It wouldn't be a PMC loudspeaker without transmission line bass loading, and the diminutive prodigy1 is no exception
One of my secret loves has long been transmission line speakers. I miss IMF (named after the designer, Irving M. Fried), the doyen of the genre, although the technology has been used by other brands – most notably PMC. You can therefore imagine my delight when the prodigy1 arrived at a mere £1250. I'd been hearing about it for months, as the prodigy1 (with lowercase 'p') was a talked-about launch at the 2023 Munich High-End Show.
Although the bass and midrange drive units on the twenty. 26 may appear similar to those of the PMC fact 12 [HFN Nov ’13], they are completely new and only found on this loudspeaker so far. The tweeter is the one unit carried over from the existing models and it’s the well proven Solonex 27mm soft-dome unit, developed by SEAS in conjunction with PMC.
Its output is rolled off below 3.
An unchanged exterior hides PMC's crossover and driver upgrades made to its premium three-way floorstander
In The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again', Roger Daltrey memorably sings 'Meet the new boss – same as the old boss'. It's a phrase that sprang to my mind when confronted by PMC's twenty5.26i, as this floorstanding speaker is, outwardly, identical to its twenty5.26 predecessor launched in 2016, with cabinet dimensions matching to the millimetre. Yet PMC describes its new twenty5i series as a 'substantial re-engineering', improving performance without moving away from the signature sound of its forbear.
The most compact of three floorstanding models in what will ultimately be a four-strong range, PS Audio's 'triple ABR' aspen FR10 packs a deceptively huge punch
For a 50-year-old company that released its first loudspeaker barely two years ago, PS Audio has not been resting on its laurels. Coming swiftly on the heels of the flagship £30,000 aspen FR30 [HFN Jun '22] are a raft of junior siblings. First up was the £20,000 FR20 [HFN Apr '23] and now we have the baby floorstander of the range, the £10,000 FR10. As an aside, I don't think we'd be letting the cat out of the bag by revealing a fourth model is in the pipeline – the two-way, ABR-loaded FR5 standmount. If it isn't priced at £5000, I'll eat my hat.
Less than a year after PS Audio launched its inaugural loudspeaker, this flagship floorstander has already inspired a trickledown sibling. Will the FR20 unseat the FR30?
The advice given by Apple's Steve Jobs to 'Start small, think big' is pretty sensible, going hand in hand with that old saw about not trying to run before you can walk. That recommendation seems to have eluded Colorado-based company PS Audio, which launched its speaker line last year with the big aspen FR30 [HFN Jun '22], arriving in the UK with a price tag now running at £30,000, and clearly aiming high straight out of the box.
Inspired by 1980s behemoths, PS Audio's inaugural loudspeakers have a sound to match their striking looks
At a time when every new high-end product seems to come with an extensive backstory, the legend behind the 'aspen' FR30, the first speakers from Colorado-based PS Audio, still takes some beating. The £28,000-a-pair floorstanders have, we're told, been '50 years in the making', which places their beginnings just before that of the company itself, started by Paul McGowan and Stan Warren in 1973. In between times, McGowan left, worked with Arnie Nudell of Infinity Systems and then bought back the PS Audio name in the late 1990s, becoming its CEO. So we can safely assume that what is now realised as the aspen FR30 has been in the works for all that time.
The final piece in PS Audio's quartet of innovative planar magnetic loudspeakers has arrived and it's quite the cutest of the range, but is it a wolf in sheep's clothing?
Even if the title isn't familiar, you'll know The March Of Progress by Rudolph Zallinger. Published in a 1965 volume of Life Nature Library and depicting 25 million years of human evolution as a series of side-on illustrations, from the ape-like Pliopithecus to modern man, it popped into my mind when I unboxed PS Audio's Aspen FR5.
If you haven’t heard of PSB before it’s not because the company is a young one – it was established as long ago as 1972, when founder Paul Barton was still at high school. But PSB’s products, well respected in its native Canada and elsewhere in North America, are only now coming to our attention in the UK, with the Armour Group (responsible for NAD and many other brands) having been appointed UK distributor.
As an emissary, the Synchrony One is impressive even given that it is the most expensive speaker in this test. Almost as tall as the Pioneer but broader, it also features five drivers but in a three-way configuration: a 25mm titanium dome tweeter, 102mm cone midrange and no fewer than three 165mm bass drivers (effective diameter about 153mm) positioned at the top, middle and bottom of the cabinet.
Despite the small size, this well thought out design has much to commend it
As the smallest and lightest speaker here, the Synchrony Two B may seem to be flying a kite in asking £1200 of its buyer. And, indeed, it is significantly cheaper in its native North America. But remember that its sibling, the large, floorstanding Synchrony One, won our group test in Aug ’09 – and take a look at the lab report. It may be diminutive but the Synchrony Two B walks tall: it has one of the flattest on-axis frequency responses here and a waterfall plot so clean that few more overtly prestigious speakers can match it.
From Switzerland, a compact phase corrected active speaker that reflects its pro background. But is it house trained?
Although virtually unknown in the UK, PSI can trace its roots back to 1975, when founder Alain Roux first started manufacturing his own loudspeaker designs while still studying at the Lausanne École Polytechnique Fédérale.
Over the past 35 years, this Swiss company has produced a range of custom, domestic, but mostly professional studio loudspeaker systems. In 1991 an analogue and digital electronics section was added to the acoustic laboratory at its Yverden manufacturing facility.
The Largest Of Q Acoustics' 5000 Series Speakers Combines Inspiration From The Concept 50 With Ideas Of Its Own
Armour Home's Q Acoustics has been busy in recent years, refreshing nearly its entire portfolio of passive and active loudspeakers, and expanding existing lines. The Concept 50 and 30 models were launched in 2022 to fill out its top-flight range, which includes the Karl-Heinz Fink-designed Concept 500 flagship , and a more affordable 5000 series appeared just before High End Munich in 2023. This didn't arrive fully complete either - the largest 5050 floorstander we're looking at here only finally debuted in the Spring of 2024.
Q Acoustics, established in 2006, is very much a new-wave brand that owes no philosophical allegiance to tradition, even if it is by definition a part of theentry-level British speaker scene.
With the Concept 20, two elements combine to achieve noteworthiness – the cabinet technology and the optional stands. It goes without saying that the price alone (£350 for the speakers, or £550 for the package) automatically qualifies this as of exceptional value.
The 655mm stands are handsome, well-made and clever – they lock to the speaker, hide the cables down the back, feature adjustable spikes, sound terrific and could probably sell by the truck-load on their own.
Inspired by the flagship Concept 500, Q Acoustics' '50 packs a host of trickledown thinking into its slender frame
When Q Acoustics launched its Concept loudspeaker range in 2013, it began with a sub-£500 standmount – the Concept 20 [HFN Feb '14]. While this was in keeping with the value-for-money reputation the UK brand had developed since its arrival in 2006, within a few years it was reaching higher with the (then) £3000 Concept 300 and £4200 flagship Concept 500 [HFN Jul '17].
In 1955 Wireless World published articles by Quad’s Peter Walker on the practical and theoretical aspects of making a full range electrostatic speaker. That year, he demonstrated two different prototypes developing one for the first public demonstration at the 1956 Audio Fair. Due credit must be given to Walker for the huge amount of pioneering work involved and the brave decision to make it a commercial product.
When first introduced, a single ESL would have set you back £52, yet demand was far greater than supply.
Quad's first new speakers in some seven years feature an evolved version of the ribbon tweeter seen in its 'Corner Horn' of 70 years ago. Now, of course, they come in pairs!
For nearly nine years, I have been listening to Quad's ribbon-hybrid S-1 speaker – the brand's smallest two-way box-type system – as part of my day-to-day desktop set-up. When they were launched, I revelled in the realisation that they were a throwback to Quad's first ever loudspeaker, the Corner Ribbon of 1949, and the all-new Revela 1 tells you that the company's boffins, based in the UK and China, haven't been sitting idle since 2015.