Any monitors clearly better than Pulsars?

murphythecat,


We all have our preferences.

I'm familiar with the Harbeth 30.2 (auditioned it, heard it many times) and owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus.

I love Harbeth, but wouldn't put the 30.2 above the Pulsar at all, certainly NOT for bass punch and extension. I mean, the Harbeth is rated only down to 50Hz and the Pulsar down to 42Hz.  The stereophile measurements clearly show the Pulsar's bass extension beating the Harbeth 30.  So I'm confused as to why that's making your recommendation "because the Pulsars don't have the punch/bass extension.'

The Pulsar even measures deeper bass extension than your recommended 805 D3!

And...again...the Pulsars have virtually made their name on putting out more, and better bass than most monitors.

So, all I can say it that your perspective is pretty anomalous on this issue.  Maybe it's what you perceived upon hearing the Pulsars in a certain set up, but there's more objective evidence that your recommendations don't exactly make sense in light of your critique of the Pulsar.

What about the Ryan S610?

It's a pity Ryan is not more mentioned and doesn't have/get more visibility.

I haven't heard all the competing speakers that are about the same size as the Pulsar but it's very hard to beat the bass on the Seas 5.5in magnesium woofer.  I could think a couple of drivers from ScanSpeak such as either the 5.5in Revelator or the Illuminator or the Accuton ceramic, but other than that, I can't think of any.  But even then, they would be very close in term of bass output.

My only beef with the Pulsars is that, given all the praises, after reading the Stereophile review of the Pulsars, the designer advertised that he uses something called "Asymmetrical Infinite Slope circuit" for his xover.  OK, there is no such thing.  There is no "Infinite slope".  Cross over technology has been around since Edison invented the light bulb.  There is nothing new.  There is no need for the designer to resort to these type of marketing sleight of hand.  It cheapens his credibility.  It probably comes down to the woofer uses 2nd order and the tweeter using 3rd order to align the phase of both drivers hence the term "asymmetric" vs. "symmetric" in which the order of both the woofer and tweeter have the same filter order.   Using Asymmetric technique is actually a compromised approach since in order to use "Symmetric", the designer will need to rework the baffle geometry.

And with all due respect to the designer, the woofer and tweeter on the Pulsars are probably top ten drivers in the world.  So 80% of the goodness in the sound probably comes from the drivers by themselves.  He then just slapped on the xover and claimed all the credits :-)

so it's all a scam?

Prof,

Extension is meaningless if the distortion figures are 10% at 50hz at 90db.

I have tried to look up the distortion figure of the seas excel 5 inch midbass used in the pulsar, in vain. do you have the distortion figures of the Pulsar midbass? the only way we can discuss objectively about the harbeth vs Pulsar performance is if we have those measurements.

the Harbeth midbass used in the 30.2 distortion figures however can be easily found, the Harbeth distortion figures is excellent.
Ive never seen a 5 inch midbass thateven come close to the distortion figures of a good 8 inch woofer at 95db.

secondly, you mention that the Pulsar spec indicate that it has more extension then the harbeth 30.2, which indeed is true.  You can find sone 15 inch woofer that will have less extension then the pulsar. But does that mean that the Pulsar will have better bass? not at all. having heard both, I cannot understand how one could find the bass of the Pulsar comparable to the 30.2.