Ribbon midrange pros and cons

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.

Having owned Apogee Divas for 16 years I feel a bit qualified to talk about this. There are very few true ribbon speakers on the market. Mostly you see small ribbon tweeters and for many of the you can get replacement ribbons. Magnepan has a tweeter ribbon replacement program. They will send you a new set of tweeters and you send them the old ones back. All for a minimal fee. They rebuild the old ones and give then to someone else. The magnet structures are very hard to damage and they essentially will last for centuries. All ribbons are very fragile. If your wife tries to clean the speaker grill cloth with a vacuum they will suck the ribbon right out of the speaker. Magnepan uses what they call a quasi ribbon for the mid range driver which is a mylar diaphragm with wires in it which is more like a planar magnetic driver. Much tougher. The Diva used pure ribbon drivers throughout and under the right circumstances they sounded wonderful. But, there were problems. It was hard to get them up to 100 db even with subwoofers.
The ribbons stretched over time. The ribbons were very easy to damage physically. My nephew kicked one of my woofer ribbons at the age of two putting a big dent in it. As soon as Apogee went under I sold them and put my old Acoustats back in service eventually solving all the issues I had with them. Good electrostatics are immortal. In order to hurt the Acoustats I would have to drive a stake through them and boy do they go loud. Magnepan tweeters are the most durable ribbons I know of and boy are they great tweeters I tried to buy a set from Magnepan and they would not sell them. I also think Magnepan makes the best dipole planar loudspeakers that are not electrostatic and they are absolutely a fabulous value. It is also a great company to deal with. 
Over all I think you are much safer with dome tweeters then going for ribbons with point source speakers. Once you go linear array then you can not beat Magnepan's tweeter until you go electrostatic. m