Perlisten R4b loudspeakers
As a company, US-based Perlisten may only have been manufacturing its speakers since 2016, but it has enjoyed a growing reputation in home cinema for its THX Dominus certified speakers and subwoofers, designed to reproduce very low distortion in larger home cinema systems. It’s no coincidence that the same virtues have won the company many new fans in audiophile two-channel applications.
I first made their acquaintance when I heard the S series S5m standmount at my local dealer. I was impressed by how well they were built and finished, their sound quality and their innovative ‘beamforming’ DPC driver array – technology that has trickled down to the more modestly-priced (£3,400) R Series R4b model that I am reviewing here. The S Series was launched in 2020 and the R Series followed in 2022.
Relatively new they may be as a loudspeaker manufacturer, but founders Dan Roemer and Stephen Mascenik have more than 25 years of experience in the audio industry – Roemer in aerospace and car OEM for Aston Martin, Land Rover and Ford, and Mascenik with JBL, Harman Kardon, Klipsch, Jamo and Peerless. Chief technology officer Erik Wiederholtz joined the company six months after it started following 25 years in the audio industry as a design engineer and product manager. So, a young company yes, but with a team of vastly experienced heavy hitters.
The R Series consists of the R7t floorstanders, which sell for £8,800, the R5t floorstander at £6,900, the R5m standmount at £4,800 – which has two 165mm woofers compared with one in the R4b – and an array of subwoofers, centre-channel, height-channel, in-wall and in-ceiling models for home-cinema applications.
Trickle-down technology
The R Series benefits from technology used in the more expensive S Series, featuring the company’s signature DPC (Directivity Pattern Control) driver array. This uses three 26mm silk dome tweeters, the central one sitting in a carefully sculpted waveguide formed in the 40mm front baffle. The S Series uses 28mm beryllium domes.
The central tweeter handles frequencies above 3.5kHz. The three domes of the R4b play together between 3.5kHz and 1.2kHz, where they hand over to the 165mm hybrid pulp (HPF) woofer. This uses a hybrid paper cone made from mixed long-fibre hardwood, bamboo and wool. Wiederholtz says he chose paper “because it is a great material – strong, light and well damped. The addition of bamboo, long wood fibres and wool is to add rigidity to the cone structure”.
All of Perlisten’s drive units are designed and manufactured in-house. The company has an R&D centre in California and an Asian R&D team in Dongguan, China, where it also has three manufacturing facilities.
So what’s the idea behind the three-tweeter DPC array? The aim was to control time, amplitude and phase to achieve a wide horizontal polar pattern and vertical polar pattern between 900Hz and 20kHz and create solid imaging in more seating positions. It also set out to limit early reflections from the ceiling and floor that can smear vocals.
Perlisten call it ‘beamforming’. As Wiederholtz explains, control over time, amplitude and phase was needed to achieve their desired result. Time, he says, cannot be controlled passively and so they set the middle dome back into the baffle in its waveguide to help achieve an equal path length to the ear for all three drivers. The waveguide, say Perlisten, helps improve horizontal dispersion. And because all three drivers share the power and reduce driver excursion, they say they also avoid the potential distortion problems experienced in some waveguides, where air can become non-linear at high SPLs. Phase and amplitude are controlled by the crossover.
Perlisten say that the overlap of three tweeters also improves the speed of response. They point out that a typical 130mm cone has a mass of around 5g compared with less than 1.2g for the Perlisten ‘midrange’ tweeters. The R4b is a sealed box design and the high-density fibreboard (HDF) cabinet has 19mm thick walls, with additional internal damping and bracing, while the front baffle is 40mm thick. Unusually, only one finish is offered, namely high-gloss black, which looked great to me and should suit a variety of room decors.
Smooth operator
Having already had a good experience with the Perlisten S5m, I was keen to hear what its smaller sibling could do. With this in mind, I slotted the R4b into my system of Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister integrated amp, with CDs played on an Audio Note CD Five transport and DAC Five Special combo, with vinyl courtesy of that company’s TT3/Arm Two/Io1 record player through an AN-S9 transformer. Given that the Meishu is a lowish-power, single-ended 300B valve amp (around 10W), albeit a particularly capable and potent one, I also used a Chord Electronics Ultima integrated amp – a very good transistor design with 125W on tap. Speaker cables were the Supremus Zr from QED.
Placed on a pair of stout Kudos stands that I have used for years, the R4bs were, after careful auditioning, finally placed 13in from the back wall and 15in from the side walls, slightly toed in, where they performed at their best in my room.
First track I played was one I know inside out, namely A Place for Skipper from guitar legend Larry Carlton’s Discovery album. I found the sound immediately enjoyable, musically informative, detailed and rhythmically coherent. Carlton’s guitar was well voiced with good body and insights into exactly how each note was played and shaped. Drums and percussion were detailed, syncopated and well presented, while joining them to give the track its quirky, rhythmic impetus was John Peña, whose bass line was conveyed with great grip, fluidity and surprising weight and heft, given the relatively modest size of the R4b enclosure.
Someone else who plays a mean guitar is Canadian singer/songwriter Stephen Fearing and it was Red Lights in the Rain from the superb The Secret of Climbing album that I played next. This superb recording is simply done with just two mics and really captures his voice and guitar sound. The R4b did really well and reproduced the subtlety and nuances of his play and the fullness of his custom Manzer Cowpoke acoustic guitar with its weighty body resonances. All the while revealing the delicacy and range of his vocals and his unique style and phrasing.
Next up was a complete contrast in the form of the complex and lavish production of Never Too Far to Fall from George Benson’s In Your Eyes album. Here, the R4b rendered his unique, velvet-smooth vocal style beautifully, while the pumping Moog bass line that helps drive the song along was conveyed with great weight and rhythmic bounce. The DX7 synth also had a nice sense of its characteristic sparkle and leading edge and the R4b really let you listen into and enjoy this lavish production with its razor-sharp arrangements and musicianship.
For a real test of their ability on vocals, I played Creepin’ from Luther Vandross’s The Night I Fell In Lovealbum. Luther is my favourite male vocalist and has a style all his own. The R4b made an excellent job of conveying his range, quirks and stylistic nuances. Marcus Miller’s superb bass line was tight, tuneful and provided the beating heartbeat for the track rhythmically, ably aided by Yogi Horton’s tight, syncopated drumming, which the R4b conveyed with both rhythmic snap and subtlety on the more delicate touches.
Persuasive
I thoroughly enjoyed my time listening to the R4bs, they were well driven by both the Audio Note and Chord Electronics amps. Whatever I threw at them, whether Dave Koz’s wonderful sax play, Miles Davis’s devastatingly understated trumpet or vocals as diverse as Linda Ronstadt, John Mellencamp and ZZ Top, the R4b always brought a smile to my lips. They were detailed, well balanced, articulate and dynamic with no serious flaws to spoil my enjoyment of the music. They should work well in a wide variety of systems, although they deserve and reward good quality ancillary equipment. At the asking price of £3,400, they are truly excellent value for money and punch well above their weight. You owe it to yourself to hear them.