Recommendations
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsOne of the primary motivators for our launch of PS Audio speakers is a sad but simple truth. There are so few speakers we can recommend in good faith.
This may come as a shock but it happens to be the truth.
Yes, there are some great speakers on the market but the really great ones are either astronomically priced or impractical in people’s homes. How many folks could agree to a 4-piece behemoth like the IRSV, tolerate large panels in the living room, get their significant other to accept the towering likeness of a pterodactyl or escapee from a sci-fi movie, or afford some of the crazy prices in our industry?
For years we have been asked by our customers for recommendations of what to pair with their PS equipment. And for as many years we have shrugged our collective shoulders. Some speakers are affordable but require so much in the way of setup and room correction as to be essentially untenable. Others sound good but haven’t the ability to resolve fine details. Still others are detail oriented but require so much in the way of extras like a pair of subwoofers that cost more than the speakers, or cabling as expensive as the electronics, that they are non-starters.
I suppose it was inevitable that we make our own speakers—as inevitable as making our own amps, preamps, and DACs.
We know part of the fun of hifi is the mixing and matching of the best from each company. Yet, we also know there’s more than a few among us that simply want the best sounding system possible without all the trial and error.
Our upcoming speakers won’t be for everyone.
At least I hope not.
We’re building products we love.
The three last lines are more or less comprehensible, but I guessed they don’t have to be pronounced by others than those producing e.g. crossoverless one chassis speakers or similar exotics. At least I would have expected the addition, that you hope your taste matches what most strive to achieve, as otherwise it would be more of a hobby than business for the company 😉
You already proved you also build products a nameable part of the high end public loves and that your taste fortunately matches the taste of many others.
Reading this post…, boy am I glad I don’t have a PSA amplifier !
Lots of (relatively) affordable, high resolving speakers that require no room correction or added subs, go very well together with my amp.
And now I feel fortunate to have the best sounding system possible within the limits of my budget.
I tend to agree with Jazznut. I don’t get the impression that the PSA speakers are built to complement PSA amplifiers, because I don’t see the point of high output (and to me relatively expensive) power amplifiers for a semi-active speaker. It seems obvious that Paul likes the 4-way semi active design and, for those with lots and lots of money, the follow-up line source version. The other basic point, which is mostly accepted here, is that speakers come first so it is more usual to match amplifiers to speakers rather than the other way around.
Home audio was for me more of a supplement to live music and I listen more at home now because I have a pair of speakers that do everything I want and I find hugely enjoyable. They are affordable (for me), easy to set up, are exceptionally detailed (coming close to electrostatics) without dissecting the sound, image well, superb at low volume (a major factor), easy to drive, speaker cables are not an issue and are sometimes supplemented with a very modestly priced sub-woofer (depending on the music).
The major factor is that I am not a bass junkie, and my ultimate test track is not the 1812 Overture, it is more likely to be Johnny Cash or Barb Jungr vocals. I am reassured by the fact that the product has been sold in large quantities for decades. One of the measures I consider useful is the lack of units on the second hand market and the very high prices they demand (70% to 80% of retail). The main factor is room size and I was reassured that the full-range version is used by several leading reviewers both sides of the Atlantic as their reference speaker. I have heard several speakers in recent years at in-store demos that I could very happily live with, although more expensive, but I have also heard very expensive units that I found truly terrible. I love the Kii Three and Grimm concepts and sound and could happily live with those fully active units, which have built in DSP and room correction. Frankly, my impression is that the consumer these days is spoilt for choice.
The consumer is not spoilt for choice when it comes to 4-way semi active speakers, so it will be interesting to see if it has any pick-up over here in Europe.
One of the most interesting demos I’ve attended was at RMAF a few years back when Wilson did a demo with dual Thor’s Hammer subwoofers.
They didn’t play the “1812 Overture” or “Fanfare for the Common Man,” but rather a simple female vocal track. It should have contained nothing of substance under 100 Hz let alone 50 Hz, but by switching the giant subs on and off you lost a palpable sense of the space in which the vocalist was recorded with the subs off.
I mention that to say that there is something to the reproduction of low to sub bass that isn’t about reproducing the lowest registers of a pipe organ but IS necessary to reproducing an accurate sense of space.
You are correct BillK.
It’s really just a 3 way passive speaker system with built in powered subwoofers. It’s much easier to set up then trying to integrate separate subs into a 2 or 3 way design, and the subs basically take the place of speaker stands used with smaller speakers so you are not taking up the kind of floor space you would need with one or two separate subwoofers. Virtually all subwoofers are powered so I don’t see a problem here. Funny how most audiophiles would never consider buying an amplifier with a frequency response of 60Hz-20KHz but have no problem with their speakers dropping off at 60Hz. It’s really not being a bass nut to have full range speakers.
I have NHT 2.9 4 way speakers with built in passive subwoofers that I can biamp. Of course unlike the PS Audio’s there’s the added cost of an amplifier or two to drive the subwoofers if I choose to biamp. The benefits are I can buy an amp that superbly controls the low end while buying a a sweet sounding solid state amplifier that excels in the midrange on up. That’s the whole idea. Or I can choose to have one amplifier do it all. Or if you are a tube lover you can use the tube amplifier to drive everything but the extreme low end. I’m not sure the PS Audio speakers have the option to disconnect the sub amplifiers and drive them passively with your main amplifier or even if there would be any benefit in doing that.
Many people are driving with their full range amplifiers speakers that have little or no bass below 70Hz and don’t seem to mind, but they seem to be complaining that their BHK won’t be driving the subwoofers in the AN3’s. Well it wasn’t driving much bass below 70Hz with the speakers they are presently using either. Sort of contradictory wouldn’t you say? The main amplifier will do even better if it’s relieved of it’s subwoofer duties.
You’re missing the point.
Buying a speaker with a built-in 700 W (!) amp AND a 250/500 W
amp like the BHK250 (or even the mono version) not only makes no sense, but is also a waste of money on either the speaker side or the amp side.
Or do you think PSAudio gives you the built-in AN3 amp for free.
And use a powerful amp (e.g. BHK) for only tweeter/midrange ?
Come on. We’re talking living room audio (for 95% of us), not about a Metallica rock show in a stadium.
I have a very powerful amp and for that reason I would not buy speakers with built-in amps, especially not high-powered ones like the upcoming PSA’s. Or, if I would buy those speakers, I wouldn’t buy a 300 Watt amp.
For me it’s one or the other. But feel free to disagree.
Couldn’t agree more. It seems these speakers are more for someone who doesn’t already own PS Audio’s reference amps. If you do own one of the BHK amplifiers, it’s seems like overkill using it for drive the mid-range and tweeters.
OK, I’ll disagree. The BHKs sound amazing on the AN3s and I imagine any great sounding high power amplifier would too.
It’s tempting to think of power amplifiers in terms of needs vs. capabilities. The AN series speakers don’t “need” a lot of power so it might be tempting to then think it’s overkill to offer it to them.
That thought process, however, would be something worth questioning. It ignores the power (voltage swing) needed (even on just those two drivers) to reproduce dynamics, especially those of an orchestra. It also ignores an amplifier’s linearity range.
To get even close to live levels on the AN speakers you’re going to need quite a lot of voltage swing (power). Take the Mahler III from the SF with Tillson Thomas. Some of the crescendos, when played at live levels, get close to taking all the BHKs have to offer.
Then there’s linearity. Amplifiers are lucky to have 20% of their useful range in a linear region of operation. Outside those limits feedback correction is required to get it right and that makes for compromised performance.
No, there’s little better than a great, high powered amplifier on a relatively efficient loudspeaker if one wants to get close to unfettered performance in the home.
Interesting comment Paul. My neurotic husband takes a db meter to all our concerts. He measures the room when it is quiet before the concert starts and when the music goes into full blast. He’s gotten in trouble because people have claimed he was recording the concert. He had to clarify he was measuring sound pressure.
Disney Hall rarely gets below 40 db at full hush. And from 30 yards away in our seats, it is very hard to get much above 100 db. Occasional peaks get a bit louder. At Disney, you also rarely hear bass sound. The last time we did was when Cameron Carpenter played. So at home, I rarely “let” him get peaks above 100 db for classical music (rock is another story, jazz uses classic levels). Even when I sing (I do at a master chorale) from the audience it is rare to get above 100 db…
Paul, do you have a guess what percentage of an amps power delivery a passive crossover kills in comparison to an active design?
That’s a good question and I don’t have an easy ready answer. Clearly the bass frequencies always take more horsepower than any other frequency. From 500Hz down the greatest amount of energy is supplied.
That said, the greatest amount of dynamic requirements see to be above that and certainly the biggest set of audible cues of how the music is sounding are above 500Hz. Especially in the midrange.
So, the problem is one of what we might think of as bi-amping. By removing the relatively long term requirements of power by the bass amp, the upper amp isn’t stressed to maintain its dignity on the upper frequencies that really matter and are what our ear understands as transparency, imaging and depth.
There’s no better situation than to remove the demands of the bass notes from an amplifier so it can do its job about a few hundreds Hz.
Paul can you explain why feedback correction messes things up? Also isn’t the servo control in subwoofers a form of feedback correction? It works fine for extreme lows but not the rest of the frequency range?
Feedback correction doesn’t really matter (sonically) until the upper areas where the ears are so sensitive to phase shift, subtle level changes, and transient attacks.
By keeping the feedback at the minimum above a few hundred Hertz we get more openness and transparency. In the lower regions like the bass, feedback actually had advantages and here we’d want more of it.
Thanks for that explanation Paul. Yes you do not want to effect the important areas of the mid and highs where the spatial cues originate from.
Didn’t mean to suggest that the BHK’s wouldn’t sound great on the A3’s, just that maybe they were overkill in terms of power. But you bring up some very good points which I overlooked.
Well maybe they need to give an option of having passive subwoofers with biamp capability. I have no problem with that. Maybe they will offer that option for those who want to save the money and don’t want the subwoofer amplification. I’m not missing the point because I have recommended or asked for that myself.
They can also offer speakers with all dynamic drivers for some who prefer that.
I know PS Audio is not giving you a free subwoofer amplifier. I didn’t say you needed to throw away the AN3’s subwoofer amplification that you paid for but rather have the option to disable it. Maybe there’s certain music and certain times the user would prefer using the built in AN3 subwoofers and other times their own amplification whether driving the AN3 passively or biamped. It would be interesting to at least have the option to disable the internal subwoofer amplifier to try the speakers in both passive and active subwoofer mode or with your own subwoofer amp used to biamp the AN3’s to decide which options you like better in different applications and uses. You might decide to switch back and forth between the internal amplification and external amplification for different reasons.
Paul can correct me if I’m wrong, but the system in the AN3 is more than just a pair of amplifiers powering the woofer and mid-bass coupler. (These are 700 watt Class D amplifiers similar to those used in the Stellar series, using the Ice Power modules if I’m not mistaken.) There will be DSP to correct the bass response to the room, and don’t forget that the servo control is part of the woofer system, and I don’t believe there is a way to accomplish this without the driver having its own amplification.
I don’t see it being an easy task (or even a possible task) of separating the amplifiers out of the speakers. The AN3 is designed as complete system. Doing otherwise would require a lot of engineering to create a proper crossover network to work with the existing drivers, and the benefits that the amp/servo control/DSP provide would be completely lost.
I was also thinking a passive option that one could bi-amp would be a good idea. But I’m not sure the servo feedback feature that is part of the An3 could be integrated.
The Absolute Sound : “Also presented with great fanfare was a prototype of the PS Audio AN3”
Nice picture of the speaker, but I wonder if the man standing next to the speaker is the real “thing” or Madame Tussauds version….
Anyway, I have a feeling this speaker will be way too big and heavy for most European consumers. And it’s no bargain either.
Let alone the upcoming AN2 and AN1.
But then again, the European market is probably not very interesting for PSA, certainly (and obviously) not the most important.
I’m curious what size, weight and price the Stellar speakers will be.
BTW, since the homemade speakers are just prototypes (I still don’t see the point of bringing SPEAKERS to a show on static display),
I wonder what speakers were used during the show. The last show I attended last year the PSA distributor used YG Acoustics.
And yes, they cost a small fortune (well, everything is relative), but the sound was out of this world.
I can’t imagine PSA can better this, but time will tell.
“Static display?”
Neither the AN3 speakers or Paul were on static display at last weeks’s Chicago show. Both I fact were very alive and highly dynamic. I was not at the show, but I enjoyed watching the Videos on the Ask Paul site.
You are correct in stating the speakers are only prototypes, but Paul has been very clear that they are still a work in progress. If the AN3s were a conventional design speaker, I would disregard any presentation of a prototype at a show. But because the four way AN3 is a unique configuration being displayed for gaging consumer response, displaying a prototype is valid. Especially when the designers are honest regarding its state of development.
As far as cost and size, neither the AN3s or anything else on the market fits my financial pain threshold or available home space. So I am enjoying the process of designing and building my own speakers. Which is why I am watching Paul’s videos on the development of the AN3s with great interest.
The special thing with speakers is (and that’s probably one reason why such discussions arise at this point only), that with their interference with the room, they finalize a setup and show the preference of the owner…and also show what his/her judgements about components and different concepts etc. are based upon.
It’s a difference if you talk about tubes/solid state, digital/vinyl, importance of certain characteristics etc. with someone who‘s used to a bright tonality, who rather likes what’s too much bass for most or who just cares for prat etc. or with someone who‘s taste what to achieve matches yours. That’s why such presentations have some importance…to buyers of the products…and in order to find out how to categorize opinions.
Another thing that may come as a shock but it happens to be the truth (as far as I know) is no high-end speaker manufacturer uses PS Audio electronics to demo their speakers. Adding speakers to the PS Audio product stable is a good idea. The company is offering a one-stop shop for all their customer HiFi audio requirements, leveraging the synergy that so often comes with sticking with the one brand.
Shouldn’t high-end speaker manufacturers have voiced their speakers with a specific amp-preamp set-up? The question then is: which actual amp design has matching characteristics compared to the old fashioned well-tried amp? Finally the dealers and distributors select the matching amps based on the limited choose of their portfolio. By accident I heard a combination of Magico speakers and Devialet amps sounding terribly good. I strongly doubt that Magico used Devialet for voicing. The dealer made this selection as he selects the reference music to be played for revealing the best attributes of his selected combination of components.
I still do not understand what goes into voicing an amplifier. It shouldn’t have much to do with altering it’s frequency response since amplifiers are ruler flat unlike speakers. Damping factor and maybe slew rate adjustments? Balancing left and right channels so center is exact? Maybe a 0.5db attenuation at some frequency? A combination of things? Maybe this is one of those secrets never disclosed.
Proprietary secret, that’s the term I was looking for. 🙂
I am sure you have heard of the Parasound JC-1.
The circuits were designed by John Curl, the layout of the boards was done by, I think the name is Paul Thompson, and the voicing was done by the late Bob Crump.
That team was also responsible for the CTC Blowtorch preamp.
Bob went through the amp swapping out resistors, capacitors, wire, input jacks, and speaker connectors. Each component that could alter the sound was evaluated, and chosen for his opinion of what sounded best.
I don’t believe the values were changed, some may have, but it had to do with brand and type. The amp would still measure the same, but sound different. That is one way you voice an amplifier.
When you read the tests done at Stereophile the differences with amps usually is not in frequency response, but noise levels, input and output impedance, etc.
Addressing your suggestion of PSA offering different driver configurations, don’t you think that would be extremely difficult? We have a front row seat to them getting one model correct, the time it would take to offer different drivers would probably add thousands to the price.
The only company that I am aware of that offers different drivers, is Vandersteen with their carbon tweeter. And they can do that because the the speakers were upgraded to the new tweeters. So, they still have the previous generation’s design. As to powered or not, Legacy does offer that option with their Focus XD. It can be fully powered, or just the woofers, by flipping two switches. They also already had a fully passive version. Their Calibre is now available either passive or powered, but I believe the new Valor and the Aeris both come with powered woofers, with no passive option.
For a company just entering the speaker industry you are probably right. I’m getting ahead of myself here and don’t expect that to happen immediately if at all. Just a suggestion.
Variety can be a good or bad thing. I wonder if PS Audio has experimented with an all dynamic speaker in the price range of the AN series? Maybe they did and didn’t like the results. Is their venture strictly to carry on Arnie Nudells legacy?
Dynamic speaker technology has come a long way and can even equal or surpass electrostat, planar and the other exotic drivers in the areas those excel. Doesn’t an all dynamic speaker also give you some of that important synergy and coherency? Just food for thought. Not trying to start a war here…lol.
I guess the components of other manufacturers used at shows are more a matter of distribution connections and business aspects than pure sound quality matching. This might be the reason that PSA (as a company intentionally disrupting the distribution and sales structures and therefore maybe displeasing the one or other manufacturer, distribution or dealer, contributes to the non use of their equipment…but that’s just an unsure theory. They might just have no interest in pushing the use of their equipment. Anyway it would be really interesting to hear PSA equipment in more than one setup at shows.
Maybe PS Audio will build a line of speakers the same way as their AN series but with all dynamic drivers. Maybe some without the built in sub amplifiers but biamp capable. That would be interesting. More options for consumers is always better.
I’m not sure what the goal of high end audio is anymore. If it’s to play recordings like you hear at Axpona or RMAF is it really worth tens of thousands of dollars? If it’s to recreate the sound of Mahler Symphony #3 as it is heard at a live concert IMO the technology doesn’t work. It’s not the fault of the speakers or the amplifier or the DAC or the cables. The concept of how to accomplish it which seems almost universally accepted by the industry simply isn’t up to the task. The gap between this technology and what is required is huge. I’m sure there are countless people who enjoy their sound systems no matter what make or model they are, no matter what music they listen to. That’s not the issue. The issue is can you create a duplicate of what you remember hearing live? Is this what high end audio purports to accomplish? Those who have any honesty admit they can’t do it. Others go further saying it can’t be done at all. Are they right? If they are, why bother spending so much money. And if they are wrong why bother nitpicking over the differences between one expensive piece of equipment and another when neither are up to the task.
Will building a speaker that can play at 128 db over the entire 10 audible octaves without audible distortion solve the problem? I don’t think so. Most music is not nearly that loud, even classical music that might reach these peaks rarely sustains them for very long. BTW, sound systems that can play that loud although not high fidelity exist and are used for psychological torture on prisoners of war.
So I ask again, what is your goal? What’s missing that you don’t hear that you want to hear? What should the industry be trying to achieve that it can’t. From Paul’s posting one goal is better sounding speakers using variants of the existing technology at much lower cost. That seems fair enough.
The Vivid Giya’s do the job in a reasonably sized package. Too expensive though and if PS audio can deliver the goods for say 50% of the price (which did they with electronics) they have a winner on their hands.
I have a similar question to what Soundmind asks, which is what I expected to be addressed yesterday in a discussion about the meaning of “reference.” “Sounds good with our equipment” makes it sound entirely idiosyncratic. Every company with some combination of dacs/amps/preamps/etc. does that. But the key is in the reference point(s) they use, while the blog entry yesterday stated it’s all about individual taste. Since that’s at best incomplete on the face of it, an entry on audio design referents and thus goals seems in order.
Wandering AXPONA I heard really awful speakers. I bet every one had flat, or certainly acceptable, swept frequency response. But maybe 15 speakers SOUNDED real. At least now and again.
Soundminds spray and pray vector math can’t sound real until the old room is REMOVED and the new vector math room stuck in there to simulate your new room. Then, the amplitude and swept responses have to be correct, too, or we hear…speakers. SM asks what we want, well there it is.
Wilson Bennish has a new speaker made to also do just that, track the DYNAMIC responses far better, and even if it lacks some ultimate bass amplitude on the craziest stuff. OK, that speaker is $230,000 though. Still, being dynamically capable it “sounds” like my kind of product, just like the T+E CWT 1000-40. The absolute sound reviewer mentioned SPECIFICALLY that the dynamic response far outweigh just a flat response. I’ve never read that before, but feel that’s the case as music is dynamic, and if a speaker is slow, you’ll hear what Bill and I did one hundred times. Dynamic responses are several orders of magnitude WORSE than the deviation from flat responses, and thus change what we hear the most.
SM is right that the way the speaker responds to a room is not right. His tech is impossible without sterile recordings (no room effects added) to ADD vector information of a new room, and alternatively using a speaker for every instruments or sound is equally impractical. But yes that removes the inaccuracies of stereo speakers sound stage.
I agree with the Absolute Sound reviewer 100%. Truly good speakers capture the right AMPLITUDE response even before the swept response, in that order. Great speakers do both. This is what sets the Solitair CWT1000-40 and speakers like it apart from near everything else, they better capture the nuances of ALL of the recordings physical settings, like it or not. Isn’t that what we listen go every day?
My recommendation, get a speaker FLAT, but it is still just a speaker until the DYNAMIC responses are accurate. When both swept steady state and dynamic response are BOTH right, do speakers sound “real”.
You sell flat responses, but we really listen to accurate dynamic responses. AXPONA demonstrated that over 100 times.
I think spray and pray is not an accurate description of what I have done. I have a definite outcome in mind. The spray as you call it is carefully directed in where it goes, its color, and its intensity.
The old room is not removed. Instead it becomes a critical element in the design of the system.
The method requires considerable adjustments, for the acoustics of the room itself, for the way the recording was made, and for the requirements of the kind of music being heard. Paul didn’t like it when I put Luciano Pavarotti in a huge opera house and him nearer the back than the front. This favored the sense of power and space over intimacy. I could have done it the other way but he was stuck with what I adjusted it for. He liked it even less when I put Karen Carpenter in a similar space without the benefit of what would come out of a sound reinforcement system at a concert. By comparison to Pavarotti, that poor little pathetic voice pleasant enough under the right circumstances was overwhelmed by the acoustics. Bad choice of settings. Given a few moments I could have just adjusted the effect rather than turned it so far down it was nearly off as Paul requested.
This design gives you a lot of choices. Some great, some good, and some not so good. One problem is that what seems like a great choice one time is only fairly good the next and then you have to start over again. You know you’ve nailed the adjustments when you come back time after time sometimes even with long lapses of time in between and it still sounds great.
Hi SM,
BUT, until we completely REMOVE the sound of the room that is already in the source material we can’t add in a new room. We have TWO competing rooms at the same time. That’s the pray part, to try to overlay the existing room and arrive at a likable sound….even if it isn’t a simulation of a REAL room somewhere, but just sounding more like music in a real room. Spray is generic for sending it all off to where ever. Music does indeed head off in 360 degrees and bounce around from there.
I understand your concept to more properly send sound INTO a room in the manner a free field sound does, but that can’t fully be done with current source material as there is always the original bias of the room and MIC built into the source.
How do you get that out to then add the “new” room?
Making speakers ideal for each sound and placing them to simulate an ensemble is a great idea, but this may limited how many speakers you want go deal with. I have issues with just two.
We are still left with dynamic and steady state responses of drivers with either method. Both have to be perfect to match a real reference, let alone the dispersion pattern.
I don’t use different speakers or speaker placements for different ensembles. Acuvox does that. For the “they are here” problem where the speaker is a surrogate for musical instrument that’s an excellent solution. But commercial recordings don’t have separate tracks for different instruments they way acuvox’s recordings have. For that problem, in my solution which is compromised compared to his the FR of the reflected sound is adjusted independently from the direct sound. It is tailored to the room so that the reflections come from a variety of angles including from above and with flat FR. It’s loudness is also independently adjusted. The system is also adjusted for each recording to get flat FR back to the microphones which is where it counts so it must be adjusted for each recording. I played two recordings on a system optimized for this purpose, the system incorporating the Bose 901s. The first was a vinyl of Linda Ronstadt singing I’d bought for 9 cents and the second was a CD recording of Kissen playing the Bussoni arrangement of the Bach Passacaglia on a Steinway D piano. Paul remarked that the piano sounded too bright so I immediately adjusted it but I swear I timbre matched that sound as closely as I could to my Steinway M in another room and to my ears it sounded very close. Did that Steinway D sound huge? You bet it did. It should, it’s 8′-6″ wide and intended to fill up a room the size of Carnegie Hall that is 900,000 cubic feet. Here it was in a room 2,000 cubic feet. At that time Paul was having trouble with the EMITs in his IRS and may have been using that sound as his reference. This is why it is always important to use live unamplified sound as your reference.
In the system that is designed to recreate a different much larger room, you are right. In fact there are three transfer functions. There is the one the main speakers have with the listening room. This is the undelayed sound you’d hear from a normal stereo system. The only difference from a high end system is that the dispersion of high frequencies is far greater than anything else. Of twelve tweeters per channel on the main speakers, only one per channel is aimed at the listener. The room will have an effect and I wondered at first what its imprint would do. As I said part of my success came from sheer luck. The answer is that it didn’t matter. You don’t hear that. Another transfer function is the sound of the room the recording was made in. Another worry that turned out to be unfounded. The early reflections and even later ones that are in the recording means that I don’t have to generate as many reflections or delays as I would with a recording made in an anechoic chamber. This is the reason why the Haas effect I was so worried about didn’t occur, those reflections worked as a bridge in time between the first arriving sound and the first reflection I generated. The walls, ceiling and floor are used as gigantic diffusers. The sound from the 16 small speaker systems around the perimeter of the room are aimed at them, not the listener. Paul didn’t know it but there was one on the floor directly behind where he was sitting but the output of that speaker like all of the other speakers was so small in comparison to the totality of the delayed sound he never heard it separately. A small sound diffused before it reaches him combined with 15 others and the main speakers. Too small to notice. So it can be made to work. Yes, luck was an element in my success. There were surprises but I learned to deal with them. The third transfer function is the one I create with the machine. When the three are combined the goal is to get it as close to the transfer function between performers on a stage in a concert and someone in the audience, same overall transfer function but through different paths.
I hope the link to this pdf file works. If it does, scroll down to the right side and look at figure 7. This is the integrated reverberation profile of Boston Symphony hall at 1khz. Notice that between 0 milliseconds and around 100 milliseconds there are reflections that are at a low level. I can tell you from other data that the first significant reflection occurs at abut 13 milliseconds. This is the bridge in time I was talking about. Then at around 100 milliseconds there is a monumental jump of around 50 db in the reflected sound. So those early reflections in the recording are of great value and you won’t find a commercially made recording without them. In an anechoic recording played in an anechoic room as the initial concept for a laboratory would have worked you’d have to create those reflections in the system. I think this is one of the problems the Wave Field Synthesis people are still grappling with. They use only anechoic recordngs or as happened 2 years ago a live performance in Bell Labs’ huge anechoic chamber.
http://www.akutek.info/Papers/DG_Hall_Design.pdf
It does not sound like this is the plan, but when I first heard that Paul was adding loudspeakers to PS Audio’s product offerings, my first thought was a fully active design with active crossovers and DACs with upgradable FPGA firmware.
Designing a good pair of passive loudspeakers is hard work, but lots and lots of companies do it. What makes PS Audio unique among those entering the loudspeaker market is their decades of experience designing power amplifiers, control units, DACs, etc. Why not apply that engineering expertise to building truly high-end active loudspeakers? This is a space that few other companies have the engineering chops to enter and would differentiate PS Audio.
I guess there could be some concern that these new products would cannibalize sales of PS Audio’s electronics, but customers who want separates are going to buy separates. Instead, this would enable PS Audio to enter a new space in the market that is less crowded and, I think, will become super hot in the next decade or so. The kids entering our hobby then are listening to active speakers today (Apple Homepod, Sonos, Bluetooth things). As they transition into their earning years (40’s), they will want a similar topology for their systems but vastly better sound, and few companies will be there with products to satisfy that desire.
Of course, a fully active design with integrated DAC leaves questions from customers about which loudspeakers to pair with their PS Audio electronics unanswered. For them, provide an active crossover and leave the mids/highs without internal amplification; customers can then use their existing (or new) PS Audio amplifiers to drive the top ~7 octaves while the bass drivers achieve maximum performance via dedicated internal amplifiers that are tuned precisely to match the drivers.
This idea is not going to happen, but it was my initial thought…
With top notch amplification products with very very sensible pricing it is time that PS Audio audio makes equally good speakers to go with them. The fact that these are going to be priced at three different levels depending on their sophistication gives everyone a chance to own an outstanding speaker. This also is the right approach, as mentioned, for people who just want the best in a certain price category without the trouble of mixing and matching. This is specially significant since DIY approach is a dying art rapidly being replaced by all thumbs generation. Good for business. PS Audio is on the right track. Keep it up. Wishing you the best. Regards.
If I understood correctly from Paul’s written (Daily Post) and verbal (Ask Paul) communication comments these past 2 months, his speaker reference sound expectations are really simple…a full range home system that simply “disappears”! To clearly hear the details and intimacy of a small ensemble chamber group on stage, perhaps the excitement and realism of a nightclub jazz quartet’s improvisational genius, or the rich and delicate voicing of a small A Capella choir, and the percussive and wide expression of a full size grand on stage, the monstrous power with diverse tonality and extreme timbres of pipe organ or\and orchestral performances…these I believe are Paul and PSA’s speaker system -references and design goals-. Those who either have heard & understood it, or actually feel have already obtained it themselves by achieving all these things in the confines of your home listening environment, can more easily identify with this loft obtainable goal.
Additionally, when full preservation of the acoustical soundstage in the recording perseveres (ambiance, depth, width, height, articulate musician placement, venue characteristics), then you may have already reached what 2-channel Stereo is capable of…creation of constant “Suspension of Disbelief”. When “What You See” totally contradicts your brain telling you “LIVE-3D-Holographic”, IMO you’ve synergistic-ally recreated the exemplary musical reproduction experience that the recording was meant to offer!
If what I state above is accurate, then I easily identify with PSA’s philosophy and goals. I’ve taken my good ol’ time (only 45 years), but feel I’ve arrived in audio nirvana (Finally)! Your musical reproduction goals and achievements may be different as experiences and love for music are certainly personal…hopefully, you achieve your audio goals in a lot less time!! 😉
I’ve never heard of a passive speaker that stops at 60Hz to 70Hz. My speakers have an 8″ mid/bass that goes to about 40Hz. Even the mini-monitor P3ESR go to about 55Hz. I have a 400w active sub from a former REL subcontract manufacturer that cost about $650. It was very easy to blend in without using the high pass settings available in the amplifier and also acts as a plinth for a sculpture.
The fact is subs are popular as they are practical, a lot cheaper than buying full-range speakers and there are very affordable products from the likes of miniDSP and DSpeaker to blend them into a system, pretty much automatically using software and the supplied microphone.
With regard to active speakers, they are very popular over here, we have ATC, Linn and PMC leading brands in the UK with most units in active versions and there are many leading European brands focusing on active speakers, besides newcomers like Kii.
I never said stopped at 60 or 70 Hz. But there’s not much there that is usable unless you had your amplifier turned up all of the way in which you would only be hearing distortion at those frequencies rather then clean bass. If you ever looked at the slope of the drop off in the low end on a graph the slope is rather steep and not gradual. In fact the slope usually starts before the speakers rated low end. Usually the rated low end of the speaker is already gradually down 3db’s or more before the steep slope occurs.
Speakers are hard. They’re transducers, and they’re therefore automatically wrong; the fun stuff is making the rrros small enough and of such a character that enough people find the result enjoyable and “accurate”.
As I’ve noted before, at home I use a Pair of Kii THRRE’s, which are three-way, 6-sdriver active equalized machines. I save money on a power amp, and the things are just a bit bigger than my old Celestial SL600Si’s, which are “classic 2-way British stand-mounts”. The resulting visual intrusion in the (not big enough) room is minimal, and the Koi’s can be set up really close to a back wall or corner and their eq set up to match the situation. They’re driver-coherent (see the Stereophile measurements) and don’t appear to launch bass/mid range stiff into the room in a manner which creates nasties – so Dirac (etc) have little or no effect. In short, good, unobtrusive, and simpler (no speaker wires!!) (well, yeah – mains cables and a digital signal wire). But not cheap (while much cheaper than Wilsons and Guys and high end B&W’s and…)
For the second home which has a larger room I just bought a pair of KEF R7’s, driven by an 80W per channel amp, fronted by a NAD C528 playing music from the same Roon library (well, a copy!) on a Mac mini. The KEFs are the same height as the Kii’s – perhaps a tad higher – and are black floor mount monoliths, not smallish speakers on a stand – so they loom larger. But not too large – they’re pretty slim. They sound pretty darn good, and are much cheaper than the Kii’s – and the amp I chose was dirt cheap (NuForce STA 200), so a nice bargain.
I’ll be very interested in listening to Paul’s speakers when they turn up, but I’m fairly pleased with what I’ve got. Speakers are getting better!
Paul-I am a customer of multiple PSA products which are excellent. I’m curious, I didn’t go to Axpona but the comments I read about your speakers weren’t very good. I know they are prototypes, but did you get good feedback why people didn’t like them and are you going to modify them before going production
You have to be careful who is doing the bashing of the AN speakers. Competitors have lots of tricks up their sleeves. People will always be very critical of the new kid on the block invading their territory. Prototypes can still be tweaked too.
Actually the feedback we got, and we got a lot of it, was that the speakers were a real hit. They played beautifully in the big room we had and judging by the continual flow of repeat visitors coming (sometimes) three and four times a day to readjust their ears before venturing out again I’d say the speakers were well received.
Of course there will be changes and refinements to the final product, but not major ones. No, what we had at the show was wonderful and I was (and remain) extremely proud of what we had to offer in terms of sound quality.
The most interesting comment about the AN3 I found in Stereophile: “Proprietary to the AN3 (and patent-pending) is a Perspective Control, which will allow the speakers to produce a convincing soundstage, no matter how closely they’re positioned to a wall.”
Did I miss something here? Has this been discussed before by Paul? How is this feature achieved? Is SM behind it ;- )
I would love to know how this is done…
I did hear Paul talking about tackling the problem of speakers needing to be placed too far out in the room to be of practical use in most homes. I’m also interested in how it can be done with the use of a control rather then designing the speakers themselves to sound best when close to a wall. There are speakers designed that way without any controls. Controls would give you the option of bringing the speakers out further away from the wall if you had the room that allowed you to do that or keeping the speakers near the wall.
I am interested also–I did hear about the feature, but I don’t know if it is a simple level adjustment on the drivers, or if it will involve a change in DSP or some other parameter to make the speaker behave differently, based on where it is placed.
One system I have been impressed with for the past two shows employs some advanced DSP to adapt the speakers to the room, including altering the timing characteristics of all four drivers (in addition to frequency response). The goal was to create a unified wave launch. I noticed while walking the perimeter of the room that bass response was very even throughout the room. And the system had wonderful imaging in a number of seating positions (although as with any system, the “perfect” image/soundstage was when seated dead center).
While I am not going to give away all our secrets just yet, as we are checking on patenting the process, I can give you a general idea.
As you move speakers closer to the wall, the wall becomes part of the baffle and begins to affect the frequency response of the speaker. If you know how close you are then you can predict what the new response will be relative to the original response. It should therefore not be too big of a challenge to reshape the crossover to compensate for the differences.
Our Soundstage control will do just that. Readjust the crossover to match the new response curve.
Have to protect those trade secrets. 🙂
The best achievement is for speakers to remain linear with low distortion at low levels and also remain linear with low distortion at the highest volume levels possible. Also to be relatively efficient, effortless and be as full range as possible in it’s design.
The amplifier must also accomplish linearity at all volume levels or at least as far as possible which is the reason Paul likes powerful amplification to give more accuracy at a wider level of amplification since all amplifiers don’t remain linear when turned up too high which would make it even worse with inefficient speakers.
The use of built in subwoofer amplification or biamping is a good start to achieving that. Not saying you cannot achieve decent sound without the use of a powered subwoofer or biamping your speakers. It’s just a step in the right direction.
Most people who criticize it have either never tried it themselves or they did and didn’t have something set up properly or they just criticize it because they don’t want to lay out the dough to get it done. It’s less expensive or convenient to argue that there’s no benefits.