Klipsch RP-160m vs Phil BMR.

[yepimonfire]

Had a chance to demo the BMR with @KEW against the 160m, I expected it to be an unfair comparison, but to my surprise, neither speaker was a clear winner. Both speakers were demoed in mono and then stereo to compare imaging quality, an spl meter set that C weighting was used to level match the speakers using internal pink noise from the avr.

The BMR had a slightly wider Soundstage that felt a little bit more natural, but the klipsch managed to extract a bit more detail about on some tracks, while the BMR did better on other track, most of the time, the klipsch had a significant advantage over the BMR on transients and what I call "micro dynamics". Of course, with movies, the klipsch is a clear winner with a much better dynamic range, but I'd bet the BMR wasn't actually designed with HT in mind.

For the most part, each speaker had a slightly different presentation, and it really was difficult to declare either better, rather just different.

I was very surprised that a pair of speakers costing 3-5x less than the BMR (which is already cheap considering the quality of it) could even compete.

I guess the good news from this is that there's no reason for me to upgrade speakers in the near future. I'd also have to say that this puts the 160m as as king for speakers under $500 (or even under $1k!), and the RP-150m as the go to recommendation from me for speakers under $300, since the 150m is really just a smaller version with slightly slightly less extension. These really perform significantly above their price class, and even above those costing 2-3x as much, and excel in both movies and music.

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[Dennis Murphy]

Had a chance to demo the BMR with @KEW against the 160m, I expected it to be an unfair comparison, but to my surprise, neither speaker was a clear winner. Both speakers were demoed in mono and then stereo to compare imaging quality, an spl meter set that C weighting was used to level match the speakers using internal pink noise from the avr.

The BMR had a slightly wider Soundstage that felt a little bit more natural, but the klipsch managed to extract a bit more detail about on some tracks, while the BMR did better on other track, most of the time, the klipsch had a significant advantage over the BMR on transients and what I call "micro dynamics". Of course, with movies, the klipsch is a clear winner with a much better dynamic range, but I'd bet the BMR wasn't actually designed with HT in mind.

For the most part, each speaker had a slightly different presentation, and it really was difficult to declare either better, rather just different.

I was very surprised that a pair of speakers costing 3-5x less than the BMR (which is already cheap considering the quality of it) could even compete.

I guess the good news from this is that there's no reason for me to upgrade speakers in the near future. I'd also have to say that this puts the 160m as as king for speakers under $500 (or even under $1k!), and the RP-150m as the go to recommendation from me for speakers under $300, since the 150m is really just a smaller version with slightly slightly less extension. These really perform significantly above their price class, and even above those costing 2-3x as much, and excel in both movies and music.

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Interestingly, I'm finishing up a mod to the crossover for the 160m that someone asked me to do. I was impressed with the Klipsch. The highs are elevated, and very elevated above 10 kHz, but that didn't bother me much. I found the sound very similar to my Affordable Accuracy, but not to the BMR. Did you listen to orchestral music? The sound stage presentation is very different on complex music in a natural acoustic.

 

[KEW]

I am definitely impressed with the new Klipsch RP series. It is a clear step above the older reference ii series. I'm not sure how, but they really figured out how to tone down the horn artifacts (inexpensively enough to use it on the RP series) - enough so that I don't think I would identify it as a horn speaker in a blind test any longer.
I was expecting a comparison of the BMR and the Klipsch to be a non-starter, but the Klipsch wasn't as far behind as I expected it to be.
I left that comparison session thinking "BMR for music and Klipsch for HT".
To me the big take away is the Klipsch was much better with music than its Reference ii predecessor. Enough so that I will be replacing my older Klipsch with the new RP series. I got the Reference ii speakers for HT, but because of their central location, I end up listening to music on them more often that I would like (given I have better speakers for music). For that situation, the RP series are a welcome solution.

 

[KEW]

Interestingly, I'm finishing up a mod to the crossover for the 160m that someone asked me to do. I was impressed with the Klipsch. The highs are elevated, and very elevated above 10 kHz, but that didn't bother me much. I found the sound very similar to my Affordable Accuracy, but not to the BMR. Did you listen to orchestral music? The sound stage presentation is very different on complex music in a natural acoustic.

Would you mind posting your measurements of the RP-160m?

No, there was no orchestral music among what we listened to, however your statement about complex acoustic music is consistent. The BMR did a better job with Big Band music (Ed Palermo's Big Band) than the Klipsch. I need to get a good orchestral piece in my mix! Do you have any suggestion for a 3-5 minute piece I could add to my audition disc?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Would you mind posting your measurements of the RP-160m?

No, there was no orchestral music among what we listened to, however your statement about complex acoustic music is consistent. The BMR did a better job with Big Band music (Ed Palermo's Big Band) than the Klipsch. I need to get a good orchestral piece in my mix! Do you have any suggestion for a 3-5 minute piece I could add to my audition disc?

There's lots of good orchestral music on the demo CD I sent you. Of course, you probably don't have a CD player any more. Sigh. All of my comparative listening to the Klipsch and BMR were done on my switching preamp at the same volume. Under those circumstances, more sensitive speakers don't sound any different than less sensitive when it comes to transients. But the Klipsch will be able to play louder with most amps. However, the Klipsch woofer doesn't have as much power handling as the Scan unit on the BMR, so all of this assumes a sub is in play. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to post any measurements, but I'll let you see them privately. The Klipsch drivers are very smooth and the crossover is well thought out. It's purely a matter of balancing the highs a little flatter and getting rid of the rise at the top end (which a lot of people might not hear anyhow).

 

[shadyJ]

Had a chance to demo the BMR with @KEW against the 160m, I expected it to be an unfair comparison, but to my surprise, neither speaker was a clear winner. Both speakers were demoed in mono and then stereo to compare imaging quality, an spl meter set that C weighting was used to level match the speakers using internal pink noise from the avr.

The BMR had a slightly wider Soundstage that felt a little bit more natural, but the klipsch managed to extract a bit more detail about on some tracks, while the BMR did better on other track, most of the time, the klipsch had a significant advantage over the BMR on transients and what I call "micro dynamics". Of course, with movies, the klipsch is a clear winner with a much better dynamic range, but I'd bet the BMR wasn't actually designed with HT in mind.

For the most part, each speaker had a slightly different presentation, and it really was difficult to declare either better, rather just different.

I was very surprised that a pair of speakers costing 3-5x less than the BMR (which is already cheap considering the quality of it) could even compete.

I guess the good news from this is that there's no reason for me to upgrade speakers in the near future. I'd also have to say that this puts the 160m as as king for speakers under $500 (or even under $1k!), and the RP-150m as the go to recommendation from me for speakers under $300, since the 150m is really just a smaller version with slightly slightly less extension. These really perform significantly above their price class, and even above those costing 2-3x as much, and excel in both movies and music.

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Sounds like the detail that you heard was from elevated treble. A lot of speakers are voiced that way, but I regard that as an artificial way of bringing out detail. You see a lot of speakers with a slight rise from 8kHz to 10kHz, enough to accentuate some details but without being sibilant.

 

[zieglj01]

The purple line is the smaller RP150 -- a happy bump boost in the midrange, and a rising upper treble -- however, many would still like this for music, and many would like it for HT
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/klipsch-reference-premiere-rp-150m-speaker-system-review-test-bench

 

[yepimonfire]

There's lots of good orchestral music on the demo CD I sent you. Of course, you probably don't have a CD player any more. Sigh. All of my comparative listening to the Klipsch and BMR were done on my switching preamp at the same volume. Under those circumstances, more sensitive speakers don't sound any different than less sensitive when it comes to transients. But the Klipsch will be able to play louder with most amps. However, the Klipsch woofer doesn't have as much power handling as the Scan unit on the BMR, so all of this assumes a sub is in play. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to post any measurements, but I'll let you see them privately. The Klipsch drivers are very smooth and the crossover is well thought out. It's purely a matter of balancing the highs a little flatter and getting rid of the rise at the top end (which a lot of people might not hear anyhow).

I'd like to see your measurements as well if possible. My own windowed measurement shows the tweeter is a couple dB hot but is otherwise very flat. Obviously everything below 300hz is lost due to the window. I don't necessarily find the small elevation to be bothersome, just different in voicing.

Would your xover mod reduce the sensitivity of the speaker? If not, I may be interested in it. I do find the 160m is just slightly brighter sounding than the 150m.

Either way, considering the price of the RP bookshelves, I am blown away by their performance. The whole design seems to be very well thought out.

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[yepimonfire]

Interestingly, I'm finishing up a mod to the crossover for the 160m that someone asked me to do. I was impressed with the Klipsch. The highs are elevated, and very elevated above 10 kHz, but that didn't bother me much. I found the sound very similar to my Affordable Accuracy, but not to the BMR. Did you listen to orchestral music? The sound stage presentation is very different on complex music in a natural acoustic.

I've listened to plenty of orchestral music on them and find they do a fantastic job in my opinion. The sound stage is expansive and realistic sounding.

I do find the Soundstage on the BMR to be a bit more natural sounding on big band, the klipsch is a bit more focused in towards the speakers.

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[shadyJ]

I'd like to see your measurements as well if possible. My own windowed measurement shows the tweeter is a couple dB hot but is otherwise very flat. Obviously everything below 300hz is lost due to the window. I don't necessarily find the small elevation to be bothersome, just different in voicing.

Would your xover mod reduce the sensitivity of the speaker? If not, I may be interested in it. I do find the 160m is just slightly brighter sounding than the 150m.

Either way, considering the price of the RP bookshelves, I am blown away by their performance. The whole design seems to be very well thought out.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

The scale of that graph is much too broad and is hiding how rocky that response actually is. An amplitude range of 50 dB to 100 dB would be a lot more revealing of its behavior. Also narrow the frequency range down to 300 Hz to 20 kHz. Also are you sure that your window is only 300 Hz? I would be surprised if you are able to measure accurately down to 300 Hz if this measurement was taken indoors in a room with a regular 8' ceiling.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I'd like to see your measurements as well if possible. My own windowed measurement shows the tweeter is a couple dB hot but is otherwise very flat. Obviously everything below 300hz is lost due to the window. I don't necessarily find the small elevation to be bothersome, just different in voicing.

Would your xover mod reduce the sensitivity of the speaker? If not, I may be interested in it. I do find the 160m is just slightly brighter sounding than the 150m.

Either way, considering the price of the RP bookshelves, I am blown away by their performance. The whole design seems to be very well thought out.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I'm not familiar with your measurement software. If that's really a quasi-anechoic measurement above 300 Hz, I think there's something off in your mic calibration above 10 kHz.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

the rp160s are rated down to 45. your aa monitors according to description on your website have good output to 34. in your listening so far do your aas indeed have deeper bass than the 160s?

curious because im considering ordering a pair of your aas or the rp160s for my bedroom in a 2.0 setup. i own a pair of rp280 towers in my living room setup and i really like them.

you said the 160s are similar to your aas and im having a hard time ordering the 160s because id like some variety.

so i guess my question is do your aas have deeper bass and the treble is similar to the 160s?

 

[yepimonfire]

I'm not familiar with your measurement software. If that's really a quasi-anechoic measurement above 300 Hz, I think there's something off in your mic calibration above 10 kHz.

It's a calibrated omni mic using rew. That was measured at 1m on tweeter axis and a 6ms window was applied by using the impulse response to determine when the reflections arrived.

I've actually taken several measurements of these speakers and always gotten the same results. Do you mind pming me your measurements? I know the audyssey app, which shows before and after response graphs also shows something very similar to what I got.

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[TheWarrior]

All I have to add was that the new Klipsch RP's are quite impressive for the money. And I did not care for the previous series at all. They do not have the highest detail or resolution, but their dispersion is infinitely better than it was before.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

The AA's have an atypical tuning system that maintains bass output below the box resonance of the woofer, but at a reduced level. In effect, the response shelves down rather than rolling off steeply. The AA does provide useful output at 34 Hz, but it's down substantially in relation to the output at, say, 45 Hz.

It's a calibrated omni mic using rew. That was measured at 1m on tweeter axis and a 6ms window was applied by using the impulse response to determine when the reflections arrived.

I've actually taken several measurements of these speakers and always gotten the same results. Do you mind pming me your measurements? I know the audyssey app, which shows before and after response graphs also shows something very similar to what I got.

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I think you have the measurements now. I sent a speaker to the Canadian NRC to check my measurements, and they are virtually identical, so I'm sure of my results above 10 kHz. They also track Sound and Vision's measurements, and they had a grill on, which I didn't.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

After getting your pm, I reread your post here and saw that I hadn't glommed on to the fact that you were using the Parts Express Omni Mic. I just thought it was some kind of omni-directional mic. That explains your measurements. As I mentioned to you in my pm, the PE Omni Mic is severely rolled off at the top end despite the calibration file you get. I wish they could fix that, because it's a very nice piece of hardware and software. I use it for THD measurements, which don't extend above 10 kHz. But it's not very useful as a design tool.

 

[PENG]

In addition to the Omni mic thing that Dennis mentioned, I think to get a better picture we really need to see 1/24 or even 1/48 smoothing.

 

[everettT]

Are we sure the calibration file was inputted? Also I could almost swear that was a measurement he posted using the audyessey Mic before .

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Are we sure the calibration file was inputted? Also I could almost swear that was a measurement he posted using the audyessey Mic before .

Don't know about the Audyessey Mic, but when I measure the Klipsch using my OmniMic, I get pretty much exactly what the OP got. And my BMR measures way down in the highs with the Omni, which it isn't, unless the NRC and Sound and Vision mics are off in the same direction and to the same degree as mine. I've had discussions with at least 4 other Omni Mic owners, and they all have the same problem. Jim Salk's is so far off in the highs that he can't use it for anything.