The HR-1

The Blue Ridge Sound Engineering HR-1:





This is our mini-monitor sized bookshelf/ stand monitor offering. The "HR" in HR-1 stands for "high
resolution," the ability to reveal very fine details missed by most speakers. In addition to providing
crystalline clarity, the HR-1 also brings out reverberant and ambient sounds from the recording venue
that are often missed or masked by lesser loudspeakers. These are the subtle cues needed to provide
that "you are there" experience.
With some of the better quality loudspeakers out there, if you find just the right kind of music on just the
right recording, you should be able to close your eyes and be virtually "transported" to the recording
venue. With the HR-1, it doesn't have to be just the right kind of music, with just the right recording. With
any well-recorded material, simply close your eyes and within a few seconds your mind will be
effortlessly "swept away." The virtual soundstage is so huge, so wide and deep and tall, that your mind
cannot process the fact that you are in a living room or office unless your eyes are open to provide a
visual argument to what your ears are hearing.
How is this possible? What is the secret?There is no simple answer. Rather, it's all the constituent
parts and little details that add up to spectacular sound. The proper crossover, the
correct choice of drivers, and all of the little details have to be exactly, precisely correct for this
kind of performance. One of the reasons you don't find most of the large companies producing
speakers of this caliber is simple: too many hands in the pot, and too many irons in the fire.
At BRSE, our top priority is the design and development of each loudspeaker we put on the market.
From beginning to end, that's all we do until it's perfect. That means not only that the talent at BRSE is
focused in a single direction at the same time but also that any and all input--from design to
engineering to manufacturing--is welcome so that nothing, absolutely nothing, gets missed or left
unresolved.

In the picture to the right you'll see our HR-1 proto. looking rather
small compared to our reference speakers, the world renowned
Allison Acoustics IC-20's. Widely considered to be one of the
finest, if not the finest sounding loudspeakers ever produced.
You may be thinking that we were foolish to even compare the
two. How could a little mini-monitor sized speaker be expected
to be in the same league as a huge 48" tall as-good-as-it-gets
super high-end speaker like the Allisons? The IC-20s, after all,
have no less than 10 drivers on two different faces, including two
very robust 10" woofers per cabinet. Should be no contest, right?
Wrong. It was our goal to do the impossible, to create a small
speaker that doesn't sound like a small speaker. Many before us have tried, but I guess we just tried a
little harder, and made it happen. In blind testing every single listener picked the one we addressed
as "speaker B". When the huge piece of grill cloth and frame covering both speakers on each side
was removed everyone assumed (it's obvious, right?) that the better,more realistic, fuller sound must
have come from the large speakers. When told that it was speaker B, the small one, they had to walk
up to them and touch them while they were playing before they believed us. If this seems hard to
believe, we can't blame you, it is. But the proof is right there in black and white, go back and look at the
frequency response graph of our world-class high-end audiophile loudspeaker, the HR-1. The HR-1
makes No excuses for its size, it simply doesn't need to.

**Please note that the graph of the "other" speaker on the tech talk page is NOT of the IC-20's.

Some comments from our happy customers:

Mr. Euiho Han, TN:

First email:

"I received speaker today.
It is a wonderful speaker. Sounds are fantastic.
Thank you so much."

Follow Up Email:

"How are you?
I've been comparing HR1 with my other speakers few days.
I want to hear from someone that what they think.
Well, I decided to test my wife who doesn't know about hi-fi.
I let my wife sit couch and play same song one by one.
First I let her listen Sonus Faber, HR1 and Martin Logans....
She goes " Second one". She thinks HR1 makes warmest sound .
And I tested again. This time I changed Martin,Sonus and HR1....
I stand behind speaker all day...I think...
Again, She goes " I think third one"...ha ha ha
Well..Well..Well... Here is my concluesion...I think you did very good job.
I am very happy with this guy.
I am thank you again.
Have a good day.
--
Euiho Han"

Mr Han's eBay feedback on the HR-1s: "Great Sound & Great Company. AAAAAAA++++++++"

B. B., NJ:

"First, let me say I was extremely impressed with the build quality, absolutely impeccable...
Second, the sound out of the box was spectacular. Even without a subwoofer there an extra octave of
bass performance without sacrificing any clarity.
Third, the speaker had real depth as if you were hearing into the music.
My wife's comment (and she likes good music but is not an audiophile) was that this sounds like we
are at a live concert.
Thanks again and can't wait to get home from work to spend more time listening."

Mr B. Has also written a review of the HR-1 on Audiogon, please click here to read it.

Mr B Is having us build him a custom center channel speaker to match his HR-1s, we'll post his
comments on it as well once he takes delivery.

Mr B's eBay feedback on the HR-1s: "Outstanding seller. Exceptional speakers in build, sound
qlty and value"

Marc T, Ontario:

Hi Carl,

"I had a chance this past weekend to hook up the
speakers and listen to them. Simply put they are
amazing. The clarity and crispness is so defined.
They are so life-like as if you are listening to the
bands live. The imagery of them for such a small
speaker is in a class of its own. I am extremely
happy with the workmanship, the beautiful look, design
and performance of these wonderful speakers."

Marc's eBay feedback: Live-like clarity & Crispness-superb workmanship,solidly built,
amazing imagery

Steve M. , Skokie, IL Left this feedback on Audiogon after winning a pair there in an auction:

"Carl Halling is an absolute genious, These little puppies just belw away the ZU Druids in my
system(and many other MUCH higher priced speakers). I even had a buddy over who, on first listen,
said, "these blow away the Merlins, I had before I got my Andra 2's". They are musical as all get out,
and almost full range. For the size of these puppies, they are frikin amazing, in how they sound, and the
soundstage is deep, wide, and layered. These are an amazing bargain, and Carl is an incredible
designer to get so much quality sound out of these inexpensive speakers. I cannot wait to hear his
upcoming full range speakers, they are gonna kill, if Carl does it HIS way."

BRSE HR-1 SPECIFICS:

TWEETER:

                                   The top mounting isn't just for looks, this greatly reduces diffraction and helps to
                              give that sound quality most often referred to as "top end air", or a spacious, open,
                              limitless sound. Also, the top mount allows proper setback for time alignment.The
                              28mm fabric dome is hand treated to ensure quality. While the bullet shape looks
                              neat, it's actually a form follows function design. The rear chamber, which houses
                              twin, vented neodymium magnets, is designed to absorb the rear sound pressure
                              waves from the dome and provide more damping than the ferrofluid alone. These
features all add up to a very dynamic tweeter that doesn't suffer from the same diffraction and
compression at high power levels that other lesser tweeters do. The result is a clean, open sound that
is highly detailed and articulated, but never harsh.Very musical, very accurate.

MIDRANGES:

                                 Why two midranges? One of the most important characteristics of a great
                             sounding midrange is that it must be very light weight to offer good transient
                             response, while also being extremely stiff so as not to flex and distort shape when
                             pushed hard. So if we're going to have a light midrange, it'll have to be small
                             and made out of a stiff, lightweight material. We find this in a bronze/aluminum
                             mix, with a special damping coating applied to the rear of the inverted dome.
So, now we have a small, lightweight driver, but does this provide enough radiating area for
ample sound without compression/distortion at higher volumes? Since the midranges operate below
any frequencies that may cause cancellation interference between two drivers, our answer was to use
two. This increases power handling, eliminates potential for compression of large signals and, as a
side benefit of having more radiating area, creates a more open, spacious, true-to-life sound.
The two midranges per speaker are housed in their own sub-enclosure, separate from the woofer
for reasons mentioned on our Tech Talk Page .

WOOFER:

                                Robust, deep, accurate bass from an enclosure that could fit on a bookshelf?
                             We know of no other small speaker that is so easily mistaken for a large one.
                             Remember how I told you above that we had the four foot tall IC-20s set next to
                             these in our home theater/stereo test room? Well, invariably when someone
                             entered the room when we had music playing they wound up saying something
                             like "that sounds great, now let me hear the small ones." You can imagine the
reaction when they were informed that they were hearing the small ones! Put these speakers
behind an acoustically transparent curtain where nobody could see them, and you could fool
even the most trained ear into thinking they're listening to a full-sized loudspeaker, and we did.
For stereo music of any kind, there is simply no subwoofer needed. Organ music? Orchestral music?
It's ready. This speaker excels at providing a very large, very full and solid presentation when asked,
and yet has the delicacy required for enough bass definition that you can easily identify each bass
note (they never run together) and identify exactly what instrument is playing that bass. Most
speakers lose all articulation below say 80Hz or so and you'd have no idea if you were hearing
a 42Hz tone from a pipe organ, or a synthesizer, or the lowest note of a bass guitar. Not so here.
How? That's one secret that I can't reveal. We have something unique here and we don't feel
the need to let our competition know just how it works. Suffice it to say that we start with a very
robust woofer of excellent quality and the rest is our secret. The 8" woofer has a massive, heavy
magnet that exacts total control on the cone. Which, by the way, is capable of an unheard-of-even-
in-larger-woofers 16mm excursion! We have two 18" subs (we are sound nuts, we admit it!) built
under a stairway in the demo room and I can assure you, as good as these subs are, they would
be completely destroyed by a 16mm excursion!

The bass also has an unusual quality that we've never seen in other speakers, it seems to sort of
"project" and have the same amplitude at a distance as up close. Now, this could actually be a problem
for those in apartments with thin walls or anyone who likes loud rock or other music and has close
neighbors so you are hereby forewarned. We designed them to be accurate and powerful. That
they may be lease-breakers is something we don't feel the need to apologize for, but we do
want to make sure you are aware of this aspect.

ALSO: The HR-1 is designed to be placed on a stand or shelf, or whatever else, so that the top of
the cabinet is just above the level of the ears of a seated listener. This is assumed to be 37" on
average as an industry standard. Thus, we recommend and also sell a 24" stand. Stands are as
pictured in all photos on this site and include provision for running speaker wire within the stand to
hide it.

SPECIFICATIONS:
The HR-1 is an audiophile grade loudspeaker with the following features, specifications, and
measurements.
One 28mm Hand Treated Fabric Dome Tweeter with anti-resonant rear chamber and ferrofluid
cooling.

Two 4" Bronze/Aluminum inverted dome midranges

One 8" woofer

Size:                          7.25"W x 15"H (not including tweeter) x 14.5"D
Weight:                      Approx 30lbs
Power Handling:      105W of unclipped music material
Impedance:               6 Ohms
Sensitivity:                Approx 88db
Frequency Response:     +/- 1db from 42-20,000Hz   Bass -3db point: 36Hz, Bass 1/2 (-6db): 29Hz*
Connections:           Gold plated, bi-wireable terminals capable of accepting wire to 8ga, or dual
                            banana plugs.

*Frequency response measured semi-anechoically at 50", with the combined complex close-miked
response of bass/mid at frequencies below 300Hz. This is the exact same measurement procedure as
used by Stereophile magazine and most others.

We've decide to include two extra specifications in the form of graphs for phase and pulse (step)
response. These were originally omitted because most people have no idea what they mean (even
many who think they do, don't) and also for the reason that no speaker that has a frequency response
as near-perfect as the HR-1 could be anything less than excellent in these areas as well. A poor phase
response is often the reason for poor frequency response i.e. The out-of-phase signals will cancel
each other out and you have a dip in your response. Pulse response? Very similar situation, if your
pulse response shows some drivers hooked up out of phase (or ringing), this will result in a poor
frequency response. Once again, frequency response is a direct no-questions-asked representation of
the sound of a speaker. A speaker with a good frequency response simply cannot sound poor, and a
speaker with a poor frequency response simply cannot sound good. Period.

At any rate, here they are. The phase and pulse responses are excellent as you'd expect from
examining the frequency response. Of particular note in the pulse graph is the speed with which the
pulse response returns to normal. The pulse and the decay are completed in well less than 1ms,
indicating spectacular transient response. This, for those of you who don't already know, is the quality
that allows a plucked string for instance, to sound very realistic. What it means technically is that the
cone or dome's (depending on frequency) motion stops as soon as the signal does, it does not
continue to ring or reverberate when it should be stationary. Most speakers do not do well in this test.

                                               BRSE HR-1 PULSE (STEP) RESPONSE:


                        BRSE HR-1 FREQUENCY RESP. (RED) + PHASE RESP. (BLUE)

.