what happened with the tweeter here - same tweeter right?
Makes no sense to me. (shipping damage, mic issue, anything else beyond a strange change?)
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Do you think you would go back and normalize data from past reviews to bring them in line? I know that's work and time is limited, but limit the scope to just things that make the data comparable, like this. You don't have to go hog wild on everything. Maybe take a breather from the massive in-wall testing you did and use that time.
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For some time I've had an intuition that speaker radiation patterns should be adjusted based on room size. That is mainly based on maintaining a certain % of reflections in the mix and not letting them become too dominant or too absent. Hence, a wider room can accommodate a wider speaker and a smaller room can easily become overwhelmed by one and would benefit more from controlled directivity. Of course I could be wrong but that just makes sense to me.There is so much more in between that I find interesting. As I said, the fact that I previously loved the v1 for its wide radiation but found myself to not care for it this round (in my home theater room) thanks to the seemingly lack of clarity it results in is an interesting finding. I didn't expect that. At all.
Then, throw in that my experience in my larger and open living room wasn't quite the same and I'm genuinely intrigued by that finding and am curious if - over time - I've started to get a better grip on radiation patterns that I prefer. For different rooms. I've had the opportunity to listen to a LOT of nice speakers in the two years since I listened to the BMR v1. And with that, I've tried to make sense of how the data relates to what I hear when I listen. I pass this info along. That's all I can do.
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I concur as I've done the same with headphones. A broad 1-1.5 dB bowl can take the edge off and make them very enjoyable if other major flaws are absent.I mentioned above making a more shallow version of the Mid-Range Compensation that Audyssey builds into their room correction. IIRC, it's a very narrow -3dB crater in the FR, but over a very narrow band.
I made mine about -1.5 dB at the deepest, and widened it into a gentle swale, probably about 2.5x the band of the Audyssey dip.
For me, at the time, it made a very significant difference.
I can't identify what caused that difference other than a very minor attenuation. If it was early reflections or all reflections, or whatever. I do not use it anymore: it was simply an experiment.
I will stand by the proposition, however, that 1-1.5 dB can be significant.
Hopefully @pierre (sorry if I have the wrong Pierre) will have the data soon to make for easier comparisons.
Agree 100%. Don’t have BMRs, but have Revels which have wide dispersion and present a very ’spacious’ soundstage.
Would seriously consider the BMR floor standers if I ever put together a second system.
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I never said that.
When I was talking about 10% THD I was talking about how manufacturers rate Xmax vs how the IEC standard (which is what KLIPPEL uses) rates excursion.
Here is an example.
SB rates this woofer at 5.5mm one way.
IEC 62458 shows that to be 2.8mm one way limited by motor force variation.
SB Acoustics SB17CAC35-4 6 Inch Ceramic Midwoofer Review
SB Acoustics SB17CAC35-4 6 Inch Ceramic Midwoofer Review
www.erinsaudiocorner.com
In short, no. Because I don't have the 76dB reference for any of those.
OP
Steve Dallas
Major Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #380
This has been my experience. I allude to it in several posts in this thread:
KEF R3 vs. Philharmonic BMR Grudge Rematch to the Probably not Death Thread
When I said it only works well with controlled-directivity speakers, I meant using DRC on frequencies above the room-dominated threshold is unpredictable unless directivity is well-controlled (smooth). This is because you are adjusting direct sound, which is then reflected off nearby surfaces...
www.audiosciencereview.com
I have small listening rooms in my house, and they are basically cubes, which means very challenging for a speaker in terms of room modes and reflections. I am coming around to the idea that speakers with smooth, narrow dispersion work better in these rooms--at least to my ears. Too wide, and the horizontal soundstage smears when listening to some material.
I am planning to keep the R3s on the stands for a few months, then swap back to my BMRs. I will update that thread with any impressions after switching back.
Switching topics... Interestingly, I did not note the 2 to 2.3KHz peak in that other thread. I only hear it in some music with strong content there. It is not enough of an issue for me to be a show stopper. I would occasionally pull it down with EQ or Dirac when listening to certain music--mainly classic rock, but I left it alone 90% of the time.
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