Pickering, Ontario — PSB Speakers is bringing industrial-design and technology elements from its top-end Synchrony series of in-room speakers to its new Image series, a quartet of speakers with subtle curves and real-wood veneers priced up to $2,000/pair for a three-driver tower.
The seven-model Synchrony series, launched last year as the company’s new flagship series, tops out at a suggested $4,500/pair.
Both series conform to the company’s mission of making “top-of-the-heap sonics and quality accessible to the widest possible range of potential owners,” said founder and chief designer Paul Barton.
In the latest series, PSB used many of the lessons learned in developing Synchrony over a three-year period, “particularly in cabinet design and manufacture,” Barton said of the speakers’ compound-curved vertical faces. The cabinet design yields enhanced performance, not just enhanced cosmetics, he said.
Other borrowed elements include a bullet-shaped aluminum phase-plug to enhance linearity at higher frequencies and measurably lowers distortion, and a highly linear and efficient neodymium-magnet tweeter to deliver “airy top octaves and smooth, uncolored response through the critical crossover region coupled with high power handling,” the company said.
The four models consist of the $2,000/pair 2.5-way, three-driver Imagine T Model; the $1,000/pair two-way bookshelf Imagine B; the $800 two-way horizontal Image C center channel; and the $1,200/pair Image S two-way surround speaker, which operates in monopole, bipole or dipole mode. In two-channel mode, the latter speaker can do double duty as side/rear-surround speaker in a 7.1-channel system.
All four are available in satin-finish black ash or dark-cherry furniture-grade veneers and are hand-finished. All will be displayed at the CEDIA Expo for immediate shipment.
All four Imagine models feature very-high-output 5.25-inch woofers and efficient neodymium-magnet 1-inch tweeters. As a result, the 7.5-inch by 41-inch by 12.5-inch tower offers 90dB efficiency, while the other speakers are 89dB efficient.
The dual-ported tower and center channel are each supplied with one port-cover per speaker to tune the system to adapt to individual room acoustics, speaker location or listener preference. Radiused, unbroken 1.5-inch-thick baffles and flush, fastener-less driver mounts promote low-distortion high-frequency response and horizontal dispersion.
In a separate product launch, PSB unveiled a new flagship subwoofer that’s more compact and more affordable than its predecessor. It also borrows from the Synchrony series’ industrial design. With a single 12-inch driver and 500-watt hybrid-Class H amp, the $1,900-suggested SubSeries 500 delivers 113dB SPL output at 32Hz and is capable of peak wattage output up to 1,500 watts.
The amp incorporates continuously variable phase compensation from zero to 260 degrees, continuous level and crossover controls, filtered and crossover-bypassed (LFE) line-level inputs and pass-thru output are on board, speaker-level inputs via heavy, and 12-volt trigger input.
The sub will also appear the the CEDIA Expo for immediate shipment.
