Philharmonic BMR Monitor Semi-Objective Review - Road Show Stop 1

[Dennis Murphy]

@Steve Dallas very nice review, thank you for all the work.

My observation is the BMR's are on the large size for a stand mount and might benefit from shorter stands 18"/50 cm. I might have missed it, but Salk builds these with a wide range of finishes for more money.

I generally list 18" - 22" as the optimal stand height in most installations. 24" will work, however. It's better to be below the tweeter axis than substantially above it.

 

[Steve Dallas]

i'm ok w/100 hrs break-in. no need for anything more complex than what you did w/the roadshow pair. i only wish you'd done the speaker position swap w/the roadshow pair - curious if there would have been any differences.

doug s.

Eh. That was a joke. We don't believe in long break-in periods nor fancy cables around here.

The speakers are fully broken in after playing unfiltered pink noise through them for an hour during setup. Actually, they are probably fully broken in within the first minute.

I can tell you what the difference would be, if I had placed the BMRs in the same location as the Revels. The BMR FR would closely track the Revels up to ~1KHz. Above that, the BMR FR would look nearly identical to what I posted for that room. Changes in reflections would shift the FR a small amount in some ranges, but it would still look very much the same.

I posted this earlier, but here is a comparison of the office vs. the media room (not level matched):

And again with 1/6 smoothing to make it easier to read (not level matched):

As you can see, the measurements in the different rooms start tracking each other at 450Hz, which is above the Schroeder frequency in both rooms. The only real difference is the frequency center of the near 2KHz rise and the amplitude of the rise. And this is in different rooms. Imagine how similar it would be in the same room!

The takeaway should be that every room-dependent parameter will change in your room, and that the BMRs work well even in terrible rooms like mine, so they should work well in yours.

The swap you suggest would require many hours of work, which is why I did not do it with the Roadshow pair.

Cheers!

 

[Steve Dallas]

@Steve Dallas very nice review, thank you for all the work.

My observation is the BMR's are on the large size for a stand mount and might benefit from shorter stands 18"/50 cm. I might have missed it, but Salk builds these with a wide range of finishes for more money.

Stand height comment below.

Not that I need another project, but I am pondering building DIY cabinets that better fit the decor. You know, once I get around to deciding what the decor will be. We built this house 1 year ago, and we have done zero decorating in these 2 rooms.

I generally list 18" - 22" as the optimal stand height in most installations. 24" will work, however. It's better to be below the tweeter axis than substantially above it.

I sit in a rather tall office chair in my office to keep my physical therapist happy, so 24" stands are not too tall in here. A little taller would actually be better. A degree or three of negative rake can easily be applied if needed.

 

[Ron Texas]

Stand height comment below.

Not that I need another project, but I am pondering building DIY cabinets that better fit the decor. You know, once I get around to deciding what the decor will be. We built this house 1 year ago, and we have done zero decorating in these 2 rooms.



I sit in a rather tall office chair in my office to keep my physical therapist happy, so 24" stands are not too tall in here. A little taller would actually be better. A degree or three of negative rake can easily be applied if needed.

My couch is low so that's my point of reference. Sorry about the need for physical therapy.

 

[doug s.]

hi dennis!

i'm not sure there would be. but typically, the best spot in the room for speakers yields a sonic improvement, if only marginally. i'd think steve has his revels where they are because that's where they sound best...

doug s.

Why would there be any difference?

 

[doug s.]

ot a bit; not sure what you're doing p/t for, but an inversion table fixed the chronic almost daily back pain i had for ~10 years, due to a slipped disk gotten from doing something stupid at work ~30 years ago. you might want to investigate inversion tables...

doug s.

...I sit in a rather tall office chair in my office to keep my physical therapist happy, so 24" stands are not too tall in here. A little taller would actually be better. A degree or three of negative rake can easily be applied if needed.

 

[Steve Dallas]

My couch is low so that's my point of reference. Sorry about the need for physical therapy.

ot a bit; not sure what you're doing p/t for, but an inversion table fixed the chronic almost daily back pain i had for ~10 years, due to a slipped disk gotten from doing something stupid at work ~30 years ago. you might want to investigate inversion tables...

doug s.

I have tech neck from being an IT guy. I also injured my SI joints while working out with a personal trainer. PT brought me back to relative normalcy after everything else failed for several years. A sharp retired back surgeon finally correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed the right courses of PT. I am in good shape now; I just need to maintain proper posture at my desk and keep up with my exercises. Thank you both for your concern.

BTW, I have an inversion table in the attic. It did help somewhat with symptoms, but did not actually address the problem for me. Works for some conditions, but not for others.

 

[richard12511]

I have tech neck from being an IT guy. I also injured my SI joints while working out with a personal trainer. PT brought me back to relatively normalcy after everything else failed for several years. A sharp retired back surgeon finally correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed the right courses of PT. I am in good shape now; I just need to maintain proper posture at my desk and keep up with my exercises. Thank you both for your concern.

BTW, I have an inversion table in the attic. It did help somewhat with symptoms, but did not actually address the problem for me. Works for some conditions, but not for others.

I have similar issues as a software dev/tech guy. Something that helps me is to raise the monitors up to slightly above eye level. Looking slightly up kinda discourages the forward shoulder roll and neck kyphosis. On particularly bad days, I also wear a vest that pulls my shoulders back and chest up.

Browsing the internet for too long on my phone also dominates me.

 

[doug s.]

i'm glad you've sorted out you pains. but i'd still recommend using the inversion table regularly, for a few reasons:
- it did help you somewhat, even if it wasn't the cure. so it will still aid you.
- the blood flow to your brain is healthy.
- it's healthy even if you have *no* issues - in the late 1980's, i discovered i'd have to adjust my car's rearview mirror up a tiny bit in the morning, as i'd stretched out overnight sleeping. in the late afternoon, when driving home, i'd have to lower it a bit, as i'd shrunk during the day. this was an ongoing thing until ~2000, when i got my inversion table. besides my back pain going away, that mirror adjustment thing also went away. and i'm still the same height i was when in my 20's. most folks i know at my age have shrunk a bit.

another thing i found to be a good thing was getting a stand-up desk, which just helped me all over - back, stamina, circulation, etc. i started standing at work in 2012, and i rarely sit now. tho i can if i want to, it just doesn't happen. it's just overall much healthier for those with sedentary jobs. i've read that one of the biggest causes of premature aging/death is having a job where you sit at a desk all day.

ymmv,

doug s.

I have tech neck from being an IT guy. I also injured my SI joints while working out with a personal trainer. PT brought me back to relative normalcy after everything else failed for several years. A sharp retired back surgeon finally correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed the right courses of PT. I am in good shape now; I just need to maintain proper posture at my desk and keep up with my exercises. Thank you both for your concern.

BTW, I have an inversion table in the attic. It did help somewhat with symptoms, but did not actually address the problem for me. Works for some conditions, but not for others.

 

[BluesDaddy]

My couch is low so that's my point of reference. Sorry about the need for physical therapy.

I actually measured my listening seat height off the ground, then measured where my ears generally are, and calculated how tall a pair of stands I would need for the BMRs I was getting. I got mine in August of 2018 and they're the shorter, wider version (the look of which I actually like better). I settled on 21" stands, not that helps anyone else.

 

[Steve Dallas]

Quick and dirty stereo plot with Dirac's default curve:

Nine Dirac measurements were taken around the MLP. Measurement of the results was done the with the same methodology used throughout this thread.

It sounds pretty good, but I'm sure I'll tweak it to more closely match my usual target curve.

My manual PEQ results for comparison (with different smoothing):

Dirac does help with those unfortunate nulls.

 

[alexis]

Curved BMR "Factory" cabinet picture

Factory is not the best place to take photos. For who are interested in the Burl veneer and piano finish on the BMR Tower, this would give you some idea.

 

[doug s.]

hi steve, thanks for the reply; it seems i missed it when you 1st posted.

re: break-in/cables, i'm aware of asr's bias. tho i haven't posted much, i'm a frequent reader of the equipment reviews, and i enjoy the site's perspective, especially when it comes to things like dac's.

while i'm not big into cabling, or break-in of s/s gear (unless boutique caps have bee installed, (a whole other cam of worms - ha!), if speakers have zero playing time, i must respectfully disagree that 1 hour of unfiltered pink noise is enough for adequate break-in. it's driver-dependent, but speaker drivers are physical objects that move significantly in order to make sound, and they frequently require much use to become fully compliant.

doug s.

Eh. That was a joke. We don't believe in long break-in periods nor fancy cables around here.

The speakers are fully broken in after playing unfiltered pink noise through them for an hour during setup. Actually, they are probably fully broken in within the first minute.

I can tell you what the difference would be, if I had placed the BMRs in the same location as the Revels. The BMR FR would closely track the Revels up to ~1KHz. Above that, the BMR FR would look nearly identical to what I posted for that room. Changes in reflections would shift the FR a small amount in some ranges, but it would still look very much the same...

The takeaway should be that every room-dependent parameter will change in your room, and that the BMRs work well even in terrible rooms like mine, so they should work well in yours.

The swap you suggest would require many hours of work, which is why I did not do it with the Roadshow pair.

Cheers!

 

[Dennis Murphy]

hi steve, thanks for the reply; it seems i missed it when you 1st posted.

re: break-in/cables, i'm aware of asr's bias. tho i haven't posted much, i'm a frequent reader of the equipment reviews, and i enjoy the site's perspective, especially when it comes to things like dac's.

while i'm not big into cabling, or break-in of s/s gear (unless boutique caps have bee installed, (a whole other cam of worms - ha!), if speakers have zero playing time, i must respectfully disagree that 1 hour of unfiltered pink noise is enough for adequate break-in. it's driver-dependent, but speaker drivers are physical objects that move significantly in order to make sound, and they frequently require much use to become fully compliant.

doug s.

It would probably be best to frame this issue as narrowly as possible so that we don't go off on another break-in journey. Although I agree with Steve that an hour of full spectrum pink noise at fairly high volume is sufficient to flex the moving parts on a woofer, even if it weren't, any difference in frequency response would be limited to below 100 Hz or so. I've already done a 50-hour before and after blinded break-in test of the BMR midrange, and nothing happens that's visible in the response curves or verifiable in the listening tests. And clearly the nearly zero-mass ribbon element suspended in a magnetic field isn't going to break in. It might break, but that's covered under warranty.

 

[richard12511]

Quick and dirty stereo plot with Dirac's default curve:

View attachment 105619

Nine Dirac measurements were taken around the MLP. Measurement of the results was done the with the same methodology used throughout this thread.

It sounds pretty good, but I'm sure I'll tweak it to more closely match my usual target curve.

My manual PEQ results for comparison:
View attachment 105620

Dirac does help with those unfortunate nulls.

I would definitely stop Dirac from correcting above 10kHz. You don't want it boosting that top octave that way.

 

[Steve Dallas]

I would definitely stop Dirac from correcting above 10kHz. You don't want it boosting that top octave that way.

Agreed. I spent 30 minutes on this, including installing and activating the software. And this is my first rodeo with Dirac. I will mess with it much more.

Also, when I said, "it sounds pretty good," I meant for part of 1 song, before I had to get on a conference call.

 

[doug s.]

thanks, dennis, for chiming in on the specifics of the drivers in your speakers.

doug s.

It would probably be best to frame this issue as narrowly as possible so that we don't go off on another break-in journey. Although I agree with Steve that an hour of full spectrum pink noise at fairly high volume is sufficient to flex the moving parts on a woofer, even if it weren't, any difference in frequency response would be limited to below 100 Hz or so. I've already done a 50-hour before and after blinded break-in test of the BMR midrange, and nothing happens that's visible in the response curves or verifiable in the listening tests. And clearly the nearly zero-mass ribbon element suspended in a magnetic field isn't going to break in. It might break, but that's covered under warranty.

 

[Chromatischism]

I would definitely stop Dirac from correcting above 10kHz. You don't want it boosting that top octave that way.

I would definitely agree for a narrow or constant directivity speaker; that would be far too bright. This speaker though is very wide and will show much less of a slope in-room due to all the reflections. It's hard to say without listening.

However: discussions with Floyd Toole revealed the knowledge that there is no significant reverberant field above about 10 kHz, so you hear nearly all direct sound from that point up. Intuitively that doesn't sound right, but I can't argue with the guy, having built a career on this.

Agreed. I spent 30 minutes on this, including installing and activating the software. And this is my first rodeo with Dirac. I will mess with it much more.

You definitely want to let your ears be the judge.

 

[Chromatischism]

I just scrolled up and I see the response above 10 kHz dropping. I'm surprised with the ribbon and all. His room must be bigger than mine, because here is a popular waveguided dome tweeter in a room measuring less than 17x11 ft:

 

[Steve Dallas]

I would definitely agree for a narrow or constant directivity speaker; that would be far too bright. This speaker though is very wide and will show much less of a slope in-room due to all the reflections. It's hard to say without listening.

However: discussions with Floyd Toole revealed the knowledge that there is no significant reverberant field above about 10 kHz, so you hear nearly all direct sound from that point up. Intuitively that doesn't sound right, but I can't argue with the guy, having built a career on this.

You definitely want to let your ears be the judge.

As part of a previous spectral analysis study, I was surprised to discover how little content there is above 12KHz in most music. I limited Dirac to 10KHz, which happens to be a convenient measured vs. target intersection in the Dirac graph, then flipped presets back and forth in several musical selections and heard little difference.

(My hearing was recently tested by an audiologist, and I can still hear to 16KHz in my left ear and 16.5KHz in my right ear, so I'm in pretty decent shape up there.)

The best curve so far limits Dirac to below 1KHz, which happens to be another convenient intersection. Let it correct the room-influenced problems and leave the rest alone. I have much more listening to do, but this is my favorite preset so far. Coincidentally, I similarly limit Audyssey correction to below 1KHz on the Revels.

In manual correction, I kept pulling down the ~2KHz low Q rise, because of eyeballing it, but I also kept giving a lot of it back after earholing it. That is true of the 'tutorial' on the last page, although I forgot to mention it. Pulling it down all the way to the target makes the speakers sound a hair dull, and correcting it at all is very much optional. That applies to Dirac, too.