New Joseph Audio Pulsar Graphene 2

I stopped posting on this site years ago because of the typical insults, personal bashing and comments from those who have not heard a component under discussion but think their input is valid, etc. In spite of this, I want to summarize my experience regarding the value and price of the Pulsar.

I retired about 20 months ago and moved to Alto, NM from Jackson, WY. I Iived in Jackson for 38 years and during that time, I owned, in ascending timeline, the Dahlquist DQ10 with the Sequerra ribbon tweeter, the Acoustat 1 + 1, the Martin Logan CLS2A, the ML Aerius, the ML SL3, and finally, the ML Summit. About five years before I left Wyoming, I decided to switch companies and bought the MBL 116.

When I arrived in Alto, I decided to downsize for aesthetic reasons and auditioned / bought the Joseph Audio Pulsar and, shortly after that, a REL T7i subwoofer. I also currently own a Conrad Johnson ET5 preamp, a Pass Labs X250.5 amplifier and a Luxman D06U CDP. With the exception of my speaker wire (Signal Cable Silver Resolution - 30’ and 40’ lengths), I use Shunyata Research wire.

When I made the decision to go from electrostatics and the MBL 116 (MSRP $24K) to a stand mount / monitor size speaker, I knew it would be a serious challenge to match the performance levels of my previous speakers, especially the MBL.

Much to my pleasant surprise and amazement, I auditioned the Pulsar and found its performance comparable, if not better in some aspects, than the 116. I spent several months fine tuning placement and (with exception of the limited soundstage height) I am extremely satisfied with this speaker. It is likely my last speaker purchase. It has the quickness, imaging, dimensionality and provides me with the musicality and emotional impact of my previous transducers. FYI, I typically listen to my system (one on one) a minimum of two hours a day.

Suffice to say and in my humble opinion, the Pulsar, from a price / performance perspective, is one the the greatest bargains I’ve purchased in my 40 years of being a serious audio listener.

And yes Mark, the Talk Talk CD you mentioned is a very special piece of music.

Am I going the get the upgrade? Take a guess.

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

It’s great to get an update on how those Pulsars worked out for you.

I recognize your journey from the What’s Best forum. I’m a fellow MBL owner - I still own the MBL 121 monitors. (And Thiels, and other speakers).

I think owning the MBLs is one reason why I am more inclined towards the Perspectives over the Pulsars. I already own a pretty elite-performing monitor for when I want that.

I notice that very often the emotional component of listening to the Joseph speakers is mentioned by those who hear them. I agree. I think it’s that elusive combination of sometimes hair-raising transparency and detail combined with a smoothness and richness, that makes the speakers both communicate the aliveness and directness of music while also communicating the warmth and smoothness and richness of the real thing.

I dropped in to an audio store that I was passing by today and listened briefly to the Paradigm Persona speakers (which I’d auditioned last year more extensively). Nice. Clear. Didn’t move me at all. There are certain speaker brands that, if they are playing, I simply can’t not listen. In "it" factor that seems to speak to what my brain craves. Paradigm-type speakers don’t seem to grab me in the same way. They are just to me another really competent, transparent sounding high end speaker, in a marketplace with tons of competent, transparent sounding high end speakers.

The JA speakers have an "it" factor for me, for the reasons I’ve described earlier.

I dropped in to an audio store that I was passing by today and listened briefly to the Paradigm Persona speakers (which I’d auditioned last year more extensively). Nice. Clear. Didn’t move me at all.

the acoustics of an audio store would not be the ideal place to evaluate the sound though would it?

the it factor is distortion. youre identifying a characteristic that is there on all tracks you play through the josephs. 

A true high end speaker has no identifiable characteristic. 

Few rooms are ideal to evaluate speakers. Even the homes of many audiophiles.

I can get a good gist of the character of a speaker when listening in a store, so long as the set isn’t terribly compromised. (The speakers I heard today sounded pretty much as they did in a previous audition in a dedicated room).

the it factor is distortion. youre identifying a characteristic that is there on all tracks you play through the josephs.

Funny...live acoustic music seems to have a similar "it" factor when I listen to it ;)

A true high end speaker has no identifiable characteristic.

In someone’s dream world perhaps. In reality, every single speaker I’ve ever heard, bar none, has ultimately homogenized the sound of reproduced music.