Any monitors clearly better than Pulsars?

@philipwu

I have been enamored with the Joseph speakers, started off wanting the Pulsars, moved to wanting the Perspectives.

I auditioned tons of speakers including the Raidho X1s and C 1.2, which were being offered in a very good deal from my local dealer.

I’d been quite impressed by Raidho monitors briefly hearing them at shows. But on a longer listen I decided they weren’t for me. In a nutshell, though the Raidho tweeter does indeed make for very fine high frequencies, the actual tone and voicing of the speakers were a bit too obviously scuplted to my ear. I found the Joseph speakers to be more tonally beautiful and convincing and also more neutral-sounding (in a good way) than the Raidho. Also the Joseph speakers have stellar high frequencies as well in terms of natural, ease, and sounding "unmechanical."

I can certainly understand why someone would choose a Raidho instead, as of course it will come down to personal taste.

You can find some more detail on my Rhaidho audition in this thread:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/contemplating-devore-speakers-and-others-long-audition-report...

This is interesting.  I recently built a speaker that is similar to the Pulsar using the 7" instead of the 5 1/4 " driver and it is a lovely speaker.  For $4K a pair, I can't believe how good they sound.  I have about 20 hours of time on them and they continue to get better but aren't quite the be all, end all in terms of ultra fine detail.  And they deliver great bass.  That is shocking in a little speaker.  

Interestingly, I have also owned a pair of Raidho X-1s which are a fine speaker as well.  Raidho's are all about soundstage and if you don't have 9' between the speakers and a solid 3' behind them, they don't deliver.  I was blown away by the Raidho's when I heard them setup correctly and could not replicate the performance at home.  Additionally, bass response is good, but not in the same league as the Pulsar.

What is interesting is that I have done A/B testing between my recently built stand-mount the Seas Excel drivers and my Verdant Blackthorns and I can say, the Blackthorns are clearly an upgrade.  It is all in the fine detail.  One of my benchmark songs has been Be Still My Beating Heart from Sting and the amount of subtle detail and layers of sound in that song are extraordinary.  You can here more with the Blackthorn.  It is obvious when you do AB testing.  The exception is in low frequency response where the Blackthorns bottom out at about 60hz and these new speakers hit close to 40hz.  

Each speaker takes a different approach.  The Seas Millenium tweeter is high mass and that mass I think is helping it resist internal resonances and outperforms most if not all tweeters I have heard in wood or MDF cabinets. 

In my Blackthorns, the cabinets are made from Carbon Fiber over a DuPont Nomex core.  Thus, a lower mass tweeter from Eton can outperform the higher mass Seas because of the strength of the cabinet.  

Both speakers use magnesium based, 7" drivers.  The Eton Arcosia is a composite where the Seas Excel is claimed to be pure magnesium.  Either way, they are both outstanding.

Caveats on this - My speaker is not a Pulsar.  I am using a 7" driver vs. the 5 1/4" and I have a different cabinet material (solid bamboo) and a different crossover.  

I would encourage you to checkout the Blackthorns.  They are a great speaker and below your budget.  I know they are about the same price as the Pulsars were new but that is more driven by my RTM model as consumer direct.  If I sold these at retail, they would be $11,500 - $13,000 instead of $7000-$8500 depending n finish.  

verdant,

Would that JA-like speaker be the Bambusa MG 1 listed on your web site?

In any case, I had the JA Perspective speakers at my home for an audition a couple of years ago. While they have a reputation for fine detail, I actually found my Thiel 3.7s pulled out a little more detail vs the JA speakers. But what is most seductive, to me, about the JA’s is the quality of the sound; really grainless and pure and smooth (and that tweeter is just terrific - though it’s probably an inaccurate cliche that metal tweeters do metal sounds better than soft domed, the JA speakers really make cymbals and metallic objects sound authentically metallic.

John Atkinson has put it well in some of his speaker reviews: that the sound of instruments like drum-hi-hats often take on the character of "bursts of modulated white noise." Yeah, you can identify it in the recording as a drum cymbal, but it really doesn’t sound like a real drum cymbal. One of the first things I heard in the JA speakers is how authentic drum cymbals sounded. (That’s another feature of the MBL 121 speakers I own as well: incredibly convincing high frequencies).

@prof  honest question: can they rock? I am curious to know if the Pulsars can handle say ACDC or Tool (trying to name bands people actually know) well.

gochurchgo

I don’t feel qualified to make any definitive claim about the Pulsars rocking or not. I auditioned them once or twice a couple years ago, but moved on strictly to auditioning the floor standing Perspectives after that.

That said, it depends on what you’d be comparing them to.  It would make sense to evaluate "do they rock" for a stand mounted speaker.    The Pulsars have a wide-ranging reputation for sounding like a much bigger speaker, with fantastic depth and bass impact for their size. Many have reported they do in deed rock really well. When I auditioned them, the played everything great, including some Van Halen as I remember.

I ended up wanting the Perspectives because I found them even more refined than the Pulsars.