I just realized, how do we not have a Philharmonic thread
My personal take, I had an original bmr monitor for quite awhile (I think like 2016? with the scan speak black carbon paper driver vs the new v2 with the sb acoustics ceramic driver) and love them for the money and sound, somewhat wishing I had mine back. It just has a sound that’s hard to describe and very enjoyable to listen to, and extremely technical for the price. Spatially they are very immersive overall, favoring more overall space over extreme accuracy but it’s still sharp enough to not bother me, very well extended in either direction, pretty dynamic, and also pretty detailed, hard to really complain about much, although not the most organic
Favorite general purpose speaker that I own!
I enjoy the smaller standmount version sooo much that when an opportunity came up to purchase some semi custom full sized Philharmonic towers completed by Salk Sound I enthusiastically jumped on them and am willing to wait the many months required for them to reach my grubby, chubby hands😈
The semi-custom option is the finish, nothing added to the design of the original, Dennis did a damned fine job of selecting his components and designing the crossover itself. Maybe I’ll add outriggers at some point (who knows ) .
Edit to add; Dollar for dollar one of the best 3 way designs. There are lots of really nice speakers out there, sooo many. Of those I have had personal experience w/ these hit a perfect price to performance ratio for me. I could afford them without having to sell my soul and kidneys🤪
They also have a HUGE sweet spot as the dispersion goes out to almost 70 degrees. The only quibble is that I wish they’d used the slightly larger BMR driver as I think it would have yielded better integration between the three drivers. The RAAL tweeter is smooth, never fatiguing but still provided plenty of detail. The speakers do need good horsepower though and paired with a good amp, they showed a lot of speed and control and scaled phenomenally well with higher volume.
Yes they are reasonably demanding when it comes to the amp, I ended up preferring more beefy and capable amplifiers with mine, also ones with a bit warmer lean as well, they take well to things with strong levels of control and command
I had a Cary 200.2 which was beefy amp and like you said slight warm lean so it worked well. Another note is that they will need a sub, the 6 inch ceramic SB acoustics is tight but just didn’t dig deep enough on its own IMO, at least not for the kind of music I listen to and not at the volumes I was able to listen to back in the single home with far away neighbors.
Friggin’ love my BMR Towers. Been tough to put my thoughts into words but I am absolutely certain these are my forever speakers. Been running them off the Exogal Comet Plus / ION PowerDAC stack and they’ve been fantastic.
I needed a speaker that would show off the capabilities of my Vinnie Rossi amplifier. It is a performance beast and 90% of the time I only use it as a pre- amp because of my preference for low powered flea watts in my main system.
I was looking at all sorts of well used older high end speakers and there were a few contenders but nothing local to me and despite my best efforts cost kept creeping up past $10K. That’s allot of $$$$ to lay out in cash and I just couldn’t get myself to spend it.
IMHO the Philharmonic should perform admirably in my particular situation if the bookshelves are a good representation of what the full sized towers can do.
I’m excited about the dual midranges, I love the RAAL tweeters and the transmission line design should pump out a good bottom end. I have every confidence the equipment line up I have in mind will work well .
I think it’s a gem and simply overlooked because of its origin and the one- off availability.
I prefer the term standmounts lol, not sure if midget towers rolls of the tongue as well. Bookshelves can also be standmounts, but generally I think standmounts are a more of an in the middle where they won’t really fit on a shelf or desk, but also aren’t floorstanding so you typically need stands to use them
You are of course right, SB Acoustics is it, the one they use is coated white and the older 7" Scan Speak driver was the previous V1 version, this one is black but it does look like a SB driver, just black. It’s curious.
The towers are actually less efficient than the monitors now but the towers are 6 ohm instead of 4 ohm like the monitors. So yeah easier to drive but also surprising.
I had no quibbles on their low end at all, given everything I’ve read the new driver improved things across the board. The only thing my paid didn’t have it the curved cabinets.
I would have actually bought them back from @NickMimi but the LTA will not play nice with them whatsoever. Not efficient enough and will not like the 4 Ohm load.
) .
.
and simply overlooked because of its origin and the one- off availability.
.