Montreal Audio Fest 2022

(All prices are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that every single audiophile, in that moment when they heard the news that PS Audio was coming out with a loudspeaker—not just any speaker, but a statement product—felt a combination of incredulity and curiosity, for a couple of reasons: PS Audio doesn't make speakers. It's an electronics company. In its almost 50-year history, PS Audio has never made a speaker. And suddenly it has, in the aspen FR30 ($40,000/pair).

However, those in the know know that the aspen isn't PS Audio's Paul McGowan's first foray into speaker design and sales. In the 1990s, he cofounded, with Arnie Nudell, speaker manufacturer Genesis, and stayed there for seven years before returning to PS Audio. In a candid moment in one of his videos, Paul reveals that although electronics was a more natural direction for him to take when he founded PS Audio, what he always wanted to do, most of all, was to build loudspeakers.

So, what kept him? What kept him was an ideal based on PS Audio's in-house reference speakers—the mighty infinity IRS V. Paul would bring a speaker to market only if he was convinced that it was capable of roundly beating the performance of the IRS Vs. Cue the aspen FR30.

And cue me, going into the PS Audio room to listen to the FR30, connected to a collection of PS Audio's latest products, including its BHK monoblocs ($11,000 each), a BHK preamp ($8400), a Directstream DAC ($8400), an SACD transport ($9000), and two P15 Power Regenerators ($10,600 each), attractively arranged on Quadraspire SVT and SVTL racks and shelves and connected with Kimber Kable Carbon interconnects and speaker wire and PK10 power cords.

From the batch of blues and contemporary tracks I heard, launched from a laptop, the aspens projected an electrically charged soundfield that was big and dimensional, with notes that were bold and fully formed, supple and dynamic. Even the quieter moments seemed to emit an energetic presence, a kind of radiant musical assertiveness. The speakers sounded well balanced across the frequency range. They also balanced power and agility, machismo and finesse, soaring highs and low-end heft.