Joseph Audio: Perspectives and Pearls

@rsf507 -- I had a long conversation with Jeff earlier this week and he felt that either would work in my space. I was hoping that someone had listened to both and/or upgraded to the Pearls and could share their experiences. 

@prof -- thanks for the note on this. Jeff had said that they were able to be played in a number of different configurations. I know that they are much larger than the Perspectives, but did they seem over the top in person?

Thanks for sharing your experience with the Perspectives. In looking at your system, I noticed that you are running subs in addition to the JAs. I do not have (or plan to get) subs, so that may be a factor in how the Perspectives fit the bill for you. This is not to dispute your thoughts on my room and the Pearls, but it could be a factor. 
 

I am hoping to hear the latest Perspectives tomorrow or Sunday and will certainly report back. Many thanks as always to this great community. 

Agree on all counts regarding Jeff and his holistic approach to design and execution. While I definitely appreciate craft (e.g. Dr. Bews from LFD hand-wrapping components), in the end I am evaluating the sound. Jeff spent an hour with me talking on the phone about some achievable adjustments to my room. In today's world, that is indeed rare, even for someone contemplating $45k speakers. 

I am quite sure that the Perspectives will be transformative with my current gear, I also don't want to find myself wondering if I should have bought the Pearls. The test will be a solid listening session using some of my "reference" recordings. It is interesting that no one has appeared here who did an A/B with these models. Hopefully someone will take note!

This is extremely helpful. Many thanks. 

A quick update: I still haven't heard the Perspectives but am told it will be this week.

In the interim, I am curious about what speaker cables have you used with the Perspectives?  The dealer is pushing hard on Stage III for both speakers and upgrading my interconnects, but those alone are approaching the cost of the Josephs!

I want to do some research on balancing the relative investment in various aspects of a system, as this seems like it could be overkill for my current setup. 

@prof — thanks for your help and experience with the Perspectives. To be honest, I don’t feel drawn to spending tons of money on cables and your, umm, perspective is extremely useful in validating my suspicions. My current LFD speaker cables are terminated in bananas so they won’t work with the Josephs. But I think a logical plan is to have a chat with the folks at the cable company and order a few different options to try out, both speaker and interconnects. 

Again, many thanks. 

Thanks, gentlemen!  I just ordered these which will now allow me to make a more thoughtful decision about cabling. I am looking at an interesting trial offering from Transparent where you can test drive speaker cables and interconnects. Someone on a different thread who has the same ARC gear shared his findings that Transparent seemed to have the best synergy with ARC. We shall see...

@prof -- I listened to the Perspectives yesterday for almost two hours and really had a chance to run through a range of different LPs and hear how they responded. Music ranged from UHQR copies of Bill Evans (Portrait in Jazz) and Miles Davis (Kind of Blue) to the first Dire Straits album to an original copy of "Blues and the Abstract Truth." While the room was quite different than mine and the source table and arm much better, I was impressed on all fronts. 

I was not able to hear the Pearls as this is a new JA dealer and he doesn't have a pair yet. But with the size of my room and the fact that I have a downstairs neighbor, I am not convinced that I will be able to take advantage of the Pearls (especially at 3x the price including the jumpers I would need to buy.) I suppose I will hear them at some point, but I suspect spending the "saved" money on cables and treating my room will produce a bigger improvement all around. 

Still waiting to see some decent photos of the wood options before the order is placed, but I expect to be able to do my own review shortly. On a slightly related note, I was able to see and hear the new Kuzma Safir arm and was really taken by its role in presenting the Perspectives. More on this once I lock down the speakers!

Well, I ordered a pair of Perspectives in Rosewood (based on a sample photo from Jeff) and so now the wait is on...

In the interim, I began the process of improving my room. My wife was quite the trooper, helping me move my 100 pound plus ARC 160S and juggling an even heavier rack!  Naturally my Harbeths are sounding better than ever, but since I didn't stretch for the Pearls, I don't "have" to sell them. 

I just pulled out and cleaned (in my degritter) Rickie Lee Jones' first album and it's like when I first bought it all those years ago!

Happy New Years to all. 

I have had my perspectives up and running for a few weeks now and will be posting my impressions over the weekend. After a few weeks, I just made some cabling changes, and will also comment on that as well. 
I ended up with the Rosewood finish and am really thrilled with how they look. I can also say that I am hearing all sorts of new details in my reference recordings and am quite sure that there is even more improvement ahead as the hours increase. 
One thing of note is that I am likely going to bi-wire them once I finalize my cable decisions. Is anyone else on this thread doing this?
More to follow, but wanted to share my update!