Heard a KILLER new Electrostat - JansZen!!!!!!!!!

This speaker was amazing! Designed by David Janszen, son of the famous KLH nine designer, Arthur Janszen.


This speaker is up there with the CLX and the Soundlab. The amazing thing is this speaker is hybrid. However, it is so seamless, one would never know. To my ears it smokes all other hybrid electrostats - summit and sanders, which sound hi-fi in comparison. I would love to get the clx, soundlab, and the janszen in the same room for a shootout, although it would probably never happen.

Some interesting notes:

- The speaker is not a dipole, which makes room interactions much easier to deal with.
- It has woofers on top and the bottom. The bass is very natural vs. hifi sounding on some logans. This is due to enclosed cabinets.

- The speakers weigh 150 lbs each and are physically smaller than clx and soundlab.
- They sound better without the front grills.
- The electrostatic panel is fairly small. The speaker is designed for seated listeining, with the ears to be at mid-panel.
- The sweetspot is huge.
- The speaker is priced in the $20's.
- 45 day trial period available
- http://www.janszenloudspeaker.com/index.htm


The ancillary electronics were my Ayre c5, atmasphere preamp, and 150 wpc herron monoblocks. This equipment was smacked together from various chicago audio society members, so the synergy probably was not the best. To my taste, the system was underpowered. I wish I had brought my cj 350!

I'll let the reviewers use fancy language to describe the sound. I will not even try to use the audiophile terms because they are not necessary. To me the system sounded like real music!

Yes, this is a very interesting speaker. I'm hoping it will be at the RMAF this year. I don't know of any dealers here, in the Austin area, that are carrying it.

slowGEEZR said:

Yes, this is a very interesting speaker. I'm hoping it will be at the RMAF this year. I don't know of any dealers here, in the Austin area, that are carrying it.

Click to expand...

I think the David Janszen is working on putting a network of dealers together. There is one in California, I believe. He offers 45 in home trial, if you are interested. Don't know about RMAF. He is very personable. You can reach out to him via contact information on his website.

I seen a prototype version as CES in 2007 I wasnt really impressed with the sound but it was at a show so I wouldnt pass judgment yes he is a very personable and passionate about the sound the new models look a great deal better than the ones that I seen.

Looks like this unit has 2 crossover points. 255 Hz and 600Hz. I would love to listen to one.

The picture above is old - there are 2 woofers - one on top and one on the bottom for some very natural bass. The panel is also straight. The latest picture is on the website.

As for the cross-over points, I think there is one at 250.

David Matz said:

The panel is also straight. The latest picture is on the website.

Click to expand...

Good if true, I'm getting a kink in my neck looking at them.

I can find no pictures of the driver arrangement on their site.

kach22i said:

Good if true, I'm getting a kink in my neck looking at them.

I can find no pictures of the driver arrangement on their site.

Click to expand...

http://www.janszenloudspeaker.com/index.htm

Look under the "PANELS" link. The leftmost part of the panel, which is thinner, is for high frequencies. The other 2/3 of the panel is for the midrange.

$32,500 list as per the 12/07 Soundstage review of the earlier, diagonal, single-woofer design, though the Janszen site has a note about new pricing for a new economy. Do we know what that new price is?

RUR said:

$32,500 list as per the 12/07 Soundstage review of the earlier, diagonal, single-woofer design, though the Janszen site has a note about new pricing for a new economy. Do we know what that new price is?

Click to expand...

I believe it's in the $20's. This makes it competitive with the clx and soundlabs. It puts it also in a similar price category as the yg kipod, wilson sasha, and magicos - v3 and minis. In my opinion, it smokes the yg, the wilson, and the magicos by shear realism of the music and coherence. This speaker is much more natural sounding than this bunch of non-electrostats.

Interestingly, when Harry Pearson reviewed them, he compared them favorably against the $60K Scaenas. Just shows how hard it is to find the value point of a speaker.

Pricewise, this may be a steal. Contact David Janszen for the exact price.

Three ES tweeter elements: 600 Hz - 20 kHz
Six ES mid/woof elements: 225 Hz - 600 Hz
Two low distortion, 8" dynamic woofers: 30 Hz - 225 Hz

Looks like 2 crossover points to me.

I would love to hear them. I grew up listening to a pair of janszen Z-40 I believe my father purchased them in the mid to late 70's.I googled this pic of them it is really a bad one but you get the idea there is not much info of them out their. he still has them but replaced them with a pair of vistas


the pic on the left is with the cover on and the pic on the right is with it off. they had these strange metal like shingles that went over the electrostatic transducer to even out the sound ways I guess.they are still in great shape and sound good.

FISH_MAN said:

I would love to hear them. I grew up listening to a pair of janszen Z-40 I believe my father purchased them in the mid to late 70's.I googled this pic of them it is really a bad one but you get the idea there is not much info of them out their. he still has them but replaced them with a pair of vistas

the pic on the left is with the cover on and the pic on the right is with it of. they had these strange metal like shingles that went over the electrostatic transducer to even out the sound ways I guess.they are still in great shape and sound good.

Click to expand...

That's an acoustical lens, used to disperse the sound over an angle that is wider than the raw driver's natural angle of dispersion. This lens works on the same refractive principle as optical lenses. In both optical and acoustical applications a precision lens is used to bend the rays of energy flow to a predetermined angle. Sound Lab uses one in their MiniStat hybrid model, where the natural dispersion angle of the raw electrostatic panel is only 15 degrees at 20 kHz. The acoustical lens increases this angle to 90 degrees.



JBL used acoustical lenses on some of their horn loaded speakers in the past.

Brian Walsh said:

...
JBL used acoustical lenses on some of their horn loaded speakers in the past.

Click to expand...

As did many of the Japanese brands back in the 70's and early 80's. I recall seeing these lenses featured often.
Those were the days when everyone was trying flat woofers, flat mids and flat tweets. Of course a flat radiator does not disperse as well at higher freq. ergo the lenses.

Which now begs the question on the JansZen, how do they get a wide enough horizontal dispersion from a 2" (guessing here) wide flat ESL radiator?

I find it very interesting that someone finally had the guts to do an enclosed back large ESL.

By using fully enclosed cabinets, unlike most planars, JansZens put sound out only to the front. This makes setup as easy as with regular speakers, and eliminates the comb filtering that colors the sound from large area dipoles

Click to expand...

I've long held the notion that Dipole is a huge compromise in room interaction to favor low air resistance on both sides of the diaphragm. For frequencies above 300Hz, air resistance is minor and I'm sure there are compensations that designs like the JensZen implement to mitigate.

My 'ultimate theater' design uses ESL's in an infinite baffle mounting alignment to mitigate the dipole nasties.

So I believe we will see more designs doing a monopole config.

Cherian said:

Three ES tweeter elements: 600 Hz - 20 kHz
Six ES mid/woof elements: 225 Hz - 600 Hz
Two low distortion, 8" dynamic woofers: 30 Hz - 225 Hz

Looks like 2 crossover points to me.

Click to expand...

Cherian, you are correct about the 2 crossovers. The good news is that the crossovers sound seamless.

Also, my understanding is that David Janszen is working on puting together a dealer network. So if anyone wants to hear this speaker, talk to your dealer, and maybe they can sign up.

This guy didn't like them: http://www.audioworld.com/sw/Forum1/HTML/007746.html

User211 said:

This guy didn't like them: http://www.audioworld.com/sw/Forum1/HTML/007746.html

Click to expand...

Thanks, Justin.

If you look at the reason, he said he didn't like the digital glare, as he is a vinyl guy. I am not sure it's the job of a speaker designer to eliminate the digital glare. Rather it should be to reproduce the signal. There could also be issues of the room and ancillaries, etc.

The first 15-20 minutes was a demo from an ipod. It sounded pretty awesome with a crappy source. I talked to 10-15 guys in the room and they liked the speaker. We all have our tastes and opinions, and this is great. Some like 21 day aged steak while others like tofu. It is a hobby after all. Personally, I am going to hear some live music this weekend.

Can't disagree with what you've said there - and I was pretty much going to say what you did... but I thought I'd run it past you without doing so...

At the end of the day - crap in, crap out. And you can play that trick with any high res speaker.

Enjoy the gig.

David Matz said:

Thanks, Justin.

If you look at the reason, he said he didn't like the digital glare, as he is a vinyl guy. I am not sure it's the job of a speaker designer to eliminate the digital glare. Rather it should be to reproduce the signal. There could also be issues of the room and ancillaries, etc.

The first 15-20 minutes was a demo from an ipod. It sounded pretty awesome with a crappy source. I talked to 10-15 guys in the room and they liked the speaker. We all have our tastes and opinions, and this is great. Some like 21 day aged steak while others like tofu. It is a hobby after all. Personally, I am going to hear some live music this weekend.

Click to expand...

I know Bob Aranyi, the person who posted his opinions, and towards the end of the meeting asked what he thought. I understand exactly to what he is referring, and it's not a matter of compensating for source, personal tastes aside. Incidentally, Bob has been a digital source listener and is only just getting back into vinyl.

David, you heard your player here and are welcome to bring it over again.

Hearing live music is a very good thing - it lets us recalibrate our ears, especially if it's unamplified. Have a great weekend.