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Someone asked me "grill on" view for BMR Monitors
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Stereophile review of Philharmonic BMR Monitor
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AndytoWood
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Hi Alexis,
Would you happen to have a picture of the Ebony finish with the black woofer you all are currently offering. I was hoping to order a pair soon and only just realized the note about the black woofers at present and was curious how it would look compared to the white!
standard gloss ebony under very bright lighting, makes the red in the ebony pop
satin ebony and rosewood under more normal indoor lighting conditions.
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AndytoWood
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Ok wow I like it more with the black than I thought I would… this is now a difficult decision because the white is quite nice too.
Thank you for the images!
Thank you for the images!
Would BMR monitors match well with McIntosh MA5300? Contemplating these for bedroom music system which is approx 18x13 ft. I like the look of black woofer better somehow. My McIntosh is currently driving almost 20 year old T+A Criterion TAL X2.1 towers. Not sure if it will be a side way step.
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BMR Monitors have been paired with McIntosh from customers and many other amps. We never heard any amp cannot drive them. The impedance is an easy load for all 4 ohm capable amps. They are transparent and neutral so they will let you know what the amp is feeding them.
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Just in case you have not heard it, Stereophile awarded BMR Monitors:
Stereophile Products of 2025 Editors' Choice Awards!
Stereophile Products of 2025 Joint Budget Products of the Year (Final List)!
We are super appreciative of Stereophile editors' votes.
Stereophile Products of 2025 Editors' Choice Awards!
Stereophile Products of 2025 Joint Budget Products of the Year (Final List)!
We are super appreciative of Stereophile editors' votes.
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Just in case you have not heard it, Stereophile awarded BMR Monitors:
Stereophile Products of 2025 Editors' Choice Awards!
Stereophile Products of 2025 Joint Budget Products of the Year (Final List)!
We are super appreciative of Stereophile editors' votes.
Aww that's a long time coming and well deserved.
I don't own mine anymore because the BMR monitor is the gateway drug to high end audio and I sold them for higher end models. I miss them.
bagwell359
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Note: All my opinion.
Had them for over a year w/ black woofs and Rosewood on Kanto S-22 stands (Dennis recommended them to me). About six months ago I changed the stock feet to Gaia 3 which was a revelation (measurements on line) - even on a carpet over concrete floor.
If you like very dynamic loud speakers (say K-Horns), or older big boxes with 12" or bigger woofs) these may not do it for you.
Restrictions: tweets really need to be at ear height (very narrow vertical dispersion) when doing serious listening. Side walls need to be damped with absorption/diffusion due to very wide horizontal dispersion. They don't seem to have the detail/soundstage max out unless they 9.5' or more feet away. Also want lots of space to the sides - 38" and 41" wall to tweet in my 18'x14' room).
Won't play super loud even with a beefy amp (I have a Schiit WotanF) I think at the bottom of the Ralls range it can glare when pushed.
Notes: I think the issue with the low impedance isn't much on issue - I originally drove them with a Schiit Ragnarok 2 and thought the overly long sustain in the midbass might be the amp, but the Gaia 3 dispelled that idea.
So with all these issues why bother?
To me they have a presentation stage wise thats nearly the size of planar such as ML SL-3 or Maggie 3.5R, but has more exact placement of instruments and the spaces around them. Really do well with classical, jazz, well recorded rock. Much better bass than a 2 way, it's really a half tower, not a small stand speaker.
If Philharmonic was a retail outfit you could expect to pay $3500+ for these. Excepting the towers I don't know of any speakers to rival them until ProAc D30R or if a big room Maggie 3.7i.
Had them for over a year w/ black woofs and Rosewood on Kanto S-22 stands (Dennis recommended them to me). About six months ago I changed the stock feet to Gaia 3 which was a revelation (measurements on line) - even on a carpet over concrete floor.
If you like very dynamic loud speakers (say K-Horns), or older big boxes with 12" or bigger woofs) these may not do it for you.
Restrictions: tweets really need to be at ear height (very narrow vertical dispersion) when doing serious listening. Side walls need to be damped with absorption/diffusion due to very wide horizontal dispersion. They don't seem to have the detail/soundstage max out unless they 9.5' or more feet away. Also want lots of space to the sides - 38" and 41" wall to tweet in my 18'x14' room).
Won't play super loud even with a beefy amp (I have a Schiit WotanF) I think at the bottom of the Ralls range it can glare when pushed.
Notes: I think the issue with the low impedance isn't much on issue - I originally drove them with a Schiit Ragnarok 2 and thought the overly long sustain in the midbass might be the amp, but the Gaia 3 dispelled that idea.
So with all these issues why bother?
To me they have a presentation stage wise thats nearly the size of planar such as ML SL-3 or Maggie 3.5R, but has more exact placement of instruments and the spaces around them. Really do well with classical, jazz, well recorded rock. Much better bass than a 2 way, it's really a half tower, not a small stand speaker.
If Philharmonic was a retail outfit you could expect to pay $3500+ for these. Excepting the towers I don't know of any speakers to rival them until ProAc D30R or if a big room Maggie 3.7i.
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You what?
Yeah I would call that a room ready for the full towers. I'm not surprised you didn't get thev volume you wanted.
bagwell359
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The bassiness i was getting was dispelled by the by the Gaia feet, it was not that the Rag 2 could not drive them in the mid bass where the impedance is very low.
Towers and Monitors are very similar in efficiency, so no real net volume increase. The argument to get them is:
1. 10 more Hz - I seldom listen to music with bass under 32 Hz so of little use
2. the tweeter is crossed over a bit higher in the tower so less stress on the tweet - decent reason
3. the woofer is crossed over a bit lower, so the low mids would be a bit cleaner - also decent reason
Cost: get about $1500 for Monitors, take a loss on the Kanto stands and Gaia feet, then pay $4400 for the towers, and have to
buy Gaia 2 feet. Plus pain of selling and buying for something that is worth to me maybe a 1/4 of the cost. Nope.
bagwell359
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I call it 1/2 a tower.Philharmonic Audio BMR Monitor loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
Let's get this out of the way: The BMR Monitor may be a monitor, but it isn't a bookshelf or desktop speaker any more than a yacht is a dinghy. Heave a slick-surfaced, 32lb BMR from its shipping carton, then wrap your arms around its svelte figure, with its fancy array of drivers and...www.stereophile.com
bagwell359
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I ran them for about a year with the Ragnarok 2, not known to drive very low loads. I seemed to have a problem with overly long sustain in the midbass so I assumed that was it. However I got Gaia 3 feet for them and it cleared it right up. I then went to the Schiit Kara/Wotan and it didn't seem to drive them with different results in the bass.
sure, let's use a term that has no meaning or common use instead of the monitor label that is quite accurate
I can assure you that attributing magical powers to a set of pretty and well made rubber feet will benefit you about as much as the position of the moon does during your listening session.
It is illogical and nonsensical that the performance of a well designed driver's motor structure and its resulting performance is impacted by rubber feet.
The Gaia's did nothing that you claim but they do look kind of cool.
and while we are here:
incorrect. The tower is capable of greater output (beyond substantially greater bass output and lower bass reach)
The 1 watt or 2.83V output level (efficiency) has nothing to do the max clean output capability (the max SPL) of any given driver
It's entirely possible that a driver that has 86dB sensitivity hits the wall at 98dB vs another with 90dB sensitivity that runs out of ability at 96dB
as is often the case what starts off as a very general kernel of truth gets misapplied:
1 true. Not much content below 40hz in general. EDM, hip hop, movie soundtracks etc are the exceptions, they can dig deep and often
2 this is entirely dependent upon the tweeter used, it's capabilities and the crossover design. In this particular comparison the "stress" placed upon the tweeter's slightly different bandpass (about 300hz) puts essentially zero additional stress upon it
3 this is entirely dependent upon the woofer and mids used, their capabilities and the crossover design. Changing the crossover point a few hundred hertz may or may not result in an output where the "low mids would be a bit cleaner". In this particular comparison they are not. There are other design considerations primarily stemming from the use of a different model, size and manufacturer of woofer that dictate the final slope and crossover point.
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Well, to be honest, I have been waiting to hear from Dennis about getting a pair of BMR monitors that fell off a truck. They would be scratch and dent models for 1/4 the price. For some reason I am still waiting. Maybe Dennis threw away my number after he said "That old crackpot" LOL I have actually never heard them but I would enjoy it. They are very beautiful speakers in amazing finishes.
They've got their delivery game dialed in. The only falling off a truck is when the FedEx Tossers huck them off the back of the delivery van onto your driveway. (Yes, this literally happened to me when I watched a guy drop my SI Subwoofer Driver at the top of the steps in the van and it proceeded to bounce down the steps, hit the pavement and tumble some more!)
Fortunately many of these boxes have strong pack-fu to combat the toss-fu of the delivery company.
Good luck waiting for that call!
I am fully in support of this endeavor although 1/4 the price is optimistic. But I am rooting for you.
I know that about a year ago a tower was tossed off the truck by a real genius and then it fell back perforating the middle of the box as it impacted against the metal edge/corner of the truck bed. There was visible damage at the side half way up on the speaker. Even then the owner accepted a very nice discount and kept them, perhaps because the damage was not on the front baffle. It did take him a week to decompress from the rage he felt. I felt so bad for him.
It could be said that those particular towers were irreplaceable.
I won't say the damage was on a super rare Streamline HT Tower, that would just make everyone a bit teary eyed.
But I can't deny that it was an Ebony Streamline HT either
That's the last damage reported that I can recall, sorry
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