Fundamental change

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There are many great projects in the collective PS Audio head. We have lists of the things we'd love to tackle and our challenge is not coming up with more, but editing the list. Few companies have the resources to tackle all projects, big and small. It takes discipline and patience to focus only on chosen product directions, two talents I find myself woefully lacking in. Fortunately, the team at PS has both in spades. The one project I most want to work on is the one least likely to be put on our engineering schedule. Not because it isn't interesting, but because it is so far removed from our core product direction, with major economic uncertainties, that the CEO side of me says "no," while the inventor side of me cries out in anguish. Tough to play both roles in a small company, and we can add a lack of self restraint to the list of my many weakness, but I am trying. The idea is a rather simple one and its introduction would cause a fundamental change in the way we listen to our stereo and home theaters. Instead of trying to fix the room problems through the loudspeaker, we fix the room itself with active walls. Imagine for a moment one of the problems in-home stereo systems face. The room itself confines the soundstage within its boundaries. Certainly we have all witnessed the coveted experience of depth beyond our room's walls, but we know it is an illusion, a magic trick that's not all that convincing. If we try and play the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a room that is 15'x15' our ear brain mechanisms understand it's a trick and reject the space as too small. Even if our room is a monster, and most are not, we can never be fooled that we are actually in Symphony Hall by simply playing that which was recorded there. But what if we could fundamentally change the size of our room such that when we close our eyes, our ear/brain mechanism confirms that the room we are in is 61 feet high, 75 feet wide, and 125 long? To prove it to our disbelieving selves, we could clap our hands, speak to the person next to us on the couch and be assured we were indeed in that size room. Then, when we play music recorded in the very space we are mimicking, the experience would be far more believable. And because our new room has active walls, the dimensions can change with each recording. Possible? Absolutely. More tomorrow.
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Paul McGowan

Founder & CEO

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