Just wanted to update my prior thread where this topic may have gotten lost. As many of you may know by now, Joseph Audio has come out with the new Pulsar Graphene 2. This new iteration of the venerable Pulsars has a graphene coated magnesium midrange-woofer cone, and the drive motor, suspension system, etc., have been revamped. From what I have been told, the upgrade is pretty significant ... the sound is fuller and has greater ease, yet is very resolved. Jeff Joseph advises that an upgrade path will be available for existing owners of the Pulsars, too. Also, note that the price quoted in the Soundstage piece was in Canadian dollars ... Jeff informs me that the price in USD is $8,999 per pair. I am eager to hear the new Pulsars.
Keep in mind that to many the sound they are “hearing” is entirely in
their heads. No relationship, whatsoever, to the way some components
actually sound. Beware of judgments like “push my buttons“ or “foot
tapping” or even the holy word “musicality”. If people can only describe
their “feeling” when they listen, there is zero value to their input.
Nice.
While I have some agreement with that, as your comment was clearly aimed at my post....
I was quite obviously not attempting to "review" any of those speakers, but making a particular point.
I have a long thread detailing the sound I heard from many speakers, including particularly detailed descriptions of Joseph and Devore (and Magico A3 btw) speakers that I've auditioned.
Spoiler: The Magico A3 speakers also didn't push my buttons ;-)
@markalarsen ... in what way do you prefer the original Pulsars over the Graphene 2 Pulsars? Since you appear to like the Graphene 2 Perspectives over the originals, why wouldn't the same be true of the newer Pulsars?
rlb61 I understood mark to be saying he preferred the original pulsars over thethe old LSAs, not over the new pulsars. I presumed he referencing the old Pulsars simply because he hasn't heard the new ones.
That’s my point: comparing the LSA against the Joseph Audio Pulsar is not a fair comparison. BTW, @audiotroy, you criticize everything you do not sell. Everyone here views you as a troll
I have a long thread detailing the sound I heard from many speakers, including particularly detailed descriptions of Joseph and Devore (and Magico A3 btw) speakers that I've auditioned.
Like I said, your descriptions are fictional at best. No correlation to how these speakers actually sound, only to how YOU hear them.
Like I said, your descriptions are fictional at best. No correlation to how these speakers actually sound, only to how YOU hear them.
Thanks for one of the more hilarious posts of recent memory.
Of course that’s how the speakers SOUNDED to me.
But if you want to say that my hearing is so eccentric or my acuity regarding sound is so poor as to produce useless or inaccurate descriptions of how those speakers sounded in the auditions, there’s more evidence in that thread against your claim, than you have for it.The majority of people who commented praised the accuracy of my descriptions based on comparing it to their own experience.
My job involves recording and manipulating sound all day long, constantly listening for similarities literally between the "air" of a room, the timbre of one vocalisation vs another, and minutely adjusting sonic parameters constantly to produce large or minute differences, or make two disparate noises sound the same. If my perception of sound were as unreliable as you imply, I literally could not have worked in my field for 30 years.
But, hey, from your computer chair....someone has pronounced a less than happy opinion upon hearing a Magico speaker, the Bat Signal went up....time to swoosh in and diss that person.
Like I said, your descriptions are fictional at best. No correlation to how these speakers actually sound, only to how YOU hear them.
Sciencecop reminds me of someone else that was posting up until recently-someone who had relatively few posts and had never started a discussion but instead would just pop in and write extremely offensive put-downs that defied common sense. I suspect they are one and the same person. "No correlation to how these speakers actually sound". That is rich. Following your [lack of] logic, how does anyone know how they actually sound? "Fictional at best" is making the most hyperbolic statement one could possibly make squared. Utter pablum not worthy of further response.
Sciencecop first many people commented favorably on the Personas which were being driven by a $4k integrated amp vs a huge stack of much more expensive Rowland gear on the Perspectives willing to beat the gear alone cost $50k driving a $14k speaker not a realistic package now is it?
The 3F sounded really impressive considering the price of $14k for botb the speakers and electronics. We could have gotten better sound with warmer cables AQ does not a good match make with these components.
Lets see Troll eh?
We mentioned many rooms which sounded excellent with products we dont seIl including Wilson audio, Alta, Avante Garde, Golden Ear, Focal to name a few.
what audiophiles hear can certainly be fictional in some cases. Consider the high end cable scam thats been going on for many years. No evidence that cables make any difference and no plausible explanation why they would. Despite that, audiophiles will happily rationalise spending thousands on cables.
Audiotroy wrote:
We could have gotten better sound with warmer cables AQ does not a good match make with these components.
Even dealers cannot fail to be duped to believe such hogwash.
A dealer i recently visited told me that there was not enough bass because he was using the wrong speaker cables.
There should be laws to protect consumers from such hogwash.
I don't begrudge your opinion about the Perspectives, or the Paradigm speakers at all. If the Paradigms sound better to you, even with cheaper amps, awesome! I found the Paradigm Personas to be a really excellent speaker.
But in the same vein of comparing gear combinations: I have an old pair of Thiel 02 speakers, which cost just a few hundred bucks circa early 80s, and hooked up to a lil old Eico HF81, that meager combo gives me more listening pleasure than I got from the Paradigms.
Horses for courses... (I'm not saying that sound is purely subjective of course - we could still talk in more objective terms about which speaker is more full range, has higher resolution, different dispersion, smoother frequency response etc.But when it comes to personal evaluations, what "beats" some other gear is pretty subjective).
Dream on marklarsen many of our posts have nothing to do with products we sell.
You seem hurt is it because you own a speaker that we didnt proclaim was amazing? Willing to bet you wouldnt be so negative if we thought they were amazing.
Kenjit dream on cables are hardily a scam way too many people hear the difference and certain cables will bring out more or less treble and bass.
"We could have gotten better sound with warmer cables (sic) AQ does not a good match make with these components."
There ya have it. That appears to be an admission that tone controls are required for those particular high priced components. Audio equipment is like a spouse or significant other ... you take them as you find them, and don’t try to change them.
A.T. didnt even know the name of AVANTE GARDE in his initial post about AXPONA. Probably the first dealer I have run across that never heard of them. Then again...anybody that would set up shop in Jersey City which is the armpit of NJ obviously has questionable judgment and business sense. Has to come on Audiogon and do the used car salesman sales pitch because there isn't enough foot traffic. Would you risk getting mugged just to check out some speakers? Don't forget to wear your Kevlar. Make sure you don't miss future store openings in Camden, Trenton, Patterson and Perth Amboy
As for the 3F Persona's he is the only person from Axpona that says they sounded good. The most often used term I have read is "Shrill". Hardly a positive endorsement.
@audiotroy A troll criticizes speakers he does not sell - the Pulsar2 and the Perspective2 - and then praises the Personas he does sell, an opinion with a strong financial bias. You are a troll seeking free advertising on this forum.
Your suggestion that that you have made me unhappy contains a false assumption, that your financially biased opinion means anything to me. It does not. You do not have the ability to make me happy or unhappy, given my indifference.
BTW, everyone, I am not trying to sell you anything or suggest you should buy anything. I am suggesting, if you are in the market, you should listen to the Pulsar2 and the Perspective2. It is just a lead for your consideration from someone deeply satisfied with the Perspective2.
Imagine you are building a race car from scratch, you can choose the engine, the transmission, the tires, wheels, the braking systems.
Now imagine you have a competitive team also building the same kind of car now imagine you have two identically skilled drivers.
One team wins the other loses. Why? Because the car which all the parts work better in unison means that the particular car will work better and win the race.
Whenever you are building a system which has moving parts and those parts have different sonic attributes then you will produce different sound.
One pair of speakers on a tube amplifier will sound different on a solid state amplifier.
One set of cables may be brighter than another one could roll off the highs and sound duller.
The concept of cables influencing sound is simple cables can act like a capacitor and thus alter frequencies.
Riaa lets get some facts straight, sorry couldn’t think of the name of the Avante Gardes, sorry we all have our brain fart moments, however used to sell the speakers, just didn’t take the time to look up the brand as everyone knows the speakers we were discussing.
As per Jersey City being like Camden or Trenton, here is some news for you, Jersey City is the fastest growing city in the Northeast with real estate pricing going insane. What part of the country do you like in?
As per being mugged doubtful, but Jersey City is still a large City so anything is possible, we have had a customer drive up to our shop in his McLaren and it was totally safe. Our shop is in a huge tree lined street in the old mechant part of Jersey City Heights. Houses here sell for $800k to $1.5 million so hardly a bad part of town.
Our median housing pricing is $518k and 780 foot condos are going for over $600k. Every major builder is building high rise condos buildings here where prices go in the millions.
As per the Persona 3F sounding Shrill neither of these reviews said anything like that:
Paradigm Persona 3F, Persona SUB, and Anthem STR Integrated Amplifier (Room 374)
Perhaps one of the most exciting demonstrations at AXPONA 2019, between Paradigm’s Persona Series and Anthem’s STR Series, the product lines sampled in this room have garnered a dozen product of the year awards—and for good reasons.
The Persona speaker’s beryllium mid-range and tweeter offer up audio magic with their ability to render a soundstage with extraordinary nuance.
The sturdy Persona SUB, with six 8-inch woofers and 3400 Watts (peak) of power on tap, provides plenty of punch at remarkably low-frequencies down to 12Hz.
Anthem’s STR Integrated Amplifier, being used with music streaming from an Aurender A100 music server, does a remarkable job (with its built-in Anthem Room Correction system) at integrating the speakers and subwoofer within the challenging hotel room while managing to deliver a demonstration with tons of dynamic energy and rich detail.
Last point do you honestly think that a pair of Persona 5F at $17k being driven by $50k worth of Jeff Rolwand gear, a Doshi Phonostage a $25k Vpi Avenger and a $20k open real tape deck wouldn’t sound good?
The point we were making was how good the Persona 3f were sounding with a real world priced $4,500.00 Amp and dac combo, yes that is $14,500 for the speakers and the electronics, vs $50k Rowland Stack plus $15k speakers.
Where the Persona 3F/Anthem Room had a few pairing issues that would exacerbate the highs we would have made a few changes, and this system would have sounded even better.
These pulsar speakers are simply overpriced. The fact that there are even more expensive speakers does not make the pulsars a bargain it just means those other speakers are even more overpriced.
There is only so much good sound you can get out of a box with a woofer and tweeter in it. Throwing more money at it will not change that.
As mentioned, companies charge multiple times the cost of the speaker to stay in business. Most of the money you pay is not being spent on the parts. We are being robbed
All this hogwash about how speaker design requires expertise is false. Every 2way speaker designed by the so called experts comes out sounding different. If they were all experts youd expect a convergence of the end result.
I've heard horrible things being said about speakers made by highly reputable companies like B&W. The fact that its designed by a professional doesnt guarantee anything.
The only way to be truly happy is have a speaker custom built to the highest specifications and involve the customer in the design process.
@audiotroy ... With all due respect, to me, synergy in audio concerns compiling a system having similar sonic attributes between components. It’s a challenge, but is very doable, and it sounds great when achieved. This differs markedly from collecting a hodgepodge of components having divergent sonic attributes, and then attempting to remediate the problem (e.g., a shrill sounding system) by using cables as tone controls. While I wasn’t at AXPONA this year, I think your comment concerning a warmer sound admits or implies that the pairing of components with the Personas lacked synergy.
I have heard the Personas previously and have found them to be on the clinical side. Certainly, those who enjoy a hyper-neutral or thin sound might find them acceptable. I do not. That doesn’t make them bad speakers, they’re just not my cup of tea.
Im from New Jersey Einstein. Only reason values are high in Jersey City is because of NYC being so close by. If you put lipstick on a pig its still a pig and thats Jersey City...And Newark/Elizabeth...one big toxic waste dump. I bet you don't walk the streets at night in Jersey City pal.
Do you lure people in by offering a free meal with you at the infamous Mrs America Diner??
The comments made about the 3F Speakers came from real people on sites like Audiogon/Audio Shark/Audio Aficionado etc. Not people who get paid to have the brands advertise in their magazines. Thats about as meaningful and trustworthy as you who only blow the horns of the brands you carry. Bet you didn't trash Luxman and others when you were carrying their line. You only trash them after they are taken away from you and how everything you now carry is SOOOO much better. Your a joke and incredibly insincere and transparent. You probably got your "savvy" from working at a CRAZY EDDIE's store back in the day.
Rib61, couldn't disagree with you more. Synergy is not assembling a system where you have similar attributes it is combining a system whose parts differ to balance out the whole.
For example if you have very warm speakers, a warm sounding amp, a warm sounding source and cables you get mud.
Conversely a bright set of speakers, a bright or neutral amp, and a detailed source and cabling will equal bright hard and overly analytical.
We strive to balance a system so we usually use a warmer amp with the Paradigms, such as a tube amp or warmer solid state, which is Naim, or Micromega or T+A.
Same with cabling add AQ or Nordost and you are going to have super bright top end with the Personas not going to sound good, we use Wireworld which is a bit warmer then the Nordost or Wireworlds we know because we sold both.
Add a set of Isoacoustics footers and The Little 3F sound like a $20k set of speakers.
Also you can add a good subwoofer to the 3F and the combined sound will be anything but thin or overly clinical.
Too many people like systems which don't sound anything like real music.
Jersey City is valuable because of the location but also because it has great access to all parts of NJ and the Airport, it also has historical sights, and buildable land.
As per comparing Jersey City to Elizabeth and other parts of NJ you are way out of line, Jersey City is going through a major renaissance because it is a great place to live with high end restaurants like Talde, the Hutton and many, many others, new nightclubs are opening up, new Beerhalls and pubs, one of the best public High Schools is in Jersey City, as well as critically acclaimed culinary programs and film programs with a huge arts community and new galleries sprouting up.
As Jersey City is the largest City in NJ there aren't many places we wouldn't want to go, however, with any city there are still bad parts, the entire city is gentrifying super quickly now.
As per taking away at this point we can sell almost any line we want. We can get Luxman their gear is excellent and we have never said it wasn’t.
We did find that Coda CSib to sound even better than the Hegel and Luxman gear we were selling at the time. We stopped selling Coda for a while as they are upgrading their integrated with a new digital card and we wanted to get the latest one.
There have been others here who love the Persona line check out those posts, there are many fans and detractors of any and every line of products on audiogon.
A speaker which offers tremendous resolution and is a bit finicky is going to be a polarizing product the same way that Vandersteen and Harbeth are loved because they invariably sound musical while others find them recessed and rolled off.
We never mentioned Paradigm or any other brand we sold other guys came in with that.
Our initial post was when someone compared the Boresteen moitors at $30k and compared them to the Pulsars to which we said that was a silly comparison as any $30k speaker should beat a $9k one or a $14k one unless the $30k speaker is poorly designed. The Boresteen are heinously overpriced but are very good speakers with outstanding drivers.
Our comment was we heard the Perspectives and said they sounded good and were impressive for their size just not the speakers we would endorse for $14k.
Then we got attacked by many of you.
Weather of not you love Joseph Audio or Pardigm or Kef of Wilson or Magico these are all great loudspeakers that will appeal to certain listeners and then is the setup and pairing issues.
Haven't been a Wilson fan for years but the showings at CAP and Axpona were impressive, and we don't sell them, however, we have heard some really mediocre Wilson setups over the years even with the same speakers, so setup is everything when you reach these kinds of products.
A $30k bookshelf will not produce significantly less distortion than a $1k bookshelf. Theres never been any evidence of this. Even cheap speakers like LS50 can have good measured performance. Exactly what more do you get with a $30k speaker other than differences in bass extension?
Here is why in my opinion people should buy from manufactures who sell direct rather than through dealers. Manufactures like Jim Salk told me he sells direct because he is dammed if he has to lower the quality of his drivers in order to sell at a lower price so the dealers make all the money. Besides, most dealers only stock the cheap stuff so you don't even have the ability to compare the sound difference to the more expensive lines. Why is the audio business in trouble? This is why.
I just looked these speakers up on the internet. Are you serious they cost $8,000/pair? You kidding me.
Why would ANYONE buy a pair of monitor speakers at this price range rather than a full range speaker costing the same amount?
Wouldn't you have to add two subwoofers to supply the bass extension. So if you spend an extra $2,000 to $5,000 for subwoofers this brings the total cost up to $12,000 to $15,000. I think this is Einstein's definition of insanity.
Mark lets go for more shall we, Persona, Persona, Persona, Persona, Persona happy now.
Kenjit it is not about distortion it is about perception.
We have in our shop the LS 50 and they are great speakers for the price, however, the Kef R3 monitor is better, and the Kef Reference One is far better.
As you generally go up in price you get greater clarity, based on denser non resonant cabinets, faster drivers with less coloration based on bigger magnets, distortion minimizing techniques, more advanced cone materials and drivers which are engineered better, add in better crossover components and you get a substantially better speaker.
So here are three different Kef models which all sound great but as you step up the ladder the clarity gets greater, the dynamics improve, the imaging gets more focused and you also get tighter bass as well as more of it.
The reason a company can sell a more expensive set of speakers is that there is an audible improvement with the more expensive versions.
Take the KEF R11 a $5,000.00 set of speakers vs the Kef Reference 5 a $19,000.00 set of speakers, both speakers look very similar and employ similar drivers, however, the Reference drivers use a more advanced version of the drivers, the cabinet is much more advanced and is much denser, the weight difference is 57lbs vs 120lbs.
Sonically the R11 is very good, but the Ref 5 just crushes it, you hear more information, the dynamic kick is far better the bass is tighter.
You are hearing the same music but you are experiencing more of it.
Another good analogy is like switching from a cheap lens on a 35mm camera to a much more expensive one, all of a sudden colors are more vibrant and tiny details are evident.
Better speakers with more advanced driver technology generally produce far greater amounts of information.
The Borsteen loudspeakers use very expensive ceramic diamond tweeters and midrange/woofers these drivers cost a lot more than the Graphene woofer/midrange drivers and a soft dome SEAS tweeter.
So given the same set of electronics you would hear more with the Borsteen speakers are they worth $30k personally we wouldn't recommend a $30k two way but we heard their big $120k pair and they were impressive.
Larry we feel the same way but there are a ton of expensive monitors on the market the Focal Sopra 1 are $9k, the Focal Utopias are $14 or $15k so are the TAD ME1, the Paradigm Persona B are $7k and the Kef Ref 1 are $8k to name a few.
The reason is some people either don't have the room for floor standing speakers and they really have to put the speakers on a bookshelf, or theirroom is physically too small for the greater bass response of a floor stander.
Direct sale operations such as Underwood, Schiit, Emotiva have the ability to offer pricing less than 1/2 traditional companies. One very heavily talked about bookshelf speakers at Axpona are made by Borresson. Only $38k a pair. This too is a marketing come-on. Start high so people pay attention, then mass market at the real price. Two bookshelf speaker companies causing some buzz were Odyssey and LSA . $1800-$2500 if memory serves.
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