$15,000 Speaker Does Not List Freq Response Specs

This speaker is a line source omnipolar up to about 3 kHz, so a anechoic freq response is pretty much useless. I do know those ribbon tweeters go up to 26 kHz, no problem. Publishing FR of speakers makes sense for forward firing point source speaker, but in the real world it still is a bad measure of how a speaker sounds. For dipole, omnipole, planar, line source/array speakers, FR can be very misleading so I can understand why designers of such speakers don't publish such an archaic measurement.

The OP went to a showing of this speaker and stated it didn't impress him, even though he admitted he was way in the back of the room off to the side with people packed in the room. Can you draw a valid conclusion based on this experience? This is the worse show condition one can imagine. Why did he decline offer for a private audition by the dealer? That would have been much more informative, best thing next to having them in your own room.

I have no idea why the dealer wanted to use a super tweeter with this speaker. I heard the preproduction version of this speaker, and it needed no extra help above.

As for the Rel subwoofer, some speculate it is better than Bob's own subwoofer that he designed to work with the ALS. I would speculate Bob's dedicated subwoofer likely sound just as good if not better than the Rel.

The dealer did not use Bob's tube amp with the ALS. Again another mistake. His tube amps are fantastic and should have been paired with the speakers. After all, Bob voiced his speaker with his tube amp.

I posted a thread on Bob's ALS without realizing this thread was about his speaker.

Anyways, just my two cents.

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The dealer did use Bob's tube amps in the demo, they are gorgeous.

I did not draw a conclusion. I stated my opinion was inconclusive based on the listening conditions and the
non-Carver components added to the system.

Bob's website allows an in-home trial. I am going to try them in my own home. My room is nothing like the room where the demo was held....and the conditions will be infinitely better.

For the record, I'm a huge fan of Bob Carver. If you look closely at the photos on my system page, you'll see at least four of Bob Carver's Silver 9t monoblocs on the floor near my speakers. I've had numerous Carver components in my systems over the years and loved most of them.

The addition of the REL sub and the $3,600 super-tweeters were probably more of the dealer attempting to hawk his wares rather than to augment Carver's speakers. I just didn't see the logic of not using Carver's sub and adding the super-tweeter. Adding those items was more of a sales pitch than anything else.

I want to be clear that this was not an attempt to bash the Carver speakers...far from it. I still want to give them a serious audition in my home...and I will. The thought of not having to spend upwards of $50k to get serious sound in a room of my size is enticing, and I won't pass it up.
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Before reading this thread, I hadn't really considered that this speaker didn't lend itself to anechoic measurement and I might have been critical of Carver. However, the posts here have built a solid case that that's not true.

Maybe Carver could include a brief note in the spec section from the manufacturer indicating that the broad dispersion pattern of this particular design makes posted anechoic specs misleading. That might be useful to anyone hesitating on a purchase due to this lack of info. If anyone here is inclined, forwarding a link to this thread to Carver might not be a terrible idea.

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The super-tweeter used in the demo was the Enigma Acoustics.

Enigma Acoustics Supertweeter
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Mitch, thanks for the clarification. I tend to agree the dealer appears to be hawking those electrostatic tweeters.