gochurchgo
I don’t feel qualified to make any definitive claim about the Pulsars rocking or not. I auditioned them once or twice a couple years ago, but moved on strictly to auditioning the floor standing Perspectives after that.
That said, it depends on what you’d be comparing them to. It would make sense to evaluate "do they rock" for a stand mounted speaker. The Pulsars have a wide-ranging reputation for sounding like a much bigger speaker, with fantastic depth and bass impact for their size. Many have reported they do in deed rock really well. When I auditioned them, the played everything great, including some Van Halen as I remember.
I ended up wanting the Perspectives because I found them even more refined than the Pulsars.
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@philipwu I have been enamored with the Joseph speakers, started off wanting the Pulsars, moved to wanting the Perspectives. I auditioned tons of speakers including the Raidho X1s and C 1.2, which were being offered in a very good deal from my local dealer. I’d been quite impressed by Raidho monitors briefly hearing them at shows. But on a longer listen I decided they weren’t for me. In a nutshell, though the Raidho tweeter does indeed make for very fine high frequencies, the actual tone and voicing of the speakers were a bit too obviously scuplted to my ear. I found the Joseph speakers to be more tonally beautiful and convincing and also more neutral-sounding (in a good way) than the Raidho. Also the Joseph speakers have stellar high frequencies as well in terms of natural, ease, and sounding "unmechanical." I can certainly understand why someone would choose a Raidho instead, as of course it will come down to personal taste. You can find some more detail on my Rhaidho audition in this thread: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/contemplating-devore-speakers-and-others-long-audition-report... |
verdant,
Would that JA-like speaker be the Bambusa MG 1 listed on your web site?
In any case, I had the JA Perspective speakers at my home for an audition a couple of years ago. While they have a reputation for fine detail, I actually found my Thiel 3.7s pulled out a little more detail vs the JA speakers. But what is most seductive, to me, about the JA’s is the quality of the sound; really grainless and pure and smooth (and that tweeter is just terrific - though it’s probably an inaccurate cliche that metal tweeters do metal sounds better than soft domed, the JA speakers really make cymbals and metallic objects sound authentically metallic.
John Atkinson has put it well in some of his speaker reviews: that the sound of instruments like drum-hi-hats often take on the character of "bursts of modulated white noise." Yeah, you can identify it in the recording as a drum cymbal, but it really doesn’t sound like a real drum cymbal. One of the first things I heard in the JA speakers is how authentic drum cymbals sounded. (That’s another feature of the MBL 121 speakers I own as well: incredibly convincing high frequencies).
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i haven't heard any speakers from JA since my dealer did not stock them and said they're overprice for their sound. Yeah, dealers often say that kind of thing about products they don't sell ;-) |
no matter how refine the pulsar are, they sound small with no real bass. That may certainly be your opinion, but I'd say it would be quite misleading to people curious about the Pulsars. They are renowned for their bass output for a stand mounted speaker and for sounding bigger than they are. People who write show reports - from reviewers to audiophiles on forums - regularly report being stunned at the "size" of the sound and bass depth. The soundstage review, for instance, points this out:
The bass was phenomenal, and seemingly went much lower than the Pulsar’s stated low-end limit of 42Hz.
The Pulsars imaged and soundstaged better than almost any other speakers
I’ve ever heard, minimonitor or floorstander. The manual indicates that
the buyer should expect the soundstage to extend about a foot in front
of and behind the speakers. In my room, the soundstage began just behind
the Pulsars and went incredibly deep and wide; images floated entirely
free of the cabinets.
Although, like most minimonitors, the Pulsars didn’t produce life-size
images, what they did produce was larger than most -- maybe 80%
life-size -- and, like their bass response, could fool me almost
completely with some recordings.
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murphythecat
So your complaint is that a stand mounted monitor doesn’t sound like a big speaker with 12 t o18 inch drivers and a big cabinet.
I’m not sure exactly how helpful or enlightening this input is in a thread about monitor speakers, asking for monitor comparisons to the Pulsar.
And of course your idea of what the Pulsar is "made for" is merely subjective. Many have found it, and similar performing stand mounted speakers, to be very compelling on all types of music (I auditioned everything from Van Halen to Earth Wind And Fire on the Pulsars and found them wonderful on such music. Michael Fremer remarked that he was surprised by the Pulsar with rock, mesmerized in fact).
Again, just providing some counterpoint to your subjective impressions.
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murphythecat,
We all have our preferences.
I'm familiar with the Harbeth 30.2 (auditioned it, heard it many times) and owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus.
I love Harbeth, but wouldn't put the 30.2 above the Pulsar at all, certainly NOT for bass punch and extension. I mean, the Harbeth is rated only down to 50Hz and the Pulsar down to 42Hz. The stereophile measurements clearly show the Pulsar's bass extension beating the Harbeth 30. So I'm confused as to why that's making your recommendation "because the Pulsars don't have the punch/bass extension.'
The Pulsar even measures deeper bass extension than your recommended 805 D3!
And...again...the Pulsars have virtually made their name on putting out more, and better bass than most monitors.
So, all I can say it that your perspective is pretty anomalous on this issue. Maybe it's what you perceived upon hearing the Pulsars in a certain set up, but there's more objective evidence that your recommendations don't exactly make sense in light of your critique of the Pulsar.
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I heard the midbass hump on the Pulsars (Stereophile noted a bit of added warmth to the Pulsars too), which is why I gravitated to the Perspectives, which evened that out and sounded more linear t me through the lower midrange/upper bass.
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andy,
I don't find myself having much beef with your beef about the infinite slope claims. :-)
Though I would say: Regardless of whether the specific technical claim is true about the infinite slope crossovers, I'm personally not sure about how much is due to the drivers vs the skill of the designer.
I've heard/read from numerous speaker designers that the crossover design is one of the fundamental challenges, so choosing the proper drivers in the first place to get what you want, and then nailing the crossover design, especially to the degree you get so many plaudits, seems like a major part of the process.
Btw, I can understand anyone not liking the JA speakers, personal taste being what it is. I was just puzzled by the particular nature of the critique lobbed at them in this thread.
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