PS Audio Aspen FR5: Small Speakers–Big Sounds

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Nearly 4 years ago, Paul McGowan’s PS Audio company made a huge splash in the audio market with its first-ever flagship loudspeaker, the FR30, a 200-lb. behemoth complete with 7 drivers and 4 bass radiators. Subsequently, two smaller models the FR20 and FR10 have appeared, offering much of the FR30’s performance values. Now PS Audio has dived into the highly competitive pool of stand-mounted speakers with their newest “baby” –- the FR5 two-way speaker system.

What’s in the Boxes? 

The review pair of black FR5s (white is also available) arrived in two boxes. The first box contained the speakers with two removable cloth grilles, 2 jumpers, 8 small adhesive feet, an owner’s manual with a demonstration CD, and Paul McGowan’s comprehensive guidebook for speaker set-up. (The specifications for each speaker and stand are at the end of this review.) The second box contained the speaker stands: 2 pillars, 2 base plates with adjustable feet (for leveling), 2 top plates, and the requisite tools for assembling them. The front and middle sections of the pillars can be filled with sand or other materials to add stability (not done for this review). If bi-wiring or bi-amping is not desired, the jumpers can unite the tweeters/bass drivers which is how the FR5s were connected to my audio system.

Starting Up

Once the stands were assembled (best accomplished with an assistant holding things steady) and the speakers affixed to the top plate with the adhesive feet, the spikes were left in place on the area rug of my 18’ x 15’ by 12’ listening room.  As recommended by the instruction manual, placement began with the speakers slightly toed-in and 18” from the rear wall—a distance that incrementally increased to 36.” Eventually, the FR5s were placed 72” apart from center to center and 88” from my listening  position.  The FR5s were auditioned with a Pass Labs XP-22 line stage, a Pass Labs X-250.8 amplifier (and later a Pass Labs XA-30.8 amplifier), and a PS PerfectWave SACD Player and DAC Mk2. All cables were Nordost Valhalla 1 and Valhalla 1 power cords were plugged into a Running Springs Audio Dmitri current distributor/surge protector. After some preliminary listening, I found that the FR5s sounded slightly better with the grilles off.

Play Time

Paul McGowan has supplied a carefully curated “Aspen Loudspeaker Guide” CD which opens with tracks for balancing channels and adjusting bass output, followed by test cuts featuring solo trumpet, bass, piano and drums and 11 tracks of music performed by musicians from PS Audio’s in-house label Octave Records that began with Gabriel Mervine’s quartet (trumpet, bass, piano, and drums) on “Whispers.” This track sounds holographic with each instrument clearly presented in its own space and located slightly behind the two speakers. Track 10 “Wait” is a very natural, warm sound-picture featuring Jessica Carson’s vocals accompanied by Tom Amend on the piano. Track 19 concludes the test CD with an outstanding performance of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” played by a well-placed ensemble of trombone, sax, piano, drums and bass as each instrument received its moment to shine.

While Aspen FR5 buyers will find this demo disc quite useful for setting up the FR5s, how did these speakers handle other recordings? Keeping the jazz vibe alive, I fed the FR5s the lively “I Could Have Danced All Night” featuring clarinetist Ken Peplowski and Dick Hyman playing piano. This duet simply exploded into my room as the speakers captured all the nuances of each musician’s sound contributions. In contrast, The Duke’s “In a Sentimental Mood” found a more intimate but crystal-clear collaboration between Chico Freeman’s warm sax and George Cable’s full-bodied concert grand piano. The FR5s were no slouch with orchestral music either, as exemplified by “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” given a room-filling presentation in a high-resolution remastering (176.4kHz/24-bit download) of a historic recording by conductor Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. One of the great treasures of the jazz repertoire is The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album. True justice was paid to the remarkable melding of Evans’s tasteful piano improvisations and Bennett’s inimitable vocals in a Japanese SACD reissue that belies the age of the 50-year-old original master tapes. Finally, getting the low down on the “low down,” the FR5s acquitted themselves surprisingly well on the powerful bass notes produced by Brian Bromberg on Wood II during the jazz chestnut “Caravan.” Compared to my reference speakers, the much larger MartinLogan Expression 13s–a hybrid electrostatic speaker with with a pair of powered 10″ woofers, the FR5s did not quite match the slam and power of the Expression 13’s bass array on that final cut but were certainly impressive in their own right.

The Final Assessment

As the PS Audio website confidently states: “The FR5 joins the ranks of a rare handful of 2-way full-range speakers that can honestly cover the frequency range of 35Hz to beyond 20kHz with grace, dynamism, slam and low distortion.” My lengthy auditioning certainly confirmed this statement. The PS Audio FR5 speakers present a small but mighty choice for buyers whose rooms don’t quite fit this speaker’s larger siblings. In reality, the FR5 shares the same high frequency transducer as its bigger brothers and will fit comfortably in larger rooms with little audible compromise. Carrying a very affordable price tag, these floor-standers were very easy to drive by amps like those ones used in this review with outputs ranging from very low (30 watts/channel) to high (250 watts/channel) and will provide many hours of audio pleasure. Highly recommended.

PS Audio Aspen FR5 retails for $3,499.00 USD on the PS Audio Website

• Brand: PS Audio
• Website: www.psaudio.com
• MSRP: $3499 (without stands); $3999 (with stands)

Specifications: