I am a videophile and audiophile. As an owner of the DirectStream DAC, I am excited at the prospect of PS Audio designing their own tower speakers. However, I do have some concerns. There is probably less than one percent of the A/V buying community that have two dedicated rooms for both home theater and two channel stereo. People enjoy both in the same room. Usually a living room or den.
Legendary speaker designer Andrew Jones always designs 5.1 speaker systems including the audiophile grade (ELAC) Adante Series.
That being said, will PS Audio develop a center channel speaker (and possibly surrounds) to accompany its upcoming tower speakers???
Everybody does 5.1. They just dumb down their L & R towers into Center, Surrounds, (and 4 car audio “in-ceiling” co-axials if you’re into Atmos). PS Audio is a two channel company and definitely not a “me too” lineup of gear as is evident by your DirectStream DAC and my Stellar SGCD, M700 x2.
I too am a 5.1 channel “aficionado”. But thanks to my resto-modded Bose 901 Series 1’s/modified by me Series 2 EQ, I’ve come back to two channel. So much so that for PCM 2.0 concerts, I actually prefer it to the Dolby Digital/DTS 5.1 HD or compressed. I successfully integrated my “Stack” with a Sony STR-DN1080 which I broke out 5.1 true differential (balanced) onto XLR’s whole volume control is bypassed and controlled by the SGCD/Preamp. For now, I use the Sony’s built-in amps for my center 7 surrounds.
I hope one day to buy a S300 for the surrounds with a passive attenuator but I’ll continue using the Sony’s built-in amp for the center channel.
I have three complete systems in the lower level of my home. A 5.1, a 2.2 (stereo with twin subs) and a 2.0 setup. I care the least for the 5.1 setup but it’s still very high quality. I am not sure how I feel about PS Audio needing to make a center channel and surround speaker. How hard could it be vs. how large is the market.
You might be pleasantly surprised. We have been doing a lot of work on the upcoming AN3. Because of its weight and the difficulty people might experience setting it up in their homes, we’ve split the speaker into two pieces - similar to what Dave Wilson did
in the original Wilson Watt Puppy arrangement. We’ve also taken that a step further and figured out a shape that can double as a center channel as well as a stand mounted upper set that can go down in frequency to below 60Hz. That also means the subwoofer
can be separate as well.
If the “upper” of the AN3 will be available separately as bookshelf speakers, does this mean the end of the Sprout speaker concept? Or are they still going to come out as a lesser priced bookshelf speaker? (pardons if I misunderstood your AN3 description)