Who actually heard the Infinity IRS?

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

 

I had pair 02 in my home for 20 months way back when 

Wonderful Loudspeaker 

Thanks - Mark 

Mark, very impressive that you owned them. 👂👍