Verity Parsifal or Magico V3 or Wilson Benesch ACT

Marty, I agree, I've heard someone, other than Dhaan, not like the Verities (that doesn't mean that they don't sound good to him, could be). I did not know that opinion was actually divided on Merlin, certainly not from Merlin owners. One of the most remarkable statics of seen are the from the Audioreview.com site where 121 owners of the Merlin speakers give them an overall rating of 4.97 out 5 - that is pretty overwhelming evidence that some folks really like the Merlins.

Pubul,

Many contributors to these threads maintain that the speaker is top heavy (insufficient bass). The VSMs IME are very sensitive to room and partnered electronics. Their impedence curve probably contributes to the latter. In my home, particularly before I had the SEs upgraded, a number of people made the same comment - generally after direct comparison to the Verity, which is a bit warmer. However, the vast majority like both.

Over the years, I have wavered between them, switching them in and out of my system. Over time, I migrated more to the VSMs. Recently, I have added a couple of new speakers into the rotation, so both the P/Es and VSMs are sidelined for a while. I assure you, when they return to action both speakers will once again delight with their respective strengths and satisfy with their common lack of significant weaknesses.

Marty

Marty,
There are endless viable possibilities to a ‘sensible’ design. If we take the car analogy, it can be the difference between a good sport car like the Porsche and a good luxury car like the BMW. Both are sound designs and may cater to a different personal taste. Nothing wrong with that. However, when basic design elements are not address properly (Or at all), it gets difficult to make any ‘intelligent’ comparative assessment of preferences. That is why there are so many cynical, and unfortunately, quite worthless comments on audio forum. You very seldom read an ‘intelligent’ comment about the actual merits of the issues in question.

Dhaan,

I understand your point. It would be difficult to design high performance into any product without some sense of best practices. But....

Performance of a loudspeaker is, as a practical matter, only meaningful in room. Room contributions often overwhelm the intrinsic (to the extent that this word has any meaning in this context, you can probably substitute "anechoic") character of any loudspeaker. Hard as this may be for a disciplined designer to swallow, a "poor" design may perform very well in an unanticipated environment.

I have used the P/E in 4 rooms. The last should count as two, pre room treatment and post room treatment, as the character of the room changed so drastically after treatment. In 4 of these rooms (#4 pre-treatment excepted) the Verity produced an exceptionally "natural" sounding tonal balance. Not merely my opinion, but that of literally everyone who's heard it and offered a comment (lots of folks).

I only see 3 possibilities here:

1) My speaker does not have the same performance issue as the Ovation, presumably due to differing design.

2) The speakers do sound similar and the vast majority of listeners (admittedly not tested for statistical reliability) mistakenly think they sound natural when they are obviously poor sounding.

3) The speaker - despite its design - sounds natural to most people in many real world environments, but your evaluation is different.

#1 or #2 is possible, but I suspect that #3 is at play here.

To explain this, you point to biases (owners love everything they just bought) among listeners. Certainly possible.

I'd only note that you ignore your own potential bias. You produced "Exhibit A" to support your argument: an anechoic graph that was of limited indicative value to me. "Exhibit B" was listing certain Verity design decisions that violate commonly accepted (I hope I'm characterizing your position fairly) best practices.

Clearly, you disagree with the design choices and believe that the raggedy anechoic response illustrates the cost of these decisions. (It certainly wasn't pretty, I'll give you that!.) I'm merely stating that - despite the design choices and anechoic result - I have not found a soul in my home, in print, or on-line, who shares your judgement that these speakers present an obviously and significantly flawed tonal balance.

My point is that these factors might be coloring your judgement. Or you may be right.

Marty

But Dhann you are assuming that eveyone purchases their speakers for same reasons that you do. They do not. They purchase and enjoy them all for their own reasons. They may not want faithful recreation of the recording on the disc. They prefer 'sound creation' versus 'sound recreation'. People who enjoy Sonus Faber probably enjoy an agreeable "warm" deviation from neutrality and people who like Wilson probably enjoy " impressive" sounds. So what ? You may not understand it but the fact is that these people do gravitate towards these presentations. Who knows why ? "Accuracy" may be the only way to go for studio moniters when your mixing etc and precision is essential. I personaly like this kind of speaker. Other than that speakers are just sources of enjoyment. A "good design" is one which lots of people like the sound enough to buy it. The vast majority of people , even " audiophiles", are not used to listening to a truly flat/neutral speaker. They just don't want what YOU want and successful speaker manufacturers give them what THEY want. I once started a very illconcieved thread questiong the sanity of Wilson Audio purchasers and the motives of the manufacturer based upon MY listening and MY view of the (pretty poor) meaurements. How could anyone part with that kind of jack for what I think are vastly overpriced and underperforming ( from the viewpoint of 'accurate' sound reproduction) speakers ? Well, the fact is that they do " impressive" in spades and if people buy them then they are "properly designed' for THAT purpose. - Jim