But I did get to hear all 3 speakers as we set everything up. They all share a common "Dennis Murphy designed sound" throughout the midrange that makes them sound wonderful IMHO. The most noticeable differences come in how deep the bass extends, and of course, their finish and appearance. After I get a better chance to hear them, I'll have more comments.
I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon at the Capital AudioFest, and spent plenty of time with the Philharmonic 1 and 3. I did hear some good speakers at the show, I'll mention them briefly below, but the bottom line is that the Philharmonics were among the best speakers at the show, and were without any doubt the best bargain. I love the sound from the BG Neo8 midrange. With passband frequencies from 650 to 2900 Hz, the mid driver delivers most of what you hear.
The room was large, roughly 25 x 26 feet (nearly square) with at least 9 foot ceiling. With the 200 wpc AVA amp (FET Valve Ultra+ 350) these speakers easily filled the room with sound louder than I could stand for long. I tried
. Dennis did mention he heard a minor mid-bass resonance to the room all 3 speakers that he doesn’t hear at his home. The hotel floor was concrete and didn’t shake with some deep bass notes like his wooden floor at home. Overall, the room sound was pretty good; some of the smaller rooms I heard other speakers in yesterday did have some serious problems.
So which Phil do I prefer, the 1 or the 3? They really are close siblings, nearly identical twins. The biggest difference is the tweeters, the Fountek ribbon vs. the RAAL. Even with my limited hearing above 15 kHz, the RAALs sounded a bit cleaner. In direct comparison, the Fountek was a little tizzier. Just using these words to describe the difference exaggerates the actual difference I heard. The Fountek is by no means unacceptable sounding, but the RAAL is outstanding.
The difference between the two 8” woofers was less audible to me. I expected to hear a bigger and better bass sound from the ScanSpeak woofer in the Phil 3, as Paul Kittinger’s numbers and graphs for these models suggest. But I can’t honestly say I heard a difference. It may have been the music playing, but I think the less expensive SB Acoustic 8” woofer (in the Phil 1 & 2) did just as well. No subwoofers were used yesterday. Please note that others I spoke with that day said they did hear a difference in the woofers. Who am I to argue?
That brings it down to price. The Phil 1 (Fountek tweeter) for $1600 or the Phil 2 (RAAL tweeter) for $2000. Both are outstanding bargains if a black cabinet suits you. They both sound at least as satisfying as my SongTowers, but have noticeably deeper bass. And they definitely remind me of the sound of the SoundScape10.
Dennis was happy to make one sale on Saturday and three more on Sunday (3 Phil 1s and 1 Phil 3).
Other speakers at the show worth typing about (all prices I mention are per pair):
Transmission Audio – smaller 2-way towers with an unusual dipole ribbon tweeter and 2 aluminum 5.5” woofers, made in Sweden. Excellent sound, cost $6500.
Polk LSi/M – a new tower model, very grainy treble. I didn’t like them.
Wilson Audio – this was my 1st ever chance to hear Wilsons. It may very well be the only time I hear them. They showed a large 3-way speaker (two 8” woofers, a mid, and a tweet in two separate cabinets), probably their top-of-the-line, but I don’t know the model name. It was said to cost $28,000. They were painfully bright sounding – ear bleed, nosebleed, cerebral hemorrhage bright. I had to leave that room soon. These speakers might be better used by exterminators to drive away cockroaches and mice. I thought it was nice for Dennis that the Wilsons were next door to him. The contrast was enormous.
McIntosh – They had a room full of electronic gear with enormous blue backlit power meters, all bobbing to the music. The speakers, a very tall array model with dozens of 2” mids and 1” tweeters were dull and unimpressive sounding. It was a small narrow room.
Carnegie Acoustics – They had 3 rooms with 3 different speakers. All 3 rooms were similar in size to the McIntosh room I mentioned above. Two of their models were not very good, the Pedestále ($2900) was awful in more than ways than one (boomy bass and a nasty tweeter), and the large $6000 CST-2 was only so-so. One model, the CST-1 ($2000) sounded pretty good. It’s an MTM tower with two 5.25” plastic composite cone woofers, and a BG Neo 3 planar magnetic tweeter. Compared to some other much brighter speakers I had recently heard that afternoon, these speakers were more laid back. They may have been a bit recessed in the upper midrange/lower treble. Usually this kind of response, a sin of omission, is easier on the ears than an obvious sin of commission (like the nasty sounding Pedestále). Later, I mentioned this speaker to Jim & Dennis and they said these speakers were designed by someone they know well who shall remain unnamed on line, and are meant to directly compete with the SongTower. They come only in glossy black. A direct comparison between the CST-1 and ST would be interesting, but I will make a guess that such a comparison might reveal a recessed upper midrange in the CST-1.
AudioNote – These are well known British 2-way speakers that I enjoyed, the AN-E model. I had known the name but never heard them before. They seem to defy a lot of commonly held speaker-making conventions. They have an 8” woofer and 1” dome tweeter in a large ported cabinet with a wide (at least 12” wide) front baffle. They are meant to be placed as close to room corners as possible. Their crossover point is said to be 2000-2200 Hz. That is somewhat high for an 8” woofer, but it did not sound to me like it had an obvious hole-in-the-middle. Again, this was in a narrow hotel room with reflective side walls. They were laid-back sounding, but not bass heavy. They are sensitive (an 18 wpc tube amp was used) and cost $16,000! I doubt if I would want to own them, but I did enjoy them.
Joseph Audio – I have heard several Joseph Audio models before and like them a lot. Their sound is closer to the Salk/Murphy sound than any other commercially available speaker I’ve heard. Today they played the new Perspective, a 2-way tower (MMT) with two SEAS W15 (or W16?) woofers and a SEAS Millenium tweeter - $11,800! A smaller bookshelf MT version with these same drivers, the Pearl, cost $7600!! These drivers are of course very similar to the SEAS W18 in so many Salk models, HT1, HT2, and HT3. What a good bargain Salk is in comparison!
Border Patrol Audio – These are medium sized MTM speakers that sounded good. I didn’t recognize the make of the woofers or the fabric dome tweeter. I didn’t spend much time there, as it was getting late and I was getting tired of listening and trying to be observant. I don’t know their price, but the room was full of very expensive looking toob amps. I later looked them up and found that they use ScanSpeak drivers and this MTM model cost over $7000.
Tidal – This was the last room of the day for me, but I spent more time there than I though I would. These speakers, Tidal DiaCeras, are MMT towers that sounded very good. (Dennis later told me he was unimpressed by their sound.) The drivers are the 6.5” ceramic coned Accuton woofers and the tweeter is the Accuton inverted dome “diamond” tweeter. I know that Accuton is made in Germany and is very very expensive, and I learned that the Tidal speakers are also made in Germany, probably in close collaboration with Accuton. I enjoyed their sound a lot. And now the price (take a seat) $37,700. If I chose to get the same drivers and cabinet type with less expensive crossover parts (and perhaps less elaborate cabinet construction), the Tidal Ceras, the price drops to $24,000. They also had some bookshelf MT speakers for $19,000. These make the Joseph Audio speakers seem like a bargain.
