Very good review, and though HFN never include the numerical score in the free electronic versions of the review (itās in the print version and the pay copies of digital versions), the speakers earned a 90% score as well, same as FR30 did, which is very good.
I love my FR20
Yikes what is happening here @Chris_Brunhaver ?
Can you share your spinoramas
Huge hole in a pretty critical region . Some could argue in 2 important regions
Oh no, a dreaded-but-routine measurement that half the poll in another recent thread insist they donāt care about
Nevertheless, such measurements deserve scrutiny by audiophiles
Unless such significant performance cannot be heard
But I suspect all could hear the effects that these curves reveal
It is known that the tweeters on that review pair were damaged in shipping. There is a discussion about this on ASR. I would hear it if the response was like this on my pair. My FR20ās sound fantastic.
And Iām pretty sure he knows that as part of their crew.
If true, this would invalidate the review. The ābrokenā speaker should have been returned to PSA promptly for repair and quality assurance prior to review publication.
And, any professional reviewer must be able to hear crucial frequencies; otherwise, the reviewer is invalidated as a professional reviewer impacting purchase decisions, especially for a $20,000 speaker pair. (eg, I think I do not hear frequencies above 12,000 well based on listening to test tones on my speakers. If not a problem with my speakers by instead my ears, I am certainly not qualified to professionally evaluate tweeters and then publish a review in a respected magazine whose readers rightfully rely on my ears)
For these reasons, the review should be disregarded, retracted, and readers notified with apology. Unless, of course, reviewing known-damaged speakers is an acceptable proxy for a positive-sounding May 15, 2023 FR20 review.
If your report is true, I will be glad to write a serious letter to the publisher of Hi-Fi News and request publication in the magazine.
The drop in that chart affects the midrange, the greater part of the audible tweeter zone is higher than the bass and lower midrange. This is the report. There is no suggestion anything was broken.
The DSD DAC Mk2 was reviewed this month and the measurements were also poor. In the April 2023 edition along with FR20 they measured the dCS Bartok Apex, which I thing @vkennedy61 bought, and the Lumin T3, that I bought. They both measure much better the dCS extraordinarily well.
Some people ignore this stuff, others live by it. My view is that equipment should first measure well and then be enjoyable to listen to.
The conclusion on the FR20 was a bit over the top. Frankly itās a very competitive market with a lot of superb speakers, and it probably more a matter of taste than there being any standard setter. SabrinaX, Focal Sopra 2, Magico A3 come to mind.
In recent years PS Audio or their UK distributor appear to have bought more advertising space in HiFiNews than any other brand. There was often 5 pages, although it seems to have died down recently. HFN review everything PSA do, including just about every Octave release (like there isnāt enough music out there to review). They even had some kind words to say about the Don Grusin one. We all know advertising buys reviews, usually good ones, itās talked about openly by manufacturers. Itās just a marketing choice, and there are some reviews that are not linked to advertising.
It does make you wonder that they can publish these measurements and call the product a standard-setter, without looking into it further. Many good reviewers would have called up PSA and asked them to explain.
(copyrighted materials removed)
My bad perhaps
I consider damaged to be broken
Thatās a 10db swing smack dab in the middle of the āpresenceā region. The area where the ear is most sensitive. I would think anyone would be able to hear that. Just what PS Audio needs right now- another measurement controversy. Nothing negative in the written review however. When I first saw this I knew we would eventually get a explanation from Chris.
The bizarre thing is there does not seem to be any āreliefā that the tweeters were simply damaged in shipping and that the speakers are actually ok. Instead, just more negativity.
garbage in, garbage out
just give us your bank routing number
ah yes, the invisible hands behind dealer recommendations
Iām with the dealer on this. Central London retail costs are astronomic. This dealer had carried Quad for over 50 years. Just because they decide to bring out a range of budget speakers, why should the dealer sell them? The people who do sell then do so from far inferior premises without demo facilities. A dealer may well decide that only certain products from a manufacturer suit their client profile.
I like this dealer because they are very selective and with a certain brand they only carry one product. Another dealer I liked now seems to sell too any brands. My favourite, heās been in business over 50 years, mainly sold just 3 brands.
Because rent is the main issue, we have lots of new dealers set up in really nice out-of-town premises, usually within 30-45 minutes of the suburbs, where it is viable to stock larger product ranges.
Huh? Known by whom? There is zero mention anywhere in the review of any damage. What is your source for this statement?
Chris already discussed this on another forum. I mentioned the other forum. Itās not hard to find.
Well, in fact, heās pretty spot on though ādamagedā sounds more like they got injured with a hammer. 
What happened was weird but something that fortunately only affected the small first pilot run of a few pairs before we discovered the issue (and then only to those few that were air freighted). None with this issue ever got to customers, fortunately.
Turns out that the tweeter is so well built that it forms an almost perfect airtight seal between the ribbon and the magnet cup structure. On those first few units that were air freighted, the sudden lowering of air pressure created a bubble behind the ribbon diaphragm that pushed it out, causing that dip you see. The fix was simple: Chris just put a pinhole opening in the rear cup and voila! The diaphragm returned to its normal resting point away from the magnet and now it measures flat.
Whatās also interesting is that sonically it doesnāt really show itself much (despite how bad it appears). We got our first production pair out of that same small batch that the magazine got theirs from, both air freighted, and they sounded great. It wasnāt until Chris ran his measurements that he discovered the problem. Once fixed we could hear the difference but it wasnāt like this night and day sort of thing (despite how it looks).
If time had allowed, we would have received in those first samples, measured them all, then sent on for review. We/they were anxious to get them out into the world.
Live and learn.
Always great to get more facts, even if they include measurements that helped discover the problem and fix it