The place where I take strong exception is people are so eager to want to have a company like PS Audio come on and “show some transparency.” In the wake of that, people are insisting that we not potentially drive him away and that we are “trashing” him and his work. I’m sorry, but that is the biggest load of bovine excrement to come down the pike yet. This is an objective audio form. Our responsibility is to treat Chris with respect. As I have stated I think Chris is a talented design engineer who as done admirably with that he has. But if we cannot voice our concerns without fear of driving him away, then we have failed as an objective audio form. I appreciate that Chris and the rest of PS Audio’s employees rely on PS Audio for a roof over their heads and food on the table. Being a design engineer myself and watching our own family business fail lord only knows I know the consequences all too well. But ensuring that PS Audio remains successful is not our responsibility. That falls on the elephant in the room here, Paul himself, which is where my reservations come from. Reason is the first company I worked for was run by an owner who was just like Paul outwardly. Right down to the fatherly figure happy to lend advice and a helping hand. While I have no knowledge of the internal workings of PS Audio, I can say in my situation the story was very different. The company did retail building design and fit-outs for a variety of big-box retailers and fast-food chains. The profit margins were razor tight with loads of liability and red tape to cut through when dealing with local jurisdictions and the smorgasbord of building codes and other regulations in place. It was a nightmare. But long story short this place RAN on appearances. Just one wrong move could drive a client away and tank the company. Even worse was them doing municipal work like school building design for many years that had turned into a litigation minefield. All it takes is for some Karen's little snowflake to get the sniffles from a mold spot on the wall, and your going to court. The culmination of this was you were EXPECTED to lie to clients. You had to wordsmith every email. Watch every word. Even a minor miss-step would be an issue. Found that out when a high-level project manager for a large retail store chain finally got fed up and called me during a meeting with him unknowingly to get the "real" story by framing it as an innocent inquiry. When I heard is tone suddenly change, I knew I was completely f***ed. As soon as my handset touched the cradle, I heard the thunderous explosion of the owner's own phone console suffering an in-flight breakup after it collided with the wall. He knew he had been caught out spinning another narrative, and could not blame him.
I think the reason many people don't want to discuss our own professional work is that we are not here in our professional capacities. I used to work at a nuclear design R&D center for an oilfield service company that worked with lots of sensitive ITAR technology and it was explicitly outlined in many places about what you could and could not talk about. Additionally most people don't want to shoot their mouths off about their current or former employers as its a private matter. Chris, however, I strongly suspect IS here in his professional capacity on behalf of PS Audio. People seem to have the impression that PS Audio has decided to turn over a new leaf but as far as I can tell by any metric, neither Paul nor PS Audio has changed one iota of how they do business, only the nature of the product. The thing that has changed is speakers. Even Paul knows damn well you have no hope of designing any functional speaker without measurements, and that's what has changed. As such, with PS Audio now doing objective measurements in some capacity, our Venn diagram now overlaps with theirs, and its only natural for Chris to be here. PS Audio will need to embrace some form of objective metrics for speaker design as the product line moves on, so might as well get the ball rolling. Am I grateful that Chris is here to give us a window into PS Audio's new speaker design and field questions? Of course. Come on. But we can't loose sight of the fact that the window is conspicuously framed by a flat-screen bezel. Say what you will about Paul's audio knowledge, but one thing that can be said about Paul is he is a very astute and shrewd business man. He knows what he is doing. While we are over here wringing our hands over our next checker move, I suspect he is sitting there calmly in Octave Studios playing chess, and that is the impression he wants to give. If Paul is going to do objective measurements, then he is going to do it his way. He will ensure that he at least has some modicum of control over the narrative as he will need to interface with other professionals who can help in that capacity, and an inevitable consequence of objective measurements is that its only a matter of time before some form of dirty laundry measurement-wise is aired out, so he needs to be able to respond effectively. But if he is tasked with doing measurements, then it will be done his way. He will do what he can to keep us at arm's length to ensure we don't rock the audiophile boat for his clientele. As for the FR30, is it a bad speaker? No, of course not. But I suspect its another chip off the old PS Audio block. It will do things really well, but it will fall short in other areas. But that is the nature of how they do things. Let me ask you this, if all that we have seen so far was for a $500 speaker from a large consumer audio manufacturer would we have the same opinions? Would we be so ingratiating to one of their technical engineers on here? In hypothetical terms as an objective audio form the answer should be no. Given the provenance of the FR30 and the history the actual answer is yes, to some extent. But if our opinion and demeanor would change radically, then we have fallen into the same subjectivist trap that audiophiles have.
As far as Chris, of course I want ASR to be welcoming. But that should not come with us policing ourselves for fear of driving him off. I'm sure that has happened here with manufacturers initially being eager to join in, only to suddenly close down when they get a bad taste in their mouths. On top of this Amir has to maintain the most objective viewpoint possible as he wants to give assurances to manufacturer's that they will not be railroaded in a review, and he has done admirably at that task. We all know that there is naturally duress in the audiophile marketing world given the current state of things. I don't deny that, and we likely don't even know the half of it or even the quarter of it from an insider's perspective. But Chris is a professional who should understand that there will be some sense of skepticism here given PS Audio's past history, and given the dearth of useable information, there will be speculation to take it's place. Its a natural consequence of inquiry. But if Chris suddenly runs away after being slighted, then we have lost nothing, as there was nothing to gain to begin with. I do hope we do have measurements since the FR30 has some unique design features that would be interesting to learn more about. I'm sure there will be very strong exception taken to what I said above in total and people will scold me for being so presumptuous about Paul and PS Audio, and that's fine. I'm glad you do, and I'm glad you are vocal about it. I want to hear what you have to say. That is, of course, why we are here to begin with. This is an open form, and we should not lose sight of that.