Who actually heard the Infinity IRS?

My bad, we were not an Infinity dealer. I didn't have much info or lit on them. I guess at the time I called every EMIT type driver a ribbon. 

I have heard the IRS Vs at PS audio. The sound was effortless regardless of spls. I found nothing objectionable about the mid range. Quite the opposite actually. In the room I heard them, they have since moved them to a different room/location, I recall incredible detail with a soundstage bigger than the actual room in which they sat. It’s hard to imagine anything that could compare to the scale these towers produced. The only thing that even came close to this was a room at RMAF in which they were running the top model of Focal speakers driven by giant and I  do mean giant kilowatt mono-block amps (maybe mbl). And they running four massive speakers into a giant room. I believe the cost of that system was north of $2 million. 
 

If you’re ever near Boulder Colorado give PS Audio a call and ask for a listen. They are very friendly and eager to give folks a listen to their demo rooms. AND  yes they still have the IRS system in house.

Best regards

Birdfan

The term "ribbon" is commonly misused. The Infinity EMIM and EMIT drivers are not ribbon drivers; as noted above "EMI" denotes Electro Magnetic Induction, the "M" and "T" midrange and tweeter respectively.

Magnepan’s are often referred to as ribbon loudspeakers, which except for their fantastic ribbon tweeter (found in the 3.7, 20.7, and 30 series models, and in the old Tympani T-IV and T-IVa, the latter of which I own) they are not. Magnepan themselves don’t help by naming their entry-level model the "LRS", for Little Ribbon Speaker. The LRS contains no ribbon drivers, but rather all planar-magnetic’s.

The Servo-Static 1 and 2 does not contain ribbons, but rather are electrostatics with a dynamic woofer. The "Static" in the name is used for that reason, the "Servo" for the servo-controlled woofer.

I heard the IRS at an early Stereophile Show, demoed by Mike Kay of New York’s Lyric Hi-Fi. Unfortunately, he used all corny Audiophile recordings, which imo have little relevance to how a speaker reproduces real music.

I heard them back in the late 80's. They could not cast an image worth a toot and we played with them for hours. Anybody can build a huge speaker that goes loud. Getting it to image is another matter entirely. The big Magnepans and Apogee Divas were much better speakers not that they didn't have problems. They certainly were not as powerful. We 911 nuts have a saying. It is not how fast you go but how you go fast. 

bdp24