psaudio.com Many speakers have multiple sets of binding posts for bi-wiring and bi-amping. What's the best way to connect them if you're not going to do either?
You're the man! Just solidified my bi-wire craze! I have some B&W Diamonds that came with jumpers, putting them in and attaching my speaker cable to the lower terminals and DONE
this new speaker reveal took all the attention, i don't even remember the question. the good thing is that its looks pretty good, the bad thing is that it looks like sonos or ikea speaker. that last iteration looked like classic high end speaker. furniture in a living room or listening room. and i know you said that living room compromises is the goal of the speaker series. i would have a grill less speaker design, do you have 2 layers of grills on that thing? probably 3 layers, those Bohlender Graebener have built in thick metal mesh in front of it already.
Hi Paul yes those speakers sure are pretty! I wanted to add one comment. I keep all my cables as short as possible not so short it puts stress on them but if I need 24 inches I don't use a 72 inch cable. This applies to my interconnects as well as speaker cables. If you only need 5 feet per a side don't put 15 feet of cable, use 7. I find Less is more in this case. On many systems I notice a huge messy bundle of excess cable hidden behind the rack/stand/cabinet. Not one of my cables touch the floor. Just keep in mind the store wants you to buy more so they will gladly sell you a mile of it. I enjoy your knowledge and videos and just wanted to add my thoughts on this subject. Cheers.
Concerning bridging of bi-wiring. A long time ago I was attending a demo weekend at an audio specialist, and one of the demo's was with Musical Fidelity pre and poweramp, don't remember the DAC or player, nor the speakers, except that they were extremely good electrostatic speakers. The music being played was of an orchestra recording. During the playback I noticed the shop owner, and representatives for Musical Fidelity and the speaker brand having a conversation. They paused playback, made a minor change where they replaced the biwiring bridging plates by a 4 inch piece of high quality speaker cable with high quality banana plugs. Having just listened to the same piece, there were clear audible differences, even to my untrained ears, mainly in the positioning of the instruments, and in the balance between the instruments. It was amazing to actually experience that. On the other hand, blind I would not be able to tell one from the other and both sounded really great. It's just in the detail that things change, and you need to have intimate knowledge of the original performance to be able to choose one over the other...
Dear Paul I do maybe understand why you like the design, it looks more like your system but I have to say that it looks like two computers, stacked on top of each other. I did love your AN3, they looked like real Italia, cognac, Stradivarius and the interior of a high end dream car. Your FR3 do more look like something old from the 70'th was in an accident with a modern air went for industrial purpose, or in fewer words, you had to pay me to let those get inside my home! Sorry! :-)
@@dougg1075 Thanks for your reply. No they won't look like this, away from a desk, I think they will look even stranger in a livingroom. Imagine having two set of computers stacked on top of each other in your living room. If I saw these legs on the side of these room heaters in your house, I may ask if you had tried to stabilize your room hearts with legs from an old stool :-)
@@joanfrederick9176 Just search the internet, eBay, Amazon and other. Or build one big driver into a big box. :-) industriumvita.com/folded-tapped-horn-subwoofer-tuned-for-17hz/
@@joanfrederick9176 No problem, glad if I can help! Yes some have been very unlucky. But you can find sub woofers in other places also, try hi-fi shops in your area. Or if you are just interested in bass, then take a look at drivers for car audio.
Wait... are those the new speakers that have been delayed to be resigned for aesthetics???? That looks like two gaming PC's stacked on top of each other. And the colors are all over the place. Gold, grey, black and wood? They are HIDEOUS!
Those with both money and brains are all thinking the same thing: "failure." and "amateur hour from PS Audio." But only a few have the guts to say it. Most with both money and brains will take a look and know they will go elsewhere for speakers at this price point.
@Fat Rat I agree. If they turn out to be the best sounding speaker ever, then who really cares, right? But we know that isn't likely. They'll sound similar to many options at this price point, and this current "design" isn't inspiring.
Hi Paul, on 2 way speakers I believe the speaker’s drivers cross over near their break up frequencies. My speakers have been prone to distortion when driven hard in the upper midrange crossover range. Changing 2 pieces of #14 copper wire bridging the binding posts to bi wiring has completely eliminated this. Too audible for imagination.
Hi Paul, I found when building speakers with external passives x overs at the amp end and bi wiring to the drivers had a very big effect no matter with cables I used. Not consumer friendly which is something you do pay attention to and I appreciate that. I would love to hear your comments and other peoples. Try it on the IRS ,I can think of technical reasons why does it make a difference, but at the end of the day I trust my ears. Andrew from the great White North, Montreal
Hi Paul, I notice how you neatly skipped over the subject of bi amping, which is weird - don’t you want to sell more amps to people? Some of my favourite speakers are bi amped and bi wired items from a well known Scottish flat earth company (I’m showing my age). The crossovers in the speakers are excellent, but compared with the active crossovers in the power amps, they are actually a little pedestrian. So I essentially have one power amp handling only the useful frequency range for each driver in a pair of three-ways. The cable I use is identical for all three drivers, by the way. Compared with a single amp per channel crossed inside the speaker, the difference is both subtle and astonishing at the same time. So as you say - bi wiring on its own is a bit of edge tinkering, but active crossover tri amp tri wiring is well worth the extra pennies for the added speed, control and downright grunt it gives your sound I feel.
You mean the orange ones? Yikes, to me they looked like a misshapen treble clef, with an eating disorder, where all the weight ended up in the trunk. I thought the last AN3 model had promise. The plinth needed to be slimmed down or redesigned and the side panels didn't need to bulge as much. Other than that, they were ready.
I understand the thinking behind biwiring and can easily hear the improvement but I'm not sure the improved performance is true to the thinking. I'm more inclined to believe that doubling the cables reduces the gauge and resistance of cable and improves the sound. Swapping the cheap jumpers for higher quality cables might not make an audible difference but mentally I'm sure it does
I’ve also read that some might like to hook the highs up to a tube amp, and the mids to an A/B amp. Your thoughts on this? Also love the looks of the speakers, want to make a trip to tour the place and hear the IRS-1’s!
I would suggest using the same model of amp on HF and LF. What you're looking for is the same GAIN in each one. I don't see how you can match a tube amp and SS amp with the same gain.
New speakers look nice! I like the grey grills better. I don't think there's many speakers around with grey grills. I just run my wires to the bottom terminals of my speakers. Works for me.
Yep, they're awful. And I hope negative and harsh feedback like ours won't be taken down. There's a few fans, but even penny stocks just before bankruptcy draw in some buyers. And the slowest horse in every race also draws in some fans. Most who hate them won't even comment. They'll take a look, think PS Audio is on the wrong track, and look for another speaker. For those truly interested in the AN3 model and their upcoming lines, this was really not good, to say the least. And this comes from me, who thinks 90%+ of people are far too picky about speaker aesthetics. Oh well, maybe the second release of this speaker in a couple years will be good.
@@thunderpooch And as for taking such a post down, I'm all for editing of rude, disrespectful comments, after all its Paul's channel. However, editing out reasonable discussion and people's genuine thoughts becomes very misleading. I write this just thinking what it would be like if all these videos were heavily edited and only glowing comments left. Imagine new comers checking some out a year down the track. After all some of these videos are indeed topical and very much open to discussion. Differences of opinion are valuable and part of the course, albeit done in a respectful way. Cheers. 🎶
@Fat Rat I hope they sound amazing as well. And I'm one of those who were in your camp saying that the last AN3 was just fine and only minor tweaks should be considered. But this so called "redesign" is pretty darn awful.
@@nostro1001 Well, some of my critiques of this design are quite brutal. But I'm not calling Paul or PS Audio liars or frauds or morons. That's what I think is unacceptable. Accusations like that show no good will. I want Paul and PS Audio to do well, but I just can't see it with this design.
Shape the modules a bit. Shape the grills a bit. Ditch the feet and come up with a better plinth. The last iteration of the AN3 was close. This is getting much colder.
I learned that it was (in theory) best to use the upper binding posts since that (normaly) goes to the top so the sound at the top end gets less impacted by the cheap metal brackets. Or just change the brackets to some better pieces of cable ;P
The only good use in a bi wired termination is to throw out the speaker crossover and run each separate speaker with its own dedicated amp fed from an electronic crossover tailored to suite the responses of the discarded passive crossover
Hey Paul like the speakers, I think I like the design of AN3's a little better but, I'm a performance first person, so 🤷🏿♂️. But anyway I'd like to know your thoughts on Bi-amping your speakers.
Hi Paul, Love your videos. I understand what you mean by different wires in terms of different sound. I have a set of JBL LX2005 which I have Bi-amped. The top end was a bit bright so I made myself a set of speaker wires using solid copper. Fixed the bright high end while maintaining the mid range and the bottom end with the standard multi strand cables.
Dear Audiophile confessor, I LOVE the way they look, except for the feet, and much prefer the white grill. I would remove the current feet, and just support them with large black cone footers. Their aesthetic flows right along with the Direct Stream DAC, and your other rounded edge products.
IRS Paul's personal opinion. The true answer is that it depends upon your speakers cross over point and your jumpers. You really need to try both and decide yourself. The lower the crossover the more likely to attach the cables to the higher input
@@stephens2r338 I know that some manufacturers recommend to attach speaker cables at the lower connection but I saw that Tannoy recommends upper. So, it is a matter of manufacturer and personal taste. But explanation about higher current seams logical in most cases.
@@freekwo7772 you are correct, tannoy recommends the high connections because most of their speakers crossover point's are much lower than most. Their treble often plays from 1khz up to 20khz which is one of the reasons they sound so good. It makes sense to give it most of the signal. Power is often not an issue with Tannoy. Their easy to drive and love tubes. You rearly need more than a couple of quality watts to make them rock
Bare enough wire to go through both terminal sets and heat shrink tube the sections left bare - you can even do red and black. Not always possible, though there are simple get-arounds. cost; next to nothing - may as well...
I suspect PS Audio will make a great sounding speaker but those legs bother me. It’s design that looks like inspired by the IKEA NOLMYRA chair 😊 The design language is quite broken in this design.
That's right, I agree, usually it's the people or products that think out side the box that is awesome, hence those speakers , but I agree, the grey cover looks way better
The grey grills with the black gloss finish and the wooden stands looks WAY better than the white covers. If I was PS Audio I'd include both grills, give people options, aesthetics matter! I wonder how many thousands those will cost :D
I need to check to make sure mine are plugged into the bottoms. I made a jumper out of speaker cable, I can’t remember if it mattered. But, bi-amping my Paradigm Monitor p90 V1 from my AVR-X7200wa did make it a bit clearer. Not enough to sacrifice 7.1 for 5.1.
First of all, I love that channel and the way informations are provided! Thanks a lot Paul. Many, many thanks. I want to learn all I can about loudspeakers :) About the speakers in the video... grey cover! For sure! ;) BUT... The more a loudspeaker looks like a furniture, the more it has to fit in the style of all the other furniture in the room. That's what makes a furniture style looking loudspeaker more special and "room style critical"... A fact I can ignore if a loudspeaker just looks like a loudspeaker and all I have to choose is the right color or inlay (veneer). I loved the modern look of the last shown AN3. And I loved that AN was a hint to Arnie. A man who designed the Kappa 9 (correct me if I'm wrong) and so many other awesome loudspeakers. These Kappas brought me to real HiFi and I miss what Infinity brought to the market, real innovations and great sound. Just my 5 cent ;)
I've been going through the stage of changing the the Connectors on my Monitor Audio R352 MD's.. I've been using the Nakamitchi Banana Plugs & find them really good but with using Exposure heavy cable they started to get a little free movement after some time.. So I then bought the Nakamitchi Y spade connectors with the screw on heads.. but found them to be to large to have 2 together.. So now I'm waiting for 4 Copper Y spades with a 7mm down to a 5mm Y so I will see how this works with the Exposure cable I have.
Hi Paul Thanks for your great videos.They are very informative. With my 37 years of experience in the Audio industry, I've discovered to put the cable always into the top terminals if you use a single set of wires because the high frequencies are easier to hear and distinguish from the complete Audio Bandwidth and consists of the larger part of the Speakers frequency spectrum. The Speaker terminal jumpers have anyway enough surface area to carry all the current to the bass driver and the bass drivers sound quality can be easily improved by changing the quality of the jumpers. High frequency performance can be easily degraded when playing through to many different metals , jumpers and connectors to get eventually to the tweeter. Bi - wire should only be used if you have a cable that does full linear Audio Frequency Bandwidth transfer without resistance and no inductive high frequency interference and virtually no inductance or capacitance over the total conductor length. There should also be no resistive compression which affects the linear frequency transfer. And more 🤓😊 Best regards Hermann
@@sailingaquarius23 , Paul recently made a statement which was only slightly revealing. i think there was a significant pushback on this design. lets hope. i truly cant imagine any sound which would convince me to have these in my home.
Paul, thank you for your videos they are very informative. Question: how do you test speaker balance sound frequency? So that one can measure if the speaker high vs. mid vs bass are all sounding at the same sound level as deigned? Are your speakers up for the challenge?
Yea, electrons don't care about the cost of the cable. I bet you couldn't tell if you used a copper jumper or an old roofing nail that fell off the roof.
Not sure in two minds about it I like the stands and high off the ground is good, a wood grain same colour as the stands would have look nice oil finish what's the cabinet and front baffle made from? Maybe a cut out I would have thought on each side of the the tweeter enclosure in the side of the cabinet maybe 3 inches across each side up to the tweeter close as possible would work well. I think making grills multi-coloured choices maybe the most 5 most popular colours people using in their homes would make the speakers disappear or just let the customer choose send you a sample, I don't like the gold rim around the driver's but a gold or silver trim around the speaker grill would look nice. What's happening in the bass unit you said there was a black grill in front of the side facing driver is there just the one driver there is it an open baffle? What manufactured driver are you using for the Bass Driver and mid coupler driver?
I'm coming to ask you your opinion for sure I promise when I get my set up completed. It will be this year. Its going good. I have isobaric subs that are on the same signal as my main woofer.. As for Pauls lastest, looks like it will be easy to ship those out world wide if he can figure out the configuration of drivers.
Totally disagree you are totally wrong with this opinion I have tried it with different cables bi-wire and single run and bi-wire always sounds better and cleaner and if you can’t tell the difference your hearing has to be checked or your system is not revealing enough if it did not have a benefit so many speaker builders would not add it to there design and a high % do
Speaker manufactures provide Bi-wiring because they have to be be competitive in the market place. Some people believe in the concept therefore if you want to sell them speakers, you have to pander to their requirements. That doesn't make bi-wiring legitimate from an electrical engineering viewpoint.
Love the new look, Paul! Really nice. If you guys are looking for any feedback I would make a small suggestion regarding that gold or brass trim on the side drivers and hardware on the feet and maybe do aluminum/nickel? But love them! I see the subtle design aesthetics that relate to your units with the rounded edges and the inset division between the top and bottom.
Great vid, as always - not sure about the name change though, tbh: Why pick sth as generic as "Full Range" rather than pay hommage to the legend and dear friend of Yours, Arnie Nudell? I guess I could kind of understand if it were changed to CB for Chris Brunhaver (apologies for likely having made a mess of the spelling...)
Nice discussion Paul, for people who have the double terminal option, I don't. And for what it's worth, I preferred the look of the previous AN-3. But that's just me. Good look with the new venture.
@Fat Rat A good looking product is nice, but it's the sound quality that is paramount, of course. But then, sole mio no longer has a partner for advice and consent in deciding what to purchase. Although not an audiophile, my late wife was a professional speech-language pathologist and amateur musician (piano) and her trained ears were far more discerning than mine. Back to the speaker, assuming that the target price is still US$15K, it's way too expensive for me, either as the Arnie Nudell - 3 or the Fat Rat - 30. ;-)
@Fat Rat Thank you, it's been almost 15 years since we lost her cancer. And to be orphaned at 2-1/2 years old must have been really rough. I can't begin to imagine. Our conversations indicate that you came through the fire unbowed. Good on you, Mate! Cheers! With coffee for now, but I'm planning to fix Phily cheesesteaks wit' later, so I'll toast to you again with some Lincoln, Nebraska brewed porter. Support your locals (ditto for the coffee).
@Fat Rat And with you my honorable friend across the sea. I do not speak of my wife's passing to garner sympathy, but only to explain my situation. I also married later than many, though 13 years younger than you. My daughter married young, but she was and is wise beyond her years; and my son-in-law is a good man, smart as all get out (PhD in computer science), but not at all pretentious and has a dry sense of humor. They had time to wait before starting their family and they now have a sweet baby girl, 2 weeks away from her 1st birthday. =//=ProudPapa
@Fat Rat My daughter and son-in-law visited Sidney for a few days on vacation back in 2016 and also Bali. They really enjoyed the trip and showed me lots of pictures (digital on an iPad) when they got back. It looks really nice, I would like to go there myself. And of course, I watch the Sidney Harbor New Year's fireworks spectacular every year since discovering RU-vid. My wife's father was in the U. S. Navy submarine service in the South Pacific during WWII on the Drum, a Gato class boat, and they made port in Brisbane a couple of times between combat patrols.
I was under impression that reason for bi wire was to further separate crossover crosstalk between highs and low sections . My speakers sound cleaner in the midrange when bi wired by identical 15.5ga set of Cardas cables .
@Nat N i heard that some speakers do not sound any better biwired actually opposite 😉 Just play some well recorded and super well known to you piece of music both ways and hear it yourself.... no stress or pressure just pure audiophile fun 😂
You've got to be kidding? They look like two alienware cpu's stacked on the feet of a 1970's folding chair rack. Or maybe they're a locker stack at the airport or a youth hostile* (hostel). Those are complete and utter failures, and everybody knows it. They need work. Hell, if those had a Bose label on them, everyone here would be making fun of them. Clarification and edit: As is, I really dont like the "design." But all is not lost. I actually love the module design, but the transition should be more subtle. Having a harsh straight line and a half inch gap between the two screens is amateurish. And I really don't like that the screen fits inside a recessed cabinet. It's both ugly and would be a diffaction mess unless those recessed surrounds are felt or foam. But then imaging would be quite narrowed. Dali speakers often have very nice minimalist screens. Some appear free floating from the side. It's a nice touch. The feet don't work. The wood clashes with the modern aesthetic. They're too wide. And a proper plinth is in order. And they need shaping. Right now, they're just straight boxes with a beefy radius to a achieve a curved top and bottom...pretty bad. Take note of the design cues from the Kii3, also a module design. And Sonus Faber and Focal are quite good at curves and shaping. For more utilitarian and stylish minimalist designs, Kef, PMC, and Dynaudio do a great job. Take some notes. These can be saved! And consider some design cues from the last iteration of the AN3. The plinth frame needed to be reduced and made more elegant. And the side panels didn't need to bulge out as much. Other than that. You were very close on having a competent design. Whip these "mules" into shape!
@@genez429 Nope, my record of posts would prove it. I'm a fan of Paul and PS Audio but I'm honest when I think it could help them avoid a bad business decision. If anything, I think it's more probable you work for Klipsch or Sonus Faber or Focal, etc. and you love that this latest design looks awful, and you're even willing to say they appear amazing so they'll have inventory they can't sell. Are you Ethan, lol.
@@thunderpooch Take a look at Wilson hi-end speakers lately? Form follows after the demand for excellent function when it comes to pure audiophile sound. The prettiest speakers are not the most beautiful speakers. A pretty woman can be a fluff head, unlike a beautiful woman. Real beauty requires wisdom.
I like the looks of the FR30 speakers, largely because they don't look like conventional speakers. I'm just wondering how many arms and legs I'll have to donate for a pair of them.
The AN3 looked much much better. These don't look bad necessarily just no where near as good as the AN3. If you lost the wood feet it would look way better. They aren't chairs. I love your products though. They sound fantastic and I love your videos to. Keep it up.
@Fat Rat hogwash. You just want people to think you have magic ears. You can only have too small of a wire. After that it could be #0000 solid cable and it will be demonstrably impossible to affect the signal with a conductor. But I've got some expensive and beautiful wire elevators to sell you...
@Fat Rat oh I know you disagree. You're simply so full of shit your eyes are brown. After 43 years you can't hear squat diddly poo. You like to use many words to describe one thing and it's hilarious. I'm telling you YOU CAN'T HEAR SHIT, LIAR. Can you see that? Seeing is believing. Only thing getting tightened up is your sphincter when someone calls you out on your bullshit. Go sell candy at the playground to children. Cause you ain't selling your snake oil here.
Unless we can be shown some graphs demonstrating these "good low end" vs "good high end" speaker cable features, and we're not just talking about perception here (which I honestly think you are)... then this is a little too "snake oil" for me.
Originally the 4 speaker inputs are for bi amping,an excellent approach,bi wiring though is better.Your tweeters are less likely to modulate from the low frequency draw.Your speaker wire is kind of like the prop shaft(figuratively) ,you would have efficiency problems running two rotors off one prop shaft,speakers are`nt much different in that respect,the coupling to the amplifier is way more efficient using bi wire config.
Funny how the last time paul mentioned this topic regarding bi- amping he said it was used because different amps can sound different. And back in the day high power wasn't like it is today. Like class A for the tweeters and class D for example driving the Woofers! Or tubes for the tweeters I recall he mentioned. Now he's talking about speaker wires sounding different as the reason?🤪🤪🤔🤔🤫🤫🤯🤯🤯 fantastic looking speakers I will say!
Install it, just leave it, "IT'S FINE" isn't something most people in this industry can do. What you've got is already like 95% better than most people. Be happy with it, enjoy it, quit tinkering or thinking that a $500 cable is going to magically take it to the next level.
Sorry Paul not a fan of this version, almost prefer the 1st iteration. The grey definitely looks best IMHO, but the stands certainly do not fit with the speakers, maybe if they were black or dark grey. The wood just seems out of place. Obviously just another opinion I'm sure others would like them. Sure the will sound great though.
Much appreciated. The feet have been the most devisive elements, to be sure. We're looking at different materials and will likely offer people a choice.
You guys need to hire a speaker architectual design expert big time. Those look like something out of the 1950's. They may sound great, but looks is important. And those ain't gorgeous.
I have old Polk rt55 and cs400 and a new Sony STR ZA5000ES and I'm bi-amping the front stage. The fullness of the power is what I crave. I can attenuate the rest if needed.
These speakers look amazing! Excited to hear they are full range as well. It's impossible to please everyone and some people will never be happy with anything that breaks the mold. The hifi world is no different.
@ Christopher, yup....not to my taste, but props for actually paying attention to the design element. I have been saying for sometime that aesthetics are important, especially for higher end gear. The Europeans have long known this, you only need to look at some of their gear...speakers, amps etc. ✌
@Fat Rat lools.....well I never mentioned that tried and true design aesthetic that I hope also went out of style circa 1979. I was more thinking like...piano gloss black, with wooden panels attached with dimonti's, super tweeters in the very best crocodile skin and intricate wrought iron feet. Something that any home would be proud to have visitors in their living room
Yes, bi amping has great potential. The average person is not inclined to do it, and very few mid level "audiophile"manufacturers build to accommodate it. Of course the pro market has products that do this at relatively affordable prices, so that is a good source for a crossover. It definitely seems to be the dedicated enthusiasts that pursue it. I was told by several high end audio dealers in the 80's to not waste my time with it. I ignored them and have been happily biamped or Triamped since.
You guys are singing my song! I have these Alpine 2way crossovers and I run one into the other. There is phase problems but amps that don't work hard and transiet responses improved seems to be just a couple of the gains.I use a pa driver for my main woofer. Dome mids and tweeters.
Love the look of those speakers! I prefer the grey grills, btw. So, does this mean no AN-3’s whatsoever? I really liked those too, but obviously it’s the sound that matters in the end. Good luck to you, regardless of what you do. PSA is a great company. Thanks, Paul! 🎶👍🔊🙂
love the new Scandinavian design Paul, the grey grill definitely looks better, why not have one colour on each side of the grill (like reversible) , allows the users to do top half grey and bottom half white and vice versa, or all grey or white. Will the speakers come only piano black? should also given the model a Name instead of a code - gives the speakers more Soul
