Ribbon midrange pros and cons

None of you have heard of the long-discontinued Apogee full range ribbon loudspeakers?! Three way, all three drivers (bass, midrange, tweeter) being true, pure ribbons. They remain the all-time favorite speakers of some. Very hard to drive---their impedance dropped below 1 ohm, and were very insensitive/inefficient, and were therefore commonly paired with Krell amps. And they were pretty expensive.

Its funny that you mention the Apogee ribbons. ..back in the 80's my best friends father had a machine shop and he was making the framework for the Apogee ribbon speakers. He had two sets in his house driven by Krell amps and JBL 18 in.subs..That was our after school party system for many years. ....sorry to say his wifes cats destroyed them and about 20 years later he gave me both sets....they were so big it took two men just to move the tweeter column.They were easily the size of a front house door .l posted them on Audiogon many years ago and a guy drove from New York to Indiana in a rental truck to buy them...l had no interest in restoring them...Anyway the sound they produced was very open and airy with a big sound stage....and very detailed. ....but they lacked that dynamic punch you get from a traditional cone type speaker so l had no interest in them....

I have a pair of Infinity epsilons that use Infinity’s 2nd generation High energy planar EMIT tweeters, High energy EMIM midranges and High energy L-EMIM mid bass drivers.

These 2nd generation push/pull design drivers have greater dynamic range do to the much improved magnetic circuits, they play 12 db louder with a smoother response and a wider bandwidth while having less distortion and coloration than infinity’s original planar drivers.

While I would say these newer Infinity planar drivers are much improved over other modern day planar driver speakers that I have heard, they still are not quite as dynamic as most cones and domes but they do so many other things better than most cones and domes that once you have a listen to them with really good recordings and electronics it will be hard to go back to cones again, I have been listening to planar speakers for over 25 years and have yet to hear a cone speaker that can match their sound quality in other than dynamics.

So I have a question, did the OP mean to ask about ribbon _midrange_ drivers?? That's why I asked about specific speakers, and especially current models.

I know of a lot fewer midrange, true ribbons than I do say, a midrange AMT or planar magnetic.

Best,
E

I’m uncertain what Magnepan uses, but my guess is long, thin, planar magnetic drivers. (Though the new LRS may use ribbons - but if the conductor is bonded to a membrane, it isn’t a ribbon).

I did some research and Magnepan makes "true ribbons" (some of their tweeters), as well as "quasi ribbons" really planar magnetics.

I think the OP was unclear, and seemed to group all flat rectangular drivers as "ribbons." He mentioned the forthcoming PS Audio AN speakers, which are using planar magnetics (or maybe AMTs) for their midrange.