PS Audio FR20 speakers - First impressions

[Chris Brunhaver]

Apologies for mischaracterizing your design process. I think it is fair to say you have a different design approach than say, Genelec, which reflects the market you are trying to break into.

Did you ever consider loading the planar mid in an open back transmission line?

I certainly respect what genelec is doing and there is a lot to admire about their approach and implementation but, as you mentioned, the high end hifi market is a bit different than the studio/pro/home theater market and a compact, highly integrated active speaker (even if we could pull all that off well) isn't the solution that most of our customers are looking for in a main system (maybe in secondary rooms/homes etc.).

As far as transmission lines go, that's not a big area of expertise for me. In particular, planar drivers don't adhere to the T/S parameter model and I don't know of a transmission line model software that could accommodate them (though maybe Akabak and something of that nature). Our planars are primarily damped around resonance via acoustically resistive cloth sheets very close to the diaphragm. In general, they are very sensitive to the type and proximity of damping materials and reflections/changes in loading.

As they stand, there is a gradual, overdamped roll-off and rising in the upper midrange (from the low inductance and narrowing directivity raising the axial response) and we are using sealed chambers behind the driver for loading and boosting them in the lower midrange to flatten them out and extend the usable range/efficiency where it matters.

On our new, smaller planar mid, we ended up with a 90 mm deep tapered back chamber with a combination of wool/polyester felt and a dupont twaron fiber damping to get flat response down to about 400 Hz.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

Is there any chance you can send a unit to Amir? One of the neat things is that you can work WITH Amir to improve the measurements before they are published when the manufacturer works with him in advance?

I'll have to rech out to Amir again, as I didn't think that h was interested in prototypes/non-reivew type measurements. I have a new, smaller model coming out this fall that I was going to reach out to him about (if I get approval) for his measurement/review, it's a compact tower with dual 6.5" woofer, and 8" planar midrange and our 2.5" planar tweeter) were calling aspen FR10 we'll be selling around $10k USD. I'll see if I can make that happen.

We shipped a preproduction FR20 to Warkwyn for klippel testing but I ended up making some crossover changes, based on their measurements, so it doesn't make sense to publish that data as-is.

It was pretty expensive to ship (we were out of pocket about $2500 for that one round of measurements, including the $1k measurement fee) and I don't think that I have the budget to do that again, but I'll see. I'd really love to get a copy of COMSOL and an accurate accelerometer rig and data acquisition system so those are towards to the top of my wish list for any R&D budget stuff.

 

[Tobylq]

Week 1 feedback.

Thanks everyone for keeping this thread civil and on point.

It's been 7 days since I got the first sound out of the FR20s. They are still sitting in the exact same spot, haven't done any tweaking yet. Heck I am even afraid of moving anything and screw up the sound! I have probably spent around 12-14 hours doing real listening, 5 hours on Saturday and about 2 hours every night during the week.
One would think that after the initial excitement and after 7 days of listening my ears would have acclimated to the new sound and everything would be back to normal.
The exact opposite is happening. I am now living in a constant state of disbelief. Every track of every genre just blows my mind. Every track sounds as if was re-recorded with the latest high fidelity/high sensitivity mikes and in a formal studio in high resolution, and I mean re-recorded not remastered.

Here's some of what I am hearing in no particular order:

Transient/impulse response is just insane and not just bass which is super punchy yet detailed but across the frequency spectrum. If you are into percussion instruments and drum solos this is the ticket.
My hearing is not what it used to be and I have to strain a bit to understand the lyrics. Well not anymore, I can clearly understand ALL the words now, as if I just got a hearing aid!
I have a 192Kz file (basically a percussion track) that I have played countless times before, it sounded fantastic but little did I know there were voices in the background before the piece started (clearly they were not supposed to be there) and that I never noticed before. Not subtle either but actually quite loud. I can now easily hear stuff that I never heard before. The plucking of strings and the sound of singers breathing is so loud it is almost detracting.
And here's a shocker- I always thought hi fi equipment was to listen to classical music, or jazz or a virtuoso violinist or an incredible singer, and these speakers render this kind of music in an amazing way but then my wife asks me to play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Humm, sure why not. OMG, we were both shocked and glued to the music every second of the whole 17 minutes. When it ended we looked at each other like what the heck just happened here? We have listened to this song more times that I can remember, not so much for the musical value but because it brings back so many memories, and who doesn't like loud music, right? The NHT speakers were ok but really never 100% convincing. The FR20s not only can play loud but we heard stuff we had non idea was there, very rowdy and credible yet detailed. This piece is well written, well executed and yes, well recorded. I had no idea, there is a lot to this track but never heard any of this before.
And here's another shocker- I have several music videos bookmarked in youtube because of the historical value and because you can't find them anywhere else. I have resigned myself to listen to these in spite of the poor quality of the stream. While not cd quality I no longer feel I am pushing myself to live with this less than stellar quality of sound.
My wife I and just finished watching a video of Omara Portuondo "07 Sesiones Vagabundas" - It was so touchy we couldn't help cry thru out the whole video.

Did I mention these speakers are emotional?

 

[ahofer]

No REW measurements yet?

 

[Tobylq]

No REW measurements yet?

Sorry, no time yet, hopefully this weekend. I need to find a time where I am alone in the house, everybody hates the sound of frequency sweeps.

 

[GXAlan]

Transient/impulse response is just insane and not just bass which is super punchy yet detailed but across the frequency spectrum. If you are into percussion instruments and drum solos this is the ticket.

When it ended we looked at each other like what the heck just happened here? We have listened to this song more times that I can remember, not so much for the musical value but because it brings back so many memories, and who doesn't like loud music, right? The NHT speakers were ok but really never 100% convincing. The FR20s not only can play loud but we heard stuff we had non idea was there, very rowdy and credible yet detailed. This piece is well written, well executed and yes, well recorded. I had no idea, there is a lot to this track but never heard any of this before

This sounds like there is low intermodulation distortion! Unfortunately, there is no standardized test. I do like Echo Game from House of Flying Daggers as a IMD test though.

 

[YSC]

I'll have to rech out to Amir again, as I didn't think that h was interested in prototypes/non-reivew type measurements. I have a new, smaller model coming out this fall that I was going to reach out to him about (if I get approval) for his measurement/review, it's a compact tower with dual 6.5" woofer, and 8" planar midrange and our 2.5" planar tweeter) were calling aspen FR10 we'll be selling around $10k USD. I'll see if I can make that happen.

We shipped a preproduction FR20 to Warkwyn for klippel testing but I ended up making some crossover changes, based on their measurements, so it doesn't make sense to publish that data as-is.

It was pretty expensive to ship (we were out of pocket about $2500 for that one round of measurements, including the $1k measurement fee) and I don't think that I have the budget to do that again, but I'll see. I'd really love to get a copy of COMSOL and an accurate accelerometer rig and data acquisition system so those are towards to the top of my wish list for any R&D budget stuff.

Actually I personally am interested in that data, we know it don’t represent how the final product behaves but we could know how large/small an issue is where as a designer you determined to fix and not cover with marketing buzz words. In another word: it must be better than that!

Tbh I am quite unimpressed by that weird treble response in the only published measurement data but it was mentioned before that publisher’s measurements are quite flawed, so really interesting to see how good the prototypes can get.

As for amirm, I think he got too many to review so it’s understandable that he dont want to review prototypes. And yo ur speakers are big and heavy, I believe his back will complain a bit also

 

[thewas]

I'll have to rech out to Amir again, as I didn't think that h was interested in prototypes/non-reivew type measurements. I have a new, smaller model coming out this fall that I was going to reach out to him about (if I get approval) for his measurement/review, it's a compact tower with dual 6.5" woofer, and 8" planar midrange and our 2.5" planar tweeter) were calling aspen FR10 we'll be selling around $10k USD. I'll see if I can make that happen.

We shipped a preproduction FR20 to Warkwyn for klippel testing but I ended up making some crossover changes, based on their measurements, so it doesn't make sense to publish that data as-is.

It was pretty expensive to ship (we were out of pocket about $2500 for that one round of measurements, including the $1k measurement fee) and I don't think that I have the budget to do that again, but I'll see. I'd really love to get a copy of COMSOL and an accurate accelerometer rig and data acquisition system so those are towards to the top of my wish list for any R&D budget stuff.

Would like to hear your comment about that large upper mid dip of the FR20

which according to the reviewers is "largely unaffected by vertical listening axis".

Source: https://www.hifinews.com/content/ps-audio-aspen-fr20-loudspeaker-lab-report

 

[YSC]

Would like to hear your comment about that large upper mid dip of the FR20

which according to the reviewers is "largely unaffected by vertical listening axis".

Source: https://www.hifinews.com/content/ps-audio-aspen-fr20-loudspeaker-lab-report

To be fair that severe a dip looks like the midrange driver is damaged or so so it shows the natural roll off of the woofers at crossover, it looks it crossed over to nothing at that rang purely judged by the shape alone

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

To be fair that severe a dip looks like the midrange driver is damaged or so so it shows the natural roll off of the woofers at crossover, it looks it crossed over to nothing at that rang purely judged by the shape alone

Yes, I discussed this a little earlier in the thread (about the tweeters in the review pair being damaged by air shipping and us finding a simple fix).

Here is a link to further information and measurements of a correctly operating speaker. I believe HFN will publish a follow up to the review in some months with this update and potentially some more measurements.

 

[Tobylq]

Week 4 feedback.

It's been 4 weeks since I first got the FR20's, still in music heaven.

I was finally able to do some sweeps with REW yesterday, the goal being to find the best possible placement and listening position.
After 24 sweeps I ended up with my first "official" setup, this will be my reference for any future tweaks. The plot shows the best I could do.
Clearly the peaks and valleys are the room modes and not the speaker frequency response, I was able to move these peaks by changing the listening position at will.

Final setup vs original "non-setup":
8 feet center to center (same as before)
Front of speaker 45 inches from front wall (was 43)
Toe-in about the same as before, projecting 1 foot of toe-in at back wall which is about 18.5 feet from the front of speakers. Tried all the way to 4 feet, didn't like it.
Listening position 9.6 feet from front of speaker (was 12 feet by ear before)

I now feel like I got another set of new speakers ! The accuracy of everything improved: detail, tonality, stereo image, a lot less reverb and the sound now seems like it comes from the whole front wall and almost the whole room not just the center of the speakers. Listening to "Chocolate Chip Trip" feels like a 360 spatial recording.
Before the sound was sweet, beautiful but not grandiose. Now I almost feel I am right there in the middle of a live event. A got startled a few times thinking the singer and the sax player were right there in my room a few feet from me.

I don't know what I am doing interpreting the REW charts, so please feel free to chip in.

 

[YSC]

Week 4 feedback.

It's been 4 weeks since I first got the FR20's, still in music heaven.

I was finally able to do some sweeps with REW yesterday, the goal being to find the best possible placement and listening position.
After 24 sweeps I ended up with my first "official" setup, this will be my reference for any future tweaks. The plot shows the best I could do.
Clearly the peaks and valleys are the room modes and not the speaker frequency response, I was able to move these peaks by changing the listening position at will.

Final setup vs original "non-setup":
8 feet center to center (same as before)
Front of speaker 45 inches from front wall (was 43)
Toe-in about the same as before, projecting 1 foot of toe-in at back wall which is about 18.5 feet from the front of speakers. Tried all the way to 4 feet, didn't like it.
Listening position 9.6 feet from front of speaker (was 12 feet by ear before)

I now feel like I got another set of new speakers ! The accuracy of everything improved: detail, tonality, stereo image, a lot less reverb and the sound now seems like it comes from the whole front wall and almost the whole room not just the center of the speakers. Listening to "Chocolate Chip Trip" feels like a 360 spatial recording.
Before the sound was sweet, beautiful but not grandiose. Now I almost feel I am right there in the middle of a live event. A got startled a few times thinking the singer and the sax player were right there in my room a few feet from me.

I don't know what I am doing interpreting the REW charts, so please feel free to chip in.

looked nicer than expected TBH, well done

 

[Purité Audio]

H/F looks a little on the high side.
Keith

 

[Tobylq]

H/F looks a little on the high side.
Keith

I believe this due to the room reflections- The red line is with the listening position 12 inches farther away from the speaker (10.6 feet) the blue is the original (9.6 feet)
To my ears 9.6 feet sounded better.

 

[Purité Audio]

Usually in-room we are looking for a gently sloping down response, you might try toeing them out a little.
Keith

 

[GXAlan]

H/F looks a little on the high side.
Keith

HFN Review, May 15, 2023: FR20

I’ll post some of our measurements tomorrow (I left one of my measurement laptops at home). As Paul mentioned, the dips you see in the response are because of a broken/malfunctioning tweeter (where the diaphragm is pinned against the magnets from air shipping). Again, we found the cause and...

forum.psaudio.com

 

[Tobylq]

This looks like PS Audio test rig

 

[Holdt]

This looks like PS Audio test rig

He says almost in the same sentence that

1. He doesn't hink there's an audible difference in tonality between the FR20 and the FR30 and argues that the graphs are almost identical and that's the reason why he doesn't record a swap between them.

2. He can hear difference in cables blindfolded

WHAT??

 

[amirm]

Shocking how deep some people have gone down the rabbit hole when he says stuff like that....

 

[Pearljam5000]

There's no way FR30 is worth $10K more than FR20