My wife and I visited PS Audio on Oct 31/19 and it was a treat! We were given the grand tour, met much of the team, and were tremendously impressed with the AN3 prototype speakers.
We live in western Canada and the last time we had been in Colorado was 2013 for RMAF. I had just retired and was eager to hear some great audio systems - but we were very disappointed. There was plenty of expensive gear that simply did not sound good enough to justify the prices.
Since then, I’ve improved our audio system with big leaps (DS DAC, P12 Power Plant, Simaudio Moon 600V2 integrated amp, etc). I’ve heard numerous other “high end” systems and have again shaken my head over the lousy “performance per dollar” paradigm.
So, I did not have my hopes super high for this visit to PS Audio, even though I am very happy with the performance of our DS DAC and P12. After 30 seconds of listening to the AN3 speakers (Version 2 as demoed at RMAF 2019), I was filled with relief and happiness. We listened to about 10 songs on the CDs we brought, and every performance was a totally new experience. The sound was very open, natural, amazingly detailed, and allowed us to appreciate every syllable of the vocals by The Be Good Tanyas, Bruce Cockburn, The Tragically Hip, Patricia Barber and Richard Thompson. Clearly the distortion levels are very low because nothing seemed obscured, and the percussion, harmonica, banjo, guitars, and other instruments sounded so good. And… there were no irritating resonances, glare or harshness. I’m a very careful audio consumer so I take a long time to want something, but this experience quickly convinced me I must go back to Boulder to hear the final version of the AN3s.
Yes, the AN3s were driven by PS Audio’s best electronics, which in my opinion are reasonably priced considering their high level performance. I estimate the retail price of the equipment and cables at somewhat over $50K (US) excluding the speakers, yet the equipment was not “tweaked” as much as my system. For 40 years I have been a DIY enthusiast, building amps, speakers, DACs, etc, and tweaking every little detail to get better sound. But the last couple of years I’ve realized my efforts cannot match some of the incredible engineering evident in (some) high end equipment. In my opinion, PS Audio is one of these industry leaders.
Our current speakers are the Thor transmission line model, designed by Joseph D’Appolito, with the SEAS Excel tweeters and dual 6.5 inch Excel magnesium cone woofers. It took me two tries to build the enclosures accurately, and I’ve tweaked them considerably with better internal wiring, crossover parts, connectors and Track Audio feet. They are quite revealing and musical sounding, and the improvements in the latest Windom firmware for the DS DAC are very evident and enjoyable. I’ve been unsure about replacing them due to the high cost, but PS Audio’s speaker development progress is very exciting and interesting.
When we arrived at PS Audio that morning of Oct 31, we met Paul McGowan as he was arriving, camera in hand, for an engineering meeting. The sales group was short on staff at the time, so the President, Jim Laib, welcomed us very warmly and provided the tour throughout the business. While we were waiting for Jim, Chris Brunhaver noticed us in the lobby, so we had a brief chat and later he became our listening enabler in Music Room 3. We gave Chris our feedback about the AN3s and had some terrific discussions about speakers, music, etc when he periodically checked up on us listening to our songs. Chris described the differences in distortion between the AN3s and the cone drivers in our SEAS speakers.
Yes, we did listen to the IRS V speakers, but only for portions of two songs while Darren Myers demoed them for other visitors. Let’s just agree they are a piece of history, impressive on their own, but the AN3s are the future.
As a final point in this long story, I think PS Audio should consider setting up another sound room in a highly accessible location, with their best gear. The intention would be to demonstrate, to as many people as possible, how good music can sound. Call it the $75,000 Music Room, or whatever is needed to be dramatic, and keep it the equipment static, always warmed up. It would benefit music lovers and audiophiles of all ages - to hear what is actually possible with high end audio gear. I made this suggestion to Chris Brunhaver, and he did not look at me like I was nuts.
