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People come to high-end audio with different needs and expectations—some fairly reasoned, some slightly more highfalutin. Some listeners want to get as close as possible to an immersion experience, be it of a live performance or of some more idealized studio ecstasy. Others are enraptured by the status and sex appeal of big, hot-rod components, and simply dig gear—much as they might dig the visceral rush of a high-performance car. Still others compulsively upgrade their equipment in search of some unattainable perfection. But no matter the initial motivation, all roads eventually lead back…
However, it's one thing to undertake a $20,000, cost-no-object design. It's quite another when a designer has to be very prudent about how he spends the consumer's money and has to make his design's limitations work for him in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's what Joseph and Modaferri accomplished in raising the bang-for-buck ratio while setting new standards for construction and component quality—even offering some bold new wrinkles in their tried-and-true crossover design.
"The [RM33si's] cabinet construction is quite a bit more sophisticated than…
Layer on Layer
I enjoyed listening to the RM33si as much as, if not more than, any component I've auditioned in the last five years. The speakers sounded good from any point in the room, and permitted an emotional connection to the music that was magical. The integration of the three drivers was seamless and transparent, and the midrange driver delineated detail like an expensive spa treatment for your music. While in my original estimation the RM22si evoked the clarity and piquant detail of a good white wine, the RM33si suggested a more complex flavor—like a fine old Bordeaux revealing…
I enjoyed listening to the RM33si as much as, if not more than, any component I've auditioned in the last five years. The speakers sounded good from any point in the room, and permitted an emotional connection to the music that was magical. The integration of the three drivers was seamless and transparent, and the midrange driver delineated detail like an expensive spa treatment for your music. While in my original estimation the RM22si evoked the clarity and piquant detail of a good white wine, the RM33si suggested a more complex flavor—like a fine old Bordeaux revealing…
Okay, enough sensitive chamber music. Could these muthas boogie?
In auditioning Prince's slamming New Power Soul (New Power Generation) and KRS-One's production of Sly & Robbie's hip-hop reggae meltdown, Silent Assassin (Island 91277-2), the eyes sure had it—they liked to pop right out of several listeners' heads. Yunowuttahmean? And where a certain degree of lower-bass weight helps flesh out the acoustic cues in an orchestral recording, it's at the critical juncture of the upper bass and lower midrange (ca 100-250Hz) that a loudspeaker displays its dancing mettle.
I found it…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" Sonatex soft-dome tweeter with double-magnet configuration and pure silver voice-coil, 5" magnesium-cone midrange with copper phase plug in sealed low-resonance subenclosure, 8" side-firing aluminum-cone woofer with four-layer voice-coil. Frequency response: 28Hz-20kHz, ±2dB. Sensitivity: 88dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms, minimum 6 ohms. Crossover frequencies: 125Hz, 2kHz. Crossover slopes: second-generation Infinite Slope with optimized transfer functions.
Dimensions: 38?" H…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital source: Sony SCD-777ES SACD player, Musical Fidelity A3 CD player.
Preamplifiers: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista, Blue Circle Galatea.
Power amplifier: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300.
Integrated amplifier: Simaudio I-5.
Cables: Interconnect: JPS Labs Superconductor 2, Synergistic Research Designer's Reference (with Active Shielding and Master Control Center), Alpha Sterling, Alpha Kaleidoscope Phase II. Speaker: JPS Labs, Alpha (with Active Shielding), Monster Cable Sigma Retro Gold. AC: JPS Labs Power AC Outlet Centers, Aluminata,…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The smartly finished Joseph Audio RM33si Signature appears to need a surprisingly large amount of power to play loud. Using DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated B&K 4006 microphone, I estimated the RM33si's B-weighted sensitivity at just 80dB(B)/2.83V/m. This is both significantly below average, and 8dB below the specified figure. Unless Chip clipping his Musical Fidelity amplifier on the Telarc cannons had damaged something, I have no explanation for the discrepancy, other than to note that the thermometer topped 100 degrees F the day I measured the…
It is extremely difficult to predict the subjective effect of this measured behavior, as this is also the region where room resonances have a major effect on a speaker's balance. But if you're bothered by any lack of upper-bass power with the RM33si, the solution might well involve minor changes in speaker position in the room.
The RM33si's lateral dispersion plot (fig.4) implies a wide, even radiation pattern, with only a slight flare at the bottom of the tweeter's passband that might brighten the perceived balance in a lively room. Against that must be placed the 1" tweeter's…
John Atkinson wrote a Follow-up in January 2002 (Vol.25 No.1)
When Chip Stern reviewed the floorstanding, $7499/pair RM33si loudspeaker from Joseph Audio in October 2001 (pp.181-187), he was about as enthusiastic as it is possible to get: "Jeff Joseph and Richard Modaferri have achieved something special with the RM33si—a design that might in time prove to be a standard by which other speakers are compared." Yet when I performed my usual set of measurements, I was bothered by finding the Joseph's voltage sensitivity much lower than the 88dB/2.83V/m specified. I was also concerned by a…
Jeff Joseph was perturbed by this measured behavior, as he had found nothing out of the ordinary in this region. Fig.5, for example, shows the complex sum of the outputs of the second sample's midrange unit, woofer, and port, which he, too, had measured using the MLSSA system. A couple of bumps can be seen—one at 125Hz, the same as in fig.4, the other between 50Hz and 60Hz, rather higher in frequency than in fig.4—but these are significantly lower in amplitude than in my graph.
Fig.5 Joseph RM33si, sample 2, complex sum of nearfield midrange, woofer, and port responses (supplied…