Chris, he seems like a very humble person, and of course intelligent.

This is clearly the best way to bring out the best in Chris. Good job Paul.

Great chat guys. Thanks, Chris. I could listen to you talk speakers all day, man! Excellent vid. 🎶🔊🙂

I like this format -- sort of question and answer . . . like an interview. There is more dynamics and focus this way.

Really enjoy listening to Chris share his knowledge.

I just love thies viedos Paul and Chris! they are amazing "I am new to Hi fi " so for me its amazing to get so much knowlage though you guys! I can only say thank you!

man, i'm absolutely LOVING these chats!!

Chris is a smart guy, good to hear from him.

Outstanding individual. I vastly appreciate his pace, depth and breadth of knowledge/competency. Not just in the field, but the science and also along the vertical integration side. Not one word was used to brag/claim attention to anything that didn't contribute to the discussion. You guys are lucky to have him as a worker!

Very informative conversation. Like Your videos, Paul !

Love the lunch series!!! More!!

More of these pls Paul/Chris 🙏🏼 One can learn a lot of nifty things. I for one took a ton of new info and such and I must’ve watch these vids like dozens of times already tbh

I received my Magnepan LRS about two weeks ago. I am extremely impressed. I am running PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell Dac and a Pass 150.5. The neutrality, and balance of the speaker is simply astonishing. They image reasonably well, but my room does not allow for pulling them out more than 3 feet. I imagine in a better space they would disappear. I owned Martin Logans for awhile but I could never get into them and because of that I shy'd away from Magnepans for literally decades. The thing I love about the LRS is that its a great speaker that gets better with your gear. I may pair them with a couple small REL subs to bring the air back into the playback, but even without them I am simply amazed.

Well done AMTs are the sweet spot. The square Aurum Cantus units in my speakers are ultra clean but not fatiguing at all.

Great interview and clear explanations, thank you

Great, Paul. I knew that you would find a way to help Chris and his knowledge base to be articulated. He is really a fine engineer by all of his understanding. Now he is sharing it with us. Thanks Paul for finding his talent and revealing Chris to us.

I like big stats and I cannot lie... sittin in the sweet spot Listen to a pin drop Feel the viola bow Far left in third row But as far as the bass go I gotta rock that sub yo Cause stats don’t thump and I like the bump so a pair of big subs ta shake ya rump 🤣

More please. Awesome.

My dad built himself some speakers back in the day with compression drivers and a horn in front of it. These drivers were JBL 2426H's and are still sold today for around 800$ a piece. Now I'm building my own speakers and im using four BG Neo8 PDR per side for around 800$ and i think they sound phenomenal. The only issue I'm having, is that these planars are much more directional, where the jbl horns are not that much directional due to their biradial horn flares..

I like these series, keep them coming please.

I find it funny that they are talking costs that really amount to pennies or less they pennies and yet the end user pays out the a$$ for the product. Like with the speakers in the car. You know the car had to be 40 grand plus and yet .005 cents was the breaking point for the stereo system, one of the most use items in a car. Same with home audio. How many times have we looked into or had something break that if the builder would have added 10 cents to the build it would have never happened? I also know there is a lot of components and the pennies add up but $5, 10 15 extra in a build that costs the consumer thousands seems like a no brainer to me.

THIS is excellent!! Answers SO many questions Ive had but never knew where to ask for so long!! Great stuff?

Not so sure I agree with the "cost more" comment. I can get a pair of Magnepan 3.7i's for $6500, whereas I can easily name 10 "box" speakers that top 6 figures.

And what about acoustic drawbacks related to this larger area drivers? The way he puts it, it sounds as if every "money no object" setup were made of planars.

Very well done gents. Great content and questions. I just love listening to Chris talk about speakers. Very interesting topics. More please 🙏

It is true the early Quads from 60 years ago have very narrow dispersion , hence the “head in a vice” effect. However, many of these Quad 57 electrostatics are still in use today as the mid range is considered unmatched by any modern speaker. I have a pair of full range ESL IV electrostatics built by E R Audio here in Australia. They are in a different league from any box speaker I have ever heard. Modern electrostatic designs have largely addressed the narrow dispersion and lack of bass. The principle is simple but building requires skill and is not just a matter of slapping off-the-shelf drivers into an enclosure. Yes, they are large and expensive, but so are many top quality box speakers. Electrostatics are super fast , have very low distortion and no distorting crossover. I get useful output down to 30Hz. Bass is more refined than a big cone woofer as electrostats do not pressurise the room in the same way. A good recording sounds simply stunning.

How do I get to have lunch with Paul? I'll buy!

I think Arnie would like this guy.

Magnepan Clarity: customers keep coming back, minus class D, Go AB sst-ampzilla ll

Someday PS Audio Might have an actual speaker for sale but I doubt it!

I agree with Richard, I think he's assuming all of us understand like you do. You sometime have him stop and explain things in a way you know we'll all understand.

Is this the interview(s) that landed Chris a job with PSAudio?

If cost is a problem, how is Magnepan selling the LRS for a budget price of 650 dollars? As far as I understand, Magnepan has not invested in automated processes so theoretically the cost of construction could be brought down from there. I’m not sure I totally believe that cost is a valid con.

All the ribbon tweeters I have heard have an almost glassy timbre to them

From outside it would look like two person are talking about normal everyday stuff, taxes, politics, etc. In reality, they are talking about really interesting and smart things. Really good video, but I recommend finding next time a less crowded, noisy place.

I still miss my Apogee Scintillas 😔

On one side of the pacific you have the factories with some engineers trying to squeeze every penny out of the BOM and on the other side you have the brands with product managers trying to grow the margin to make a business. Often you end up with a speaker costing 1000s of US$ in retail that has drivers in it that cost well under US$100 on the BOM. It's great if PS Audio can put some quality drivers in their future speakers through in-house passionate engineering.

Look at the quality and prices of Airpulse 80 and Edifier s3000pro

Please send me my tubes. I paid $230 over two months ago for something I could have had overnighted to me from amazon.

are planars with field coils possible?

Praise the lord - what refreshing honesty - cuts through all the bs- planers are ARE superior approach to sound reproduction unless (OK rock and orchestral fans) u want/need huge spl / bass. Who cares if they don’t disperse -audiophiles listen alone like 98% of the time?! And yes they do need to be away from walls but so does any cone speaker with a rear vent! They are complex and fragile compared to most cone speakers and their resistance can drop To 2 ohms so u need a amp that doesn’t drop voltage but ceteris parabis but there is no better sound than stats...I fidn though that so many audiophiles have not really heard let alone auditioned good planars..the industry understandably pushes boxes-high WAF, easy to ship, not fragile , easier to place in a room, I get it and there are obviously some great sounding box speakers-but lets at least be honest -for vocal, acoustical, jazz, single listener (and its almost ALWAYS a single listener situatuion) ESPECIALLy on a dollar to dollar basis, simply cant beat planars/electrostats-open baffle )also unknown to most audiophiles) come closest , and they also get you more bass. (Although even less WAF)

Size, cost and needs a subwoofer.

The idea that they're more expensive or labour intensive seems a little counter intuitive. I just saw a guy on youtube whip up a planar speaker in real time in about half an hour. WIthout any power tools. It'd actually make a pretty good science project for any 8th grader who'd left it till the night before. And like he said, a traditional driver has all sorts of parts. You also need dies and casts and metallurgy and a dozen different materials. I couldn't even make a spider in my garage, but I could make a planar with whatever I have under the kitchen sink.

Six panel tympani 1 d Makes my hair stand up. And is smaller than my boxes and horns.

Drink every time he nods...

The commercial thing. Thats why popular brands also sell bad things. but thats what the mass want, they cant or dont want another experience. if there are less brands or better cooperatives with each other all could win but where're in capitalism.

Chris & Paul, if you're not already aware of him, you guys should look at videos by Joppe Peelen. Dutch, coffee and beer drinking and not afraid to swear on air. Not many subscribers, but there's some serious genius in his work.

Is it a coincidence that midway through the video the lens flare made a Halo around Chris B's head? IS IT?? I think not.

The "head in a vice" issue isn't a problem with planar headphones, of course! And cost isn't such a problem if you track down a pair of vintage planar headphones.

They aren't very efficient

Paul, could you please stop badgering the witness. I will never pay 12,000 dollars for any class D powered speaker. I'm to crafty, I could build better sounding and definitely better looking .🤭

There is a lot of truth in this. But again this is out of context. Ribbons and Plannar drivers only sound cool and do some impressive things. The problem with them is that they sound unnatural not playing as a whole with other drivers, and don't integrate very well in regards to structure, and require a lot of complex handling, again extending the signal which is bad. So what you get in the end is just something that impresses you, not something that sounds like the real thing. Plus they only work in a very limited space, and can't handle a gush of wind because that takes them out so they need replacing. (happened to some of my friends while opening a window) Yes they sound many times awesome, but again then you are going for a bias that is more HIFI techy/isolating detail on a data level, rather than actually listening to something that is as close as possible to the optimal natural sound. I have only heard Verity Sarastro 2 which had a really top notch ribbon tweeter, and yes it was awesome. But still a bit tirering in the long run, not fully integrating, ending up in making the detail stick out which is nice in the start. (and this is the best ribbon I have ever heard) Most other ribbons just sound wrong, same with plannar drivers. It wow you, but several months later it just gets in the way of music, so that everything sounds like it is going through a cheaper kind of filter, compared to what is optimal. It is a way of cheating, a bit like making a normal speaker with ceramic drivers, sounds cool, but later you end up regretting it because normal ceramic drivers on normals speakers suck the life out of music and just goes after effect not substance. Yes normal dynamic drivers has more distortion. But again, this is out of context because they usually also have a better high quality filter that is a bit shorter in signal, and those components with the speaker drivers, just deliver more music which is the most important thing. Less distortion is only relevant mentioning, when you are also comparing the same quality of components behind what is used as units. The biggest problem with Ribbon and Plannar tech is all that is used together with it, is usually not very good, and the ribbon tech especially has a knack for telling the user this. It's all about coupling the right parts together, separate parts that are the best in theory almost never sound like the best, when not coupled correctly. A natural form of distortion also sounds many times better, distortion should not be looked down upon, it is mostly important how you solve minimizing it, than just removing it which sounds cool on paper.

Again so much prejudice on electrostatics and hearsay that is going around for decades now that are NOT true. Wonder if Chris ever heard a good set. There is still nothing on the planet that beats a good full range ESL (not a hybrid, not a ribbon, not a planar) They have all the low you need, but no distortion and that is what you're listening at with woofers and even more with subs. The linearity in phase and time coherency of an electrostatic full range speaker is unmatched no matter how many fancy box speakers they build. Everybody talks about "speed" nowadays, fast this, fast that. Well an electrostatic is the fastest there is period. Nothing can even come close let alone match it. Head in vice? NO. That was with the 57 design of the Quad Paul is referring to. That is long gone. No bass? NO. But no 10% (yes really) or more distortion like conventional woofers. They go down to 35 Hz with less than 1% distortion. Again nothing on the planet can match that. They don't play loud? Depends on your interpretation of loud. No you can't imitate rock concert. But remember anything above 90 dB can cause hearing damage in the longer term. Once you have heard a good full range electrostatic loudspeaker your lost, there is no way back, you're hooked for life. I am.