New PS Audio speakers?

[Paul]

We are still on for speakers as well as building the IRS Killer.

The Fr30 should see the light of day this June.

It’s been a long haul. The last thing we did was kill off the design for aesthetic reasons. Turns out when we showed the new look it was so radical that it polarized people in a way not good. When half the respondents love it and the other half hate it, you know you’re in trouble. My goal is to always have the outspoken fringes love and hate while the majority center line like it or tolerate it.

That’s what we have now. A beautiful new design that we’ve shown to enough people to know we’re in the zone. I wish I could publicly share it but I’ve sworn secrecy to my teammates.

Sigh. That’s the problem as the company grows. I have to more often give in to things I don’t agree with. Such is life. I should have seen the writing on the wall when I got married and had a family.

The new FR30 is still two models down from the IRS Killer. We will launch the 30 first, followed in a few months by the lower cost versions of the 30. Our idea is to make sure we can get as many speakers into the hands of people who can afford them first. This grows the category for us. Once the line from the FR30 down is complete, we’ll roll our sleeves up and launch the upper two models: the top model being the IRS Killer at which time I may have to retire the IRSV.

[ipeverywhere]

@Paul

time I may have to retire the IRSV

No (edit: please).

You need to build a new room for your IRS Killer. Having a way to walk back and forth to compare the “I am your father” speaker seems like such an important bit of speaker history… I’d buy tickets for that experience. People are immortal if you give others a reason to remember them.

[falling_leaves]

Excited to see the new design… sorry I was on the other half of not liking it. Seriously considering this just on the fact that there’s a potentially great design (and it’s a PS Audio of course )

[kerosene]

@Baldy

If you are selling $100k amps $100k speakers this sales model still works.

Well put.

Years ago I wondered how a local dealer stayed in business but one of his return customers/friends told me the store would consistently sell a $100,000 turntable, a few pairs of $20,000 amps and then speakers every month.

[rkosak]

If I’m not mistaken, we are in a unique position to witness the process of developing a high-end speaker here, “sitting in the front row and watching”. I don’t remember any high-end manufacturer sharing so much detail about whole speaker development process, from the pure idea to the real product, with all the joys and problems during this process. We appreciate it very much, Paul!

[manoj]

@Paul , can any other terminology be used other than IRS killer for the new speaker? Every time i read it something feels wrong the way those legendary speakers are referred in this context

[Paul]

Thanks. As I have said in the past, we’re family. Community. I would like to share as much of the process as possible. I wish I could share the new design look but I have promised my team I would wait until we can get it properly photographed and presented right.

What I can tell you is that the first three designs we built and showed were all in house designs. I thought they were attractive, but we got mixed reviews on the first two and polar reviews on the last one.

That’s when my friend, Sandy Gross (Polk, Definitive, Golden Ear) pushed us to spend the money to hire one of the top design firms in the world for this kind of work. I am super glad he did. While not cheap, these guys knocked it out of the park.

So, when you see the final product, the FR30, you’ll know it came from some pretty slick designers who really love what they do and knocked our socks off.

Can’t wait to share.

[stevensegal]

Good to hear. I’ve never understood why engineers think that if they can design the insides they have any idea how to design the outsides as well, which is why so much audio is so ugly. Some of the most iconic products are design-led as much as engineering-led.

[kzk]

Good decision to redesign the look. I think 50/50 was probably generous. At least 50% hated it, of the other 50% probably many tolerated and some loved. At those price points can’t look hideous, unflattering, or even meh. Tekton gets away with it under $10k. Still gotta sound amazing to compete, obviously. Exciting to see what is in store

[jtwrace]

@Paul I’m surprised you haven’t released a picture of the speaker covered with a cover as a tease with “Coming to your listening room on 6/XX/2021”

C’mon get that marketing dept working!

[gaswong]

Can’t wait

[fumedtwice]

Hiring a top notch industrial design firm sounds like the perfect solution to me. I thought the first iterations of the speaker looked like it was designed by engineers. That might work for amplifiers and power plants but speakers have a significant presence in ones home. I like the idea of keeping this under wraps until it is released since it maintains all the drama to those of us who have been following the evolution of the speaker. Much fun!

[jazznut]

I try to do it like @badbeef in future: ignore everything until the product brochure is out

[Paul]

Well, it kind of was designed by engineers.

Yeah, sometimes it really help to hire the right people for the job.

And, once the passive nature of the design was shown to me to be superior to an active version I was all in.

[ipeverywhere]

We humans have a tendency so evaluate things based on prior experience. I assume there is much more appreciation to what the outside design firm put together after iterating internally on so many revisions (and prototypes). Those iterations are certainly not wasted expense. Looking forward to seeing the new design. Although, I tend to listen in the dark and have a dedicated room so I don’t really care what they look like. In fact, I’d prefer a “budget engineering” version to save my wallet from the fancy aesthetics.

[fumedtwice]

As a visual artist and and audiophile, when I’m listening to music, I’m usually staring at my speakers. It works much better, when the speakers are as beautiful as the music. I commend you for your quest to make your product excel visually as well as sonically.

[straightwire]

My first real job after college was at a high end hi-if retailer that sold Levinson, ARC, Bryston, B&W, Magnaplanar…and, Bang and Olufsen. B&O took form and function as seriously as anyone. Yea, I had a Linn Sondek, but B&O’s tangential arm turntable was a work of art.

[stevensegal]

My son is starting out as a product designer and the people he works with have designed a few iconic speaker designs, including this:

and this:

What I find interesting is that they are designed for the same company and one costs £58,000 (about $75,000) and the other is under $1,000. Moreover, they are still products in production after 20 years and 10 years respectively. A good design has legs.

Whilst still at university, he was mentored by the designer of this iconic product from the 1980s (I owned one):

This was a Class A 20w integrated for which the entire top plate was the heat sink. It could be said that apple copied this 15 years later. The designer was one of the UK’s most famous product designers who was most famous for designing clocks.

This product did not last because it had a habit of catching fire.

If you get a design right, it can last decades and define a brand. A good example is the Naim Chrome Bumper, which effectively has continued since the 1970s. The Chief Designer of of Naim/Focal, who designed the Uniti products (the dest designs I’ve seen in years) was a Senior Designer at the place my son works, and Naim was a client before he went over.

Devialet was founded by three people - an engineer, a businessman and a designer. In 15 years they have basically built a brand on two product designs with a lot of shared technology and production. To me that’s the perfect way to build a consumer product business.

I watched quite a lot of @Paul’s factory tour, which was very impressive, but what struck me was that there was a pile of Stellar products stacked for shipping in a factory making BHK and regenerator premium products. Manufacturing costs are a big part of product design and I just don’t get Stellar, not for design, but because they are 2 or 3 times the price of competitor products, which must be because of the production costs. I was glad to hear the new speakers will be fabricated elsewhere, hopefully as cheaply as possible.

What I do know from my son is that you can expect products to remain 100% secret until launch day. Apple did it quite a lot, and it still a preferred policy.

Innuos launched a high-end ethernet switch/reclocker today, and kept it almost completely secret, with a complete press embargo, and it was available for sale today.

So I for one am interested what this speaker looks like and who designed it.

From where I see it, and Naim. B&W, B&O and Devialet are good examples, you have to get it right, but you only have to get it right once.

[SudS]

As an Arnie fan, I had a great deal of interest in the progress of this project. Ignoring the evolution of the speaker concept, just the outward design, well, each iteration of design seemed to be a step (or three) in the wrong direction.

[stevensegal]

I’d never heard of Arnie Nudell until the AN3 thread started, and I’m not keen on retro designs (I’d rather look forward than backward), but I was intrigued by a ribbon midrange, because I’ve only heard one once (Piega), and how it would be integrated with the lower midrange and bass. I assume it has survived to the new design, so I am still intrigued.