Bottom line for me is,
"Hey Paul, can I have your IRS V's now that you don't love them any more?"
Thanks,
Sal
"Hey Paul, can I have your IRS V's now that you don't love them any more?"
Thanks,
Sal
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PS Audio FR30 speakers
- Thread starter Pearljam5000
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Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
True, and he has been doing things that way his entire career. Why change in his mind? What’s odd, though, is that it indicates the recordings were mixed to be neutral despite the FR30’s response. At least as far as I can tell. Without the “FR30 in a can” EQ they are very stuffy. With it the tonality becomes very nice and open with good spatial effects in the headphones. I listened to all of “Things worth Remembering” once it was in place and the mixing was actually very good. I suspect some younger mixing engineer was tasked with doing the dirty work. Upshot is that if they used those recordings for the demos the FR30s probably sounded amazing to reviewers. Paul gets to have it both ways. His older clientele get their sparkly speakers, and reviewers at the shows get the neutral tonality they expect.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I’ll fite u for them! Joking aside I wonder how they sound compared to the FR30s?
Anyone's guess at this point.
I would have loved to hear Paul's V's in his custom room before he moved them,
I never did get a chance to hear the IRS V back in the day.
I do remember hearing the IRS Beta's a few times back in the day. I believe it was at Paul Heath Audio in downtown Chicago sometime in the 1980s. I near broke my jaw from it hitting the ground, at the time I thought it the most incredible thing I ever heard.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
From the measurements in Stereophile, they have excellent performance by todays standards. Back in the 80's that would have been lightyears ahead of everything else.
This is exactly the reason Paul uses the “IRSkillers” term. Everyone knows of the myth Even if very few actually heard a pair. I’m sure they are still awesome.
nerdoldnerdith
Senior Member
Where are those measurements?
I would love to hear a pair of IRS V's. They are such impressive speakers. It's a shame I didn't swing by the last time I was in Colorado.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Infinity IRS Beta loudspeaker Measurements
Sidebar 3: Measurements (from June 1989, Vol.12 No.6)
www.stereophile.com
Granted today there are speakers that will outdo it, esp. with EQ. But from my memory of stuff in the 80s, those things would sound like they just fell out of the back of a DeLorean. I remember hearing things like the Yamaha monitors and Mirage M1s as a kid with the old man and those where the ones I always wanted. Parents response was naturally “that’s nice, dear. If you want nice speakers, save up your money.” Yeah, plastic speakers from RadioShack, here we come. At any rate I still have a set of Minimus 11’s out in the shop, and with EQ they are not terrible Despite their age.
Those are measurements of the Beta though, not the V.Infinity IRS Beta loudspeaker Measurements
Sidebar 3: Measurements (from June 1989, Vol.12 No.6)
The Beta was a much much smaller version and only cost appox $12k, or $30k in todays money, about the same as PS new FR30
OTOH the V were about $50k or $120k today.
To me the kool thing about the Beta was they would fit in a normal room. The un-kool part was they still were about 10x what I could afford for a speaker. LOL
In any case they were both great but the panels were fragile. Dang near every review I read, etc had problems with a panel or 2 during the review period. But I believe the same can be said for just about any panel speaker of the day, electrostatic or whatever. I always loved the way Quads, Maggies, etc, presented inner detail, etc. They were the only things that rivaled my La Scala's SQ for inner detail, IMHO.. But they wouldn't have lasted 2 days in my crib before they let the smoke out with a light show of dancing lightening across the panels. LOL
Let the raves begin.
Time marches on.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
They where the ones you mentioned you had heard, which I thought made it relevant given your impression of them. The measurements show why they sounded so good compared to other stuff. The IRS-Vs have no posted measurements AFAIK. Given the Betas good performance, I have no reason to doubt. Interesting about the fragility. Paul has mentioned he rebuilt the IRS-Vs, both the bass modules and the “wings.” Don’t know offhand what was done. Never the less Paul still seems to swear by the ribbon stuff. Has some good characteristics, but their large size acoustically is an issue. The large Neo drivers really benefit from a horn to tame them, but that would not fit the PS Audio styling or the desire for a wide listening window, so they are mounted like dome tweeters and mids instead with small wave guides.
This is probably the most surprising thing to me about these speakers. The fact that they were aware of some directivity issues and that they did not "invest" in proper wave guides. Chris mentioned something about wave guides in some of his comments, but they are not visually apparent in any view. They may be too subtle to see (and work!).
Which recordings?
How do you know the recordings you listened to where mixed/mastered FR30's?
Maybe they were done before FR30 even moved into their studio?
They've been using ATC's for a while...
Shouldn't jump to a conclusion which may be completely wrong based on wrong assumptions (that these were mixed/mastered on FR30)
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
The ATCs I have seen in his later videos, and I suspect they are no coincidence given the fact that he does want to make actual, useable music with Octave records. The albums are "Temporary Circumstances" and "Things Worth Remembering", and yes they are the ones on YouTube. As far as I can see, the demos with video footage have these tracks being used for the auditions of the FR30. But given how dull and uninteresting they sound, there's no reason to get any other format since there is not a lot you could do to make audio that bad by simply uploading it. To cut the "its compression losses" argument off at the knees, I have done direct comparisons between the Opus251 and FLACs to see what the differences are, and they are very slight. As far as I could tell its mainly very fine level detail being lost and artifacts in recordings with very low level source material. Here they are just really, really dull and uninteresting. But if one applies a guestimate for the FR30's in-room response, they suddenly become quite enjoyable with good tonality and imaging. Without it, they sound like poor headphones. With it, good. But then any other audio played for comparison becomes insufferably garish due to the excess treble.
Give it a try on a graphic EQ: 32 Hz: -2dB, 62-1 kHz: 0dB, 2 kHz: +2dB, 4 kHz: 0dB, 8 kHz: +5dB, 16 kHz: +7dB. Headphones, of course, will need to comply with the Harman target. On the objective side, I would be interested to hear what others make of it. To me, its not copper-bottomed proof, but it is suggestive. Donno, maybe my hearing is broken, but it still seems to work well up to about 17 kHz. As an aside, I thought the songs on "Temporary Circumstances" might have had a bit too much air out top, but on the other album it seemed to work quite well. Headphones are the FiiO FD5s recently reviewed here on ASR. Source is my Galaxy S9 with all built-in internal tone and EQ controls disabled, except for what I put in there deliberately.
As an engineer, yes I agree with what you say. Yes it could be wrong. Yes somehow they may have deliberately degraded the audio and by coincidence it all lines up perfectly. Yes YT could have corrupted it somehow. But given all the evidence before us and PS Audio's typical modus operandi, too hard to just "shrug it off" and just assume its merely a mirage. I don't think Paul set out to deliberately pull the wool over the eyes of reviewers and customers. Rather, what I really suspect is Paul did not want to leave anything to chance. The hype engine had been revved up to the peg and then some, and failure is not an option. Paul knows that his clients are going to want speakers that are "revealing", hence the tuning. But he also wants to ensure that they "sound good" so the music that he plans to use for demos and auditions he has mixed on the FR30's to ensure there is not a hair out of place. This way every aspect of their debut is under stringent control, and can you blame him? Look how much he has riding on it, and the expectations are through the roof. As for the ATCs, I suspect he moved them in there moving forward so Octave can resume its intended role for mixing now that the FR30 has gotten off the ground and there is some breathing room. Again, can't know for sure, but it makes sense since it has to function for its intended purpose just as any other part of the company.
And this brings us to why these companies don't like measurements. High end audio is so grossly overcrowded that having to conform to stringent standards and measurements is quite constraining from a marketing perspective. However, if you can sway people's perceptions of things, then its a lot easier to build a rapport and move product, not to mention that it gives lots of latitude with gimmicky features that look cool on sales brochures. We will never know for sure if what I said is true. I'm not doing this to throw shade at PS Audio, rather it seems to be self-similar and consistent to what we know so far with the FR30s odyssey. What would be interesting to know is the song list used for the FR30's at the recent audio show in Montreal. I was not there, but what is available shows them being shown with songs from Octave records. Again I'm not saying there is automatically malfeasances on his part, but that the motivation was there to gently curate things so it goes smoothly.
(Edit: Bad spelling, as always...)
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Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
And it would be interesting to try it with recordings directly purchased from Octave/PS Audio. Given what I have heard so far, its not a risk I would want to take, even if I like the songs. If they do sound different, then the spectral envelope could be examined to see what actually changed to sort out the discrepancy. I did buy his Audiophile's Guide. It was amusing and fun to read, but still not very enlightening, and as bad as one would think from a technical standpoint. Here I don't even get the amusement if that is what they genuinely sound like.
Hi - sorry but why would I want to try FR30 EQ on my KEF speakers at home to listen to Octave Recordings mixed/mastered on ATC's or other speakers?
Apologies if I'm missing something here but I don't follow the reasoning at all.
Adi777
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Sorry, not on the topic, but maybe you listened to PBN Audio loudspeakers? I have zero experience with audio, but I really like the look huge loudspeakers just like PBN Audio, Legacy Audio, Lenard Audio, and the other. Now just a question. How do such columns cope with measurements? Especially compared to the Kii Three with bxt, Neumann KH 420 with subwoofers and other objectively good speakers.
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Just to be safe, you may want to add some amp and DAC modeling as well.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Then why did you ask a question you already had an answer to? If you wished to object, then please just say so outright rather than frame it as a question. You asked why and I provided my reasoning.
As for the ”reasoning“, it’s really easy. I am simply treating the spectral response of the recordings as those from faulty headphones with the inverse response of the FR30 speakers. As the original poster said, this would be naturally imposed on the mixing as coloration (FROM THE FR30s, to be clear) and cause the resultant mixes to sound dull. To test this, one can make up an equalization curve based on the FR30s measurements that would approximate what someone would hear if they were used for mixing, and apply it to hear the result. In this case, using those parameters on a standard 10 band software EQ provided an immediate fix to how stuffy they sounded. This is strong evidence for them having been mixed on the FR30s in some fashion. If they had been mixed on the ATCs this would likely not have worked. They would have been overly bright, not suddenly nice and neutral. As a comparison, every other thing played with that EQ in place sounded HORRIBLE. Only the Octave records mentioned sounded good. Make sense, now? It’s simple deductive reasoning.
23 pages of comments. I have a few dumb questions. Has anyone heard the FRS 30s? Does anyone own the FRS 30s? I think many are just pontificating on information that may not be true. BUT and this is a big but, I could be wrong. Some of you may own the FRS 30. But I was just wondering.........
nerdoldnerdith
Senior Member
I would love to hear them, but there is nowhere to listen to them around here. They weren't at AXPONA.
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