Although I retired as Stereophile’s editor-in-chief at the end of March 2019, I still have an ongoing connection with the magazine. As well as contributing reviews and measuring the audio products that are being reviewed, I prepare the magazine’s content for republishing on its website. So when JansZen Audio’s David Janszen contacted me about reviewing his Valentina P8 loudspeaker, I looked through my back issues to find reviews of JansZen speakers that could be posted. The earliest review I found was by Stereophile founder J. Gordon Holt, of the JansZen Z-600, in December 1966, which you now can find online.1 Gordon uncharacteristically gushed over the Z-600: “We have lived with a pair of Z-600s for several months now, and our initial enthusiasm for them has not dwindled in the slightest. They provide the clearest, most musically natural ‘window’ to the sound of any generally available under-$1000 system we have ever heard.”
Although it was branded as JansZen, the Z-600 was manufactured by the Neshaminy Corporation. The JansZen connection was that it used two square electrostatic tweeters, mounted sideby-side and licensed from Arthur A. Janszen, who had presented a paper, “An Electrostatic Loudspeaker Development,” at the Sixth Annual Convention of the Audio Engineering Society in October 1954. (His paper was subsequently published in the first issue of the JAES and reprinted in the journal’s anthology, Loudspeakers Vol.1–Vol.25 (1953–1977).2) Arthur Janszen subsequently joined KLH and was responsible for the legendary KLH Nine full-range electrostatic loudspeaker, which Gordon Holt reviewed in June 1966, subsequently writing, in 1968, that “this is probably the most nearly perfect loudspeaker we have tested until this time.” (You can find his review on Stereophile’s website.3)
Neshaminy ceased operation in the 1970s, KLH was purchased by Kyocera in 1982, which decided to stop manufacturing audio products,4 and Arthur Janszen passed away in 1991. The JansZen Audio company was founded by David A. Janszen, Arthur Janszen’s son, to honor his father’s legacy.
The Valentina P8
This full-range, floorstanding loudspeaker costs $9250/pair. Like the Z-600, the P8 uses two electrostatic tweeters, but here they are mounted one above the other in the center of the front baffle forming a panel measuring 7" wide by 16" high. Unlike other electrostatic loudspeakers, which have a dipolar radiation pattern, the P8’s panel is loaded with a sealed subenclosure. Two 8" dynamic
