Best Reference Speakers for Under $1500?

[Swerd]

The funny thing about the differences in tweeters is that once Dennis gets his hands on them, they all start sounding pretty similar. Not the same, but close enough.

I completely agree. Once, early on in my DIY days, Dennis demoed two 2-way speakers. Same cabinets, ports, and mid woofers, but different tweeters. Both were 1" domes, one aluminum and the other silk. They sounded IDENTICAL. He could design the crossover carefully enough to do that. Other people there that day had previously sworn they could hear the high frequency "oil can" resonance of aluminum tweeters, until they heard Dennis's demo.

Edit: Those crossovers had nothing in them that could affect the tweeters high frequency response.

He also did the same for aluminum vs. treated paper mid woofers. With aluminum mid woofers in a 2-way design, people can easily hear the "oil can" resonance (break-up noise),if the crossover allows that to get through. Design the crossover right, and they don't sound different.

 

[little wing]

Accurate/neutral speaker brands include RBH, KEF, PSB, NHT, Salk, Revel, Focal, Ascend, Dynaudio, Philharmonic. These speaker brands are usually +/- 3dB or less.

Speaker brands that might have a hump/peak in the treble region 9-15kHz include DefTech, GoldenEar, Paradigm, B&W.

I don't know much about measurements, but I can confirm what you say about B&W speakers and the treble. A dealer demo'd some for me a few years back. Don't remember the model 80 something, anyway after 5 minutes or so of cranking the speakers all I wanted him to do was turn them down. They became fatiguing to my ears

 

[KEW]

Ribbons are pretty height sensitive though, anything more than 10 degrees above or below the tweeter will result in ~20db drops in the FR. For a living room setup I prefer traditional dome or concentric drivers.

The RAALs in my BMR's certainly don't do that!
I have heard some ribbons that seemed much more sensitive to vertical off-axis than the RAAL/BMR.

 

[shadyJ]

The RAALs in my BMR's certainly don't do that!
I have heard some ribbons that seemed much more sensitive to vertical off-axis than the RAAL/BMR.

The RAAL tweeter in your speakers might not have that severe of a drop off in vertical angles, but, by its nature, it is not bound to have a very wide vertical dispersion. Taller narrow tweeters like this one typically have a relatively restricted vertical response. These types of tweeters are best listened to with your ears around the same level with the tweeter, your BMR Philharmonitor included.

 

[KEW]

The RAAL tweeter in your speakers might not have that severe of a drop off in vertical angles, but, by its nature, it is not bound to have a very wide vertical dispersion. Taller narrow tweeters like this one typically have a relatively restricted vertical response. These types of tweeters are best listened to with your ears around the same level with the tweeter, your BMR Philharmonitor included.

I agree with that, but -20dB is a lot. I have listened to ribbons where the sound totally fell apart when I stood up because of the highs dieing out. I don't get that with the BMR.

 

[Swerd]

I agree with that, but -20dB is a lot. I have listened to ribbons where the sound totally fell apart when I stood up because of the highs dieing out. I don't get that with the BMR.

You won't hear that loss as you stand up with a properly designed 3-way speaker like the BMR, but you will in nearly all 2-way speakers. In a 3-way, the mid range driver handles all the lower treble by itself, but in most 2-ways it's shared between the mid woofer and tweeter, leading to the cancellation in that range as you stand up. If I remember correctly, the mid-tweeter crossover frequency in the BMR is 3500 Hz, but many 2-way speakers cross the mid-woofer-tweeter at roughly 2000 to 2500 Hz.

None of this loss is due to the narrower vertical dispersion of ribbon tweeters. If I have to, I'll repeat this over and over.

A loss can occur due to narrower vertical dispersion of ribbon tweeters, but it occurs at much higher frequencies, probably in the 10,000 Hz range. Very little musical signal exists at that frequency, and our hearing is much less effective in that range.

 

[shadyJ]

A loss can occur due to narrower vertical dispersion of ribbon tweeters, but it occurs at much higher frequencies, probably in the 10,000 Hz range. Very little musical signal exists at that frequency, and our hearing is much less effective in that range.

The vertical beamwidth of a ribbon tweeter is frequency and angle dependent. If you want to know the BMR Philharmonitor ribbon tweeter's vertical dispersion, I have good news for you- there is a review that shows that data!