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24.53.3.56
When oh when will there be a commercial finished product made in North America?
No sense in shipping monkey coffins halfway around the world.
Follow Ups:
I can tell you that at $4500, the Philharmonic's are a fantastic value.
I've been DIY for almost 30 years, but spent the last couple years revamping the crossovers in a pair of Tyler H3's. WMTMW design, all Scanspeak drivers......
I recently decided to move on, and wanted to build something with the Purifi drivers. Then I saw Dennis Murphy's HT's, which seemed to have a great value/performance ratio compared to "name brand" speakers, and I was looking at something like $3k+ to DIY similar design (before cabinets).
No way do I have Dennis's abilities at crossover design, or driver integration.
So I took a chance and bought a pair.....
Well, a couple years ago, I fell into a deal, a pristine Wells Inammorata for $2000 dollars...... I consider the Philharmonic's a slightly better buy than that, yes, they are that good!
Seamless driver integration, and they have brought a level of "3D" that I wasn't sure was even possible in my "great room".
I thought Scan 6600 tweeters were very good, the Mundorf AMT's in the Philharmonic's are in another league altogether.
VERY happy with them to say the least
Buchardt Audio makes an active two way using the Purifi drivers. You gotta look for them, but there are companies utilizing those drivers. Salk Signature Sound made 3 different speakers in their BePure line before Jim decided he was done and shut it down.
JCarney
Look at Philharmonic audio. Link provided.
JCarney
That's a lot of speaker for $4500 the pair!
john
Right?! I know a guy that just got a pair, and he said he'd let me know how they sound. I'm guessing pretty good, Dennis Murphy is a talented designer.
JCarney
Hi,
I have been designing a wonderful home-office monitor speaker for a private client who is a music industry professional of 40+ years standing.
Strangely enough, the prototype is just back from the crossover re-design by Curt Campbell, and I am listening now, and the client will hear the final result tomorrow.
Both Curt Campbell and co-designer Jim Tuomy (a recipient of Bose's President's Medal) were blown away by the PTT5.25 woofer mid (photo).
I chose the 5.25 over the 6.5 because the 5.25 has the same magnet and motor structure as the 6.5, and therefore is 33% more powerful per CM2 of woofer area.
Also, that choice allowed for a cabinet that is only one or two sizes up from that of a BBC Shoebox.
I finessed the box tuning by employing two Purifi 5.25 passive radiators per speaker, which puts the box tuning 50%+ lower than the original LS3/5A, which had a box tuning of 93Hz. My design has a box tuning circa 41Hz, and extension to about 34Hz. I call that spending more, but getting more.
The lovely but powerful Beyma TPL-75 AMT is crossed over at 2,400Hz.
Problem is, you add up all the nice parts, and the usual multiplier puts the triple-tier-retail up in the highest or next to highest tier of 2-ways, by which I mean the "Audio Salon" retail price would be over $10,000 the pair.
Expo: Woofers $425 ea.; passives $110 ea. x 4; AMTs $316 ea. Plus cabinets and crossovers and hardware.
Regrets? None.
Lessons Learned? Yes.
If I had to do it all over again, and the client could live with a box silhouette almost twice as large, I'd go with an MTM design, and perhaps even use a 3-channel DSP plate amp. Which may or may not allow for a sealed design with no passives.
All of which is an attempt to answer why nobody offers such a speaker made in the US.
Nobody wants to become a public laughing stock by putting a $425 woofer into a cabinet that looks to be made from toilet-paper-roll cores flattened out and glued together (believe me, I looked inside one speaker and that's what it looked like) to hit a low price target.
The earlier generation of this project had an Eton 5-312 woofer ($183 ea.) and Fountek's NeoCD3.0 ribbon tweeter ($130 ea.).
NO COMPARISON.
I think that your best bet would be if Purifi made a deal with a cabinet builder and sold Kits through Madisound.
I used to work in a foreign car garage that also built SCCA tube frame race cars. I used to ask, "How many cubic... dollars do you want to spend?"
In other words, what would your Dream NAFTA-Zone-Made loudspeaker with Purifi drivers look like?
all my best,
john
John, just curious, at 10G how it compares with the bookshelf pair of Joseph Audio. I would imagine your speaker would be much superior since it is not mass produced.
Regards
Bill
Without question, to use Chris Huston's wonderful term, my speaker has a "personality."
The radiation pattern in the bass is... rather Shahinian-like, in that the passives are relatively light and so they radiate sound that seems to me to go up through the midrange and is not confined to the bass (which I define as 180Hz and below).
But, in contrast with that, the AMT has broad horizontal dispersion, but the vertical window is much more narrow (or, shorter).
I think that the overall power response at a mid listening position is wonderful, but mine is not a speaker that screams "I am NEUTRAL!"
The bass is a bit "plummy," and the midrange has a touch of sweetness.
I was never trying to design a speaker that was "Flat."
My design brief from the client was to design a compact 2-way loudspeaker that would "FLATTER" well-recorded vocals.
If there ever was a direct shoot-out, I think that most listeners would prefer one or the other, and I would not be offended if anyone preferred the Joseph.
john
Thanks John. A sweet mid and a Shahinian like bass. And a warmth like Harbeth I would guess. That would be my ideal sound. Right on!
Best Regards
Bill
One of the clever things Curt did was to voice the crossover so that the speakers would sound "flat" while pointed straight ahead on their stands.
So, if you want more treble, you can just toe the speakers in.
john
I just reread Martin Colloms' review of Thrax Audio Siren speaker to understand more about Purifi. 13G. Very interesting
Cheers
Bill
Is that the 5.25-inch woofer uses the magnet and motor of the 6.5, and so the 5.25 has 33% more force per square centimeter of woofer surface area.
But my "team" was able to get the cabinet tuning down to 41Hz, and the extension down to about 35Hz.
Both the real pros I work with said that for its size, the PTT5.25 was the most capable small woofer they had had experience with.
john
That crossover design is bounded by and determined by the cabinet specifics, the passive radiators, etc.
But there are people out there who can design a crossover the old-fashioned way to your choice of cabinets and voicing and so on.
john
I had asked Adam at Madisound that question just before Axpona last year and he said Jim Salk was using them in some of his models. Alas Jim wasn't at the show and has been winding down his business. You might try sending Adam an email and ask if he knows anyone using them in a commercial speaker or if he knows of any diy plans for some. There is a discussion on the subject at the link. I had plans to build the Selah design using Purifi drivers but waited too long. Perhaps you could track down the plans for Rick's design.adam@madisound.com
Edits: 05/14/24
Yes, I believe Jim Salk offered 3 models featuring Purifi drivers. But as you say, he's now retired. Rumor has it he may offer plans for the 3 Purifi models, but I've heard nothing more. FWIW, I think Fritz offers Purifi drivers in one of his stand mounts.
And both supply a number of North American OEMs. Hopefully just a matter of time until some established manufacturers introduce some designs. Some well-engineered DIY kits would be nice too!
There was a Purifi design called PTT SPK5. But as I recall, it took some anti-aircraft fire, and had to bail out.The new "demo" design (SPK16) has been on the website for some time... but AFAIK the missing ingredient, the Purifi tweeter, is STILL missing.
If anyone has a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket, why not get in touch with Chris at Solen (solen@solen.ca), because Solen now has CNC cabinet making capability, and sketch out some ideas and talk numbers.
AFAIK the forks in that decision tree are:
1) Basic format (sealed, PR, ported, or OB), desired specifications, and budget.
2) Desired tweeter.
3) Desired midrange, if any.
You could take an existing semi-open-baffle design and have a sealed-back tweeter like the Beyma AMT and a Purifi dedicated midrange or two on an open baffle; with the bottom part of the baffle holding two Purifi 8-inch metal woofers...
Or you can do a "simple" 14 to 16 liter 2-way. Or, go big and see if you can pair the 8-inch Purifi alu-cone woofer with the right tweeter for a 2-way.
I fell in love with the Beyma AMT because it claims to have usable output down to 1kHz. My first guess at a crossover point was 1,800Hz, but Curt Campbell believed that a better handoff for the dispersion profiles would be 2,400Hz. But that's just going from A6 on a piano to D7 on a piano. Four notes.
Solen usually uses software to design quick crossovers, but they can do it the old-fashioned way from measurements and trial-and-error.
Perhaps if it all went well, Solen might give you a break on their otherwise prices if you in effect end up subsidizing R&D for a new product for them.
all my best,
john
Edits: 05/14/24
I've been thinking about building the SPK16 for some time, not that I need anymore speakers as there are now 23 in the house already. I contacted Purifi to find out about it and received a very prompt response from Claus.
"We'll very likely release the build plans for SPK16 when the tweeter has fully released (target this fall, but no fixed date just yet). The first version to release is a 104mm (waveguid) but the 147mm for SKP16 should hopefully follow a bit later.
When all is ready we'll post it on our website.
Kind regards,
Claus"
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