Well now that the cat is out of the bag, you all can see how fantastic these speakers are. This has already been noted elsewhere, but I was so hugely impressed with how good these speakers are, that when a client reached out to me for recommendations on what speakers were the right upgrade for them, I recommended Perlisten. When we had trouble finding a dealer, I became one. Once I reached out to Perlisten, it just made sense. So...If anyone is interested in buying these speakers, obviously check if you have a local dealer first, but if not, feel free to reach out to me.
Unfortunately I cannot demo these for anyone yet, but there is a plan in place to allow demo of the speakers by this summer, so look for that opportunity.
For obvious reasons, you will not see me joining reviewing these speakers. I have a bias. However, I am close with Perlisten and know as much or more about these speakers as anyone other than the Perlisten team (and maybe James).
I really do think this speaker is different and unique from others on the market. Those who know me know I am a big dynamic range guy. I like waveguide speakers that play really loud. Not because I listen so loud, but because I like the effortless sound of a speaker capable of such high output. It means the speaker is never compressing or distorting unusually at any reasonable listening level. Admit it or not, many normal speakers do compress and do distort. Very few can do THX reference levels and this inability goes beyond just movies at a loud volume. It impacts realistic reproduction of high dynamic range music. Symphonies don't sound real. Being realistic, rock concerts don't really sound real either. They may sound very natural, the timbre may be spot on, but they still sound smaller than real life. A good high output speaker doesn't do this, but often such speakers can only do a few things well, while making other compromises. The Perlisten is the only speaker I am aware of that can do so many of my speaker priorities so perfectly. It has an absolutely perfect listening window response as you see. The Off-axis response behavior is really excellent, near perfect. Distortion is crazy low to the point of approaching some average amplifiers (normally the THD at reasonable linear listening levels is many magnitudes of order beyond that of any electronics in the system. While this one still is, it's so close that some crummier amps could actually have more distortion than this speaker). Bandwidth is fine for what it is, its designed to work with a subwoofer while still being a full range speaker as well. Meaning it has bass down to around 20-25hz in a typical room, but can be easily and properly blended with equally high output and low distortion subwoofers.
My honest opinion is that this is an end-game speaker. Most speakers I hear can be bettered or are bettered by other speakers in one way or another. These just do everything so well that the competition, even for 5 times the price, aren't better, just different. Even the finish quality isn't necessarily any better. Just different.
The line is expanding dramatically and a lot of cool stuff is coming. These products are so good that I am finding them making entire segments of the market irrelevant. A lot of the custom cinema install speakers from Procella, Pro Audio Technology, Grimani Systems (Sorry Anthony, I still love you!) can't better or even compete with these in setups designed to target those 3000 to 7000 cubic foot rooms. Basically, I would not necessary go to one of those other systems unless the room was quite a bit bigger (and that's an awfully big room). The passive Perlistens with good amps and a flexible processor (Storm, Trinnov, etc.) gives you all the flexibility of those custom install systems and better sound.
