A PS Audio Loudspeaker?

Paul McGowan said Arnie Nudell and I are conspiring on a line of speakers right now. Long way off in the future if it ever happens. The good news is that whatever takes place, I will own one of the finest loudspeakers made - these towers will be killer - though there may only ever be two pair built if we don't think the market will support them.

They’re about 5 feet tall, line source of AMT type tweeters and a newly designed midbass coupler array, twin 10" servo controlled woofers with a 700 watt amp built in. Really cool looking. Somewhere under $15K for the pair.

But they are in the works.


Sounds really cool Paul. Say, how about posting a picture or two of these babies and give us all a gander to admire and lust over.

Works well for me! I don’t get out much but this is the best digital I have ever heard.

tubesrule said
Paul McGowan said Arnie Nudell and I are conspiring on a line of speakers right now. Long way off in the future if it ever happens. The good news is that whatever takes place, I will own one of the finest loudspeakers made - these towers will be killer - though there may only ever be two pair built if we don't think the market will support them.

They’re about 5 feet tall, line source of AMT type tweeters and a newly designed midbass coupler array, twin 10" servo controlled woofers with a 700 watt amp built in. Really cool looking. Somewhere under $15K for the pair.

But they are in the works.

Sounds really cool Paul. Say, how about posting a picture or two of these babies and give us all a gander to admire and lust over.


Here’s a preliminary sketch of Arnie Nudell’s new loudspeaker he and I are conspiring on. Good to be working on speakers again.

The side mounted woofers are 10" servo controlled aluminum drivers that are monsters - bug 700 watt amp built in to drive them both (one on each side of the enclosure).

The tweeters are AMT and the 6.5" woofers on the front are metal cones Arnie’s working magic on now. They stand about 5 feet tall.

Very cool, Paul! Incredibly exciting!

It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude and substantial dangly bits to enter the speaker market. Color me impressed.

Paul McGowan said

Here’s a preliminary sketch of Arnie Nudell’s new loudspeaker he and I are conspiring on. Good to be working on speakers again.

The side mounted woofers are 10" servo controlled aluminum drivers that are monsters - bug 700 watt amp built in to drive them both (one on each side of the enclosure).

The tweeters are AMT and the 6.5" woofers on the front are metal cones Arnie’s working magic on now. They stand about 5 feet tall.

You realize these speakers are going to cost me over $750,000? Sure, it's $15k for the speakers, but the rest of it is for the new house I'll have to buy just to fit them into the room . . . .

:frowning:

Thinking of a Junior version yet?

–SSW

Thanks Elk. It’s long been a dream of mine to have a complete PS Audio system from the AC plug to your ears - and this is the last piece to the puzzle.

Maybe I’ll post this separately and get some comments. It’s not like the speaker market’s crowded or anything…surprised-014_gif

Paul McGowan said
tubesrule said
Paul McGowan said Arnie Nudell and I are conspiring on a line of speakers right now. Long way off in the future if it ever happens. The good news is that whatever takes place, I will own one of the finest loudspeakers made - these towers will be killer - though there may only ever be two pair built if we don't think the market will support them.

They’re about 5 feet tall, line source of AMT type tweeters and a newly designed midbass coupler array, twin 10" servo controlled woofers with a 700 watt amp built in. Really cool looking. Somewhere under $15K for the pair.

But they are in the works.

Sounds really cool Paul. Say, how about posting a picture or two of these babies and give us all a gander to admire and lust over.

Here’s a preliminary sketch of Arnie Nudell’s new loudspeaker he and I are conspiring on. Good to be working on speakers again.

The side mounted woofers are 10" servo controlled aluminum drivers that are monsters - bug 700 watt amp built in to drive them both (one on each side of the enclosure).

The tweeters are AMT and the 6.5" woofers on the front are metal cones Arnie’s working magic on now. They stand about 5 feet tall.

Looks beautiful. Is that a rear-firing tweeter on the back? (Rightmost image). If so, what’s the thinking behind that?

Paul McGowan said Thanks Elk. It's long been a dream of mine to have a complete PS Audio system from the AC plug to your ears - and this is the last piece to the puzzle.

Maybe I’ll post this separately and get some comments. It’s not like the speaker market’s crowded or anything…

Gryphon also came late into speaker market. Don't know how they sell, but at least they seem to enlarge their speaker portfolio.

It seems you can easily achieve best sound for the money at 15k for such speakers.

And with Ted, BHK and Arnie you always seem to have the no.1 staff available :wink:

Color me crazy and you’d not be too far off the mark.

But it’s been a long standing dream of mine to have a complete PS Audio system: from the AC plug to your ears. The last piece of the puzzle is the loudspeaker.

For those astute observers of the company’s progress, I’ve made a point over the last several years of engaging the best designers in the world to tackle individual product categories new to the company: Ted Smith for digital, Bascom King for analog, our chief engineer—Bob Stadtherr—for the transport and Digital Lens technologies, and now famed Infinity founder, Arnie Nudell for loudspeakers.

It should be no surprise I would have tagged Arnie to design our loudspeaker. I have been a fan of his work most of my adult life. The Infinity IRSV speakers in Music Room One is still one of the finest designed loudspeakers ever built.

As Arnie’s near 80 years old, I’ve convinced him to come out of retirement for one last tour de force on the state of the art in loudspeaker design—to make a product that encapsulates his many years of design excellence and love of music into a product he’d be proud to own and live with for the rest of his life. His ultimate statement on the state of loudspeaker design.

It’s a tall order, it may never be completed, but we’re digging in and working hard to see if we can’t build something extraordinary. Perhaps if this works and there’s people willing to support the line, we’ll try building a few more models as well, lower cost, smaller in size.

I can’t give you that many details because, as you can imagine, this is truly a work in progress. I have attached a picture of the artist’s sketch of what the first product would be. They are twin towers, about 5 feet tall, with dual 10" servo controlled woofers—one on each side of the cabinet—powered by an internal 700 watts control amplifier. The tweeters are AMTs (Air Motion Transformers) and the 6.5" midbass couplers are Arnie’s own creation. As for timing, I haven’t any clue. Might be a year, might be never. I just don’t know. This is a BIG project, and there’s no need to rush anything. We’re after perfection.

The idea behind this design is to recreate the dynamics and life of music in an effortless fashion, efficient enough to be driven by 100 watts of power. It should have extraordinary micro and macro dynamics that easily cover the entire range of possible dynamics of the orchestra played live.

Our target pricing is under $15K for the pair. But who knows where this will wind up. Or, if it even will exist. But, one can hope and dream.

I’ll be the first customer in line.

Screen-Shot-2016-06-05-at-7.30.00-AM-1.png

TarnishedEars said
n2djazz said I find the Torreys Beta rev 0135 to be a noticeable improvement over Yale. It has more clarity, better resolution, broader/deeper soundstaging, and more sparkle than Yale. Torreys Beta reveals textures I didn't hear with Yale. With Torreys Beta, I can hear a soloist leaning into, turning away, or pulling back from, the microphone. I can even hear whether they turned to the left or to the right. But I find in my system, Torreys Final doesn't bring that same resolution forward. So I reloaded the Beta version and am happy with that beta sound. I plan to read of others' experiences re Torreys Beta vs Final.
This is similar to my findings. I find that torrys final/C seems to have sucked some of the ambience, and sound-stage width out of my recordings compared to both Yale and 1.21, whereas Beta A had more than either Yale or 1.21.

Where I find the biggest improvement with Beta C over Beta A and Yale is in the PRaT. PRaT is almost as good as 1.21, but it seems to have sacrificed some resolution to get there. I actually find myself wishing for a sound somewhere half-way in between Beta A (Which was really truly spectacular, but overly bright and thin sounding), and Beta C which has a good spectral balance, but which seems to have sacrificed the soundstage and ambience (some of its very best qualities), to get there.

I’m continuing to listen to Torrys final for the moment, but I’m not at all certain yet that I’m going to be inclined to stick with it. I’m finding that I’m missing my wide/huge soundstage from 1.21.

Same here. Tb has this spectacular aura. Really surprising how this tiny lowering of the noisefloor compared with Tc kicks in (with the slight expense of linearity). In particular it is this sparkle on a black background that is intriquing. The sound emerges out of nowhere with an immediacy to it. No sound = dead silence. It could very well be that some of this is system dependent and tied to preferences also.

…And the wide soundstage need to be mentioned

I always say I’d never again buy a passive speaker without an option to fit it to system sound and acoustics.

Your concept not only has the AMT’s I also use in my speaker but it’s also at least partly active and probably to some extent adjustable.

So theoretically this looks very interesting to me!

This is very exciting. We will be following developments with great interest. Best of luck with the project.

stevem2 said This is very exciting. We will be following developments with great interest. Best of luck with the project.
+1

Very cool looking renderings. I hope you are able to make this dream a reality!

Go Paul and Arnie! This news is exciting!

Paul, for 15k a pair! Count me in on a pair. When can I pre order.

Paul McGowan said

For those astute observers of the company’s progress, I’ve made a point over the last several years of engaging the best designers in the world to tackle individual product categories new to the company: Ted Smith for digital, Bascom King for analog, our chief engineer—Bob Stadtherr—for the transport and Digital Lens technologies, and now famed Infinity founder, Arnie Nudell for loudspeakers.

Well, I clicked on this forum topic in spite of the "fact" that I "knew" that it was going to some off-beat wishful dribbling...

Holy **** (Moly ?). It’s real…

Had been reading Magnepan reviews earlier tonight… thinking about looking for some 20.7’s… even though I’m loving some Salon2s playing in my room… the planar wall of sound intrigues me…

Gee, I hope this project turns into a shipping product.

Otherwise, may I listen to them (one of the two pairs) when I eventually make it to PS Audio HQ to listen to the Infinity’s ?

Am I hearing that the design goal is to exceed the speakers in Music Room 1 ? (since Paul would be first in line to buy a pair)

[edit: monster quote deleted] :slight_smile:

Wow, OK Paul you have me salivating to the max. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this important project. Please, please provide us an update from time to time as it unfolds and things develop. Thanks!

I will keep you updated though, as you can imagine, there’s a ton of work to go from a pretty rendering to an actual speaker.

For those interested in how these things work, the steps are as follows:

  • Come up with an idea/concept
  • Sketch it out to see if it's practical
  • Hire an industrial designer to package it the way you want
  • Find a company capable of building it or parts of it
  • Start specifying the drivers. In this case, we've been working on the 10" subwoofer part, calling out for an XMAX we're happy with, the types of motor, material, frame construction, spider, accelerometer etc. Then there's the other two: the tweeter and the midbass couplers, each Arnie has detailed a long list of demands.
  • Get the drivers and test to see if they meet spec. They usually don't, send them back for redesign
  • Get the prototype cabinets built begin vibration testing. In this case we know the front baffle will be the key support so we've specified 1.5" thick material (HDF). Then the bracing and cabinet sidewalls etc. have to be designed.
  • Finally get the approved prototypes with approved drivers sent to Arnie and PS
  • Arnie spends months designing the crossover and voicing the design.
  • PS does the same designing the electronics: crossover for the sub, accelerometer servo system, power supply, amplifier.
  • And at the end of this first phase you have something to listen to.
That's the first 90% of the work. The second 90% is to take all that work and try and build a repeatable product in a package that can ship around the world, we can test and make sure each one will perform the way you want.

Just to give you an idea where we are in the process, we just finished driver specs and await final drawings for approval.

A long way to go.