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PSB Steps Up Performance Of Flagship Speaker

Pickering, Ontario – PSB is replacing the flagship in its Imagine speaker series with a higher priced model that will be accompanied by a matching center channel speaker.

The five-way floorstanding T3 flagship at $7,498/pair will ship in late November to replace the $5,500/pair Synchrony One. The $1,999-each C3 center channel also ships late November. Both come in high-gloss black and high-gloss cherry finishes.

PSB called the floor-standing speaker with three woofers in a transitional array its “most significant introduction in seven years.” For one thing, the speaker uses new drivers that “provide the lowest distortion and highest power handling of any PSB speaker ever,” the company said.

Unlike other companies, PSB didn’t design its flagship speakers “with little to no regard to cost,” said PSB founder and speaker designer Paul Barton. “In the end, they may produce a good speaker, but it can wind up being unaffordable for most and perhaps even a questionable value.” The two PSB speakers “achieve ultra-high performance and value together,” he said.

 One of the T3’s key attributes is that the speaker “interfaces smoothly and predictably with the listening room” to deliver “clean well-integrated bass response and pinpoint imaging,” the company said. It also delivers “extremely even frequency response and uniform off-axis response.”

Predictable response is achieved in large part through the three 7-inch woofers as part of a five-way “transitional array” in which the woofers combine to produce the longest wavelengths in the lowest frequencies. At higher frequencies, the woofers are attenuated until only the woofer closest to the midrange is active, creating “a perfect transition with uniform off-axis response,” the company said. In addition, PSB selected the position of each woofer and optimized the crossover slopes to reduce first-acoustic, or floor-bounce, reflections that create response irregularities.

 Multiple woofers also “tend to excite a broader spectrum of room resonances” to prevent “one-note bass boom” that often accompanies high-power full-range speakers, PSB said. Smaller cones with large motors in place of a single larger cone also deliver higher sensitivity and more accurate piston motion for faster transient response and lower distortion, the company said.

The TS and C3 speakers are voiced identically. The C3uses a three-way transitional design that PSB called “unusually sophisticated for a center channel.” The C3 includes two of the T3’s 7-inch woofers, both with different low-pass filter frequencies for proper power response. It also uses, and the same tweeter as the Imagine T3. The midrange driver was developed for only the C3.

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