Audio Topics

Welcome to the New PSB Speakers Website

PSB Speakers has officially launched a new user-friendly website! Please take a few moments to review some of the new improvements and upgrades PSB has made to their website:

Top 5 Loudspeaker Gifts for Dad on Fathers Day

PSB Speakers wants to help you find that perfect sounding gift for Dad! PSB Speakers presents a list of Top 5 Suggested Products to help you as you scavenge for Dad's gift this Father's Day:

PSB Speakers new Facebook page

PSB Speakers starts new Facebook page with video and lots of insider information

Paul Barton - The Priorities of Speaker Design

PSB founder explains to CEPro Magazine, the priorities behind PSB's loudspeaker design.

PSB Synchrony Technology

Read through some of the technology that makes every Synchrony Speaker a Top Performer

Paul Barton at the NRC

In the heart of Canada's capitol city of Ottawa, is a "campus" accommodating one of the world's most important centers of accumulated — and constantly increasing —knowledge. This is the central facility of Canada's unique National Research Council, with some 51 major buildings in which state-of-the-art facilities

Dealer Showcase - Baumeister

Since 1990 Baumeister Electronic Architects has provided the finest custom electronic solutions with an emphasis on ease of use. Baumeister partners with the area's top architects, designers, and builders to create extraordinary designs that have thrilled countless clients. Company founder John Baumeister says, "Baumeister Electronic Architects uses PSB Speakers for four reasons: performance, reliability, depth of product, and price. They have been an outstanding partner for our speaker needs."

PSB Unveils Synchrony Loudspeakers

The PSB Synchrony One Home Theater System earns high praise from Sound & Vision magazine. "PSB's Synchrony are among the best speakers I've auditioned in my studio in several years."

With its most significant introduction in a decade, PSB Speakers has revealed its latest family of "statement" designs: PSB Synchrony. The Synchrony range - comprised of two towers, two bookshelves, two center-channels and a surround - combines rare musicality and technical excellence, with startlingly compact, small-footprint design, and sculptural finish of unequalled quality that looks and integrates stunningly into today's listening and home theater rooms. Read more

PSB Launches New HD Subwoofers

The HD models, which stand for High Density due to their condensed design, are PSB's first ultra-compact subwoofers. These new designs not only needed to be compact but also to provide the deep bass punch, authoritative power and musicality for which all current PSB subwoofers are acclaimed.

How to Set Up a Subwoofer - Placement Basics

GoodSound!'s Philip Beaudette met with Paul Barton at Canada's NRC. Paul has used NRC's advanced facilities to design his loudspeakers and subwoofers since the early '70s. Paul had some interesting things to say about the basics of subwoofer placement.

Showcase - Art and Automation

Art and Automation, Inc. specializes in creating "custom designed environments" that appear to run as if by magic. Working with elite developers in Hawaii and California, AAI designs and blends invisible technology into their clients' homes, creating environments that reflect the needs and passions of their owners. As former Walt Disney Imagineers with backgrounds in special effects and theater design who spent years building immersive environments for theme parks around the world, AAI's founders are experts at integrating beauty and functionality, and utilizing technology to its utmost potential. The result is homes that are effortless to control.

PSB Launches New Alphas

PSB Speakers Announces a renovation to one of its best selling loudspeaker lines-the Alpha Series. Following years of success and popularity among dealers and customers, the new Alpha Series speakers have been treated with a facelift to better match them with the emerging lifestyle-oriented products. But the new Alpha's aren't just better looking, there's a wealth of solid improvements from the original design including a more solid and resonant-free enclosure as well as upgraded drivers through the addition of newly formulated "high loss" woofers.

PSB expands In-Wall line-up

PSB Speakers announces additions to one of its best-selling speaker lines – the CustomSound Series. Following PSB Speakers' past success with other in-wall products, the PSB engineers have created 11 new speakers with whole house and home theater applications in mind. PSB's new In-Wall Speakers offer many improvements, as well as offering great value.

Cedia Expo PSB Update

It’s showtime! September is here, and for PSB, among hundreds of other C/E businesses, that means CEDIA Expo.

Professor Paul at the NRC

Doug Schneider explains that it is hard to talk to Paul Barton without learning something new about loudspeaker design.

Guide to Speaker Specifications

Are you in the market for a new set of loudspeakers? The loudspeaker market today is absolutely flooded with a varying array of applications from traditional floor-standing to satellite systems to in-walls and in-ceiling. Each with its own specific purpose and each with its own trade offs. So how does one narrow the field when searching for new speakers? Well the first step is understanding the important specifications and how they relate to your needs. Our very own Sherlock Ohms puts these confusing numbers in terms you can understand.

PSB Launches VisionSound Series

PSB Speakers would like to welcome you to the next generation of custom-oriented high-performance speakers-the VisionSound Series. Designed specifically for use with plasma, LCD and other flat-panel displays, the VisionSound Series meets the demand for unparalleled sonic performance in a compact and attractive enclosure for both in-room and on-wall application. With its legendary PSB performance, VisionSound combines a new acoustical design with novel technology and dramatic contemporary styling. Introduce yourself to the VisionSound Series today!

The PSB Speakers Story

To those familiar with PSB, the acronym (Paul & Sue Barton) could very well mean People, Sound and Business. For years, audio critics have attributed the performance of PSB loudspeakers with founder, Paul Barton’s love and passion for audio. However, today, it is easy to see that PSB Speakers is no longer a small business operation.

If you have a moment, read our inspiring story. And in advance, we welcome you to the PSB Speakers family…

Good-Better-Best Speakers

The real differences between speakers at different performance levels, what it takes to achieve them, and what they mean for various listening situations in the real world.

Birthplace of Good Sound

Paul Barton gives a walking tour to the Robb Reports Brent Butterworth. We have reprinted the journal of his day of Listening and exploring at the NRC

Changing World of Loudspeakers

In this article we will look at some of the challenges and opportunities custom retailers and consumers need to consider in their selection of loudspeakers.

How to Place a Loudspeaker in a Room

The way you place speakers in a room can make a tremendous difference in the way they sound… In fact, equally as important as speaker selection – determining which products are right for you and your listening environment – is speaker placement within that environment.

We take you through some common “real world” applications and provide general rules of thumb, such as positioning your speakers in varying room sizes, subwoofer placement, and appropriate seating distance from your speakers, as well as how to produce the widest “sweet spot” so that you and your friends and family can sit and enjoy optimum high-frequency definition.

Buying Speakers that you will love

As you explore different speakers you’ll discover previously hidden details in your music that transform your experience from merely listening to complete involvement!

When you consider buying some new loudspeakers, please use these specific criteria to help make your decisions; here is a brief explanation of some of these criteria. We hope this will make your own search a bit more fun and guarantee you success in buying loudspeakers you love.

Our Philosophy - Performance and Value

Our founder and chief designer, Paul Barton, sees the real challenge of speaker design as providing the highest possible performance for the lowest feasible cost. Here is how that influences the way our speakers are designed, and why they are exceptional values in all their price ranges.

Glossary Of Terms

With so many terms and acronyms used to describe the features of today's hi-performance home theater systems, we thought a comprehensive glossary of terms would be in order.

The Frequencies of Music

An interesting look into the world of musical instrument frequency. How a frequency response chart relates to the ranges of musical instruments.

Controlling Laws of Physics

You don't have to read too far in any publication dealing with stereo and/or Home Theater equipment to discover that ads for loudspeakers usually outnumber all the others by a wide margin — and that they generally contain even more superlatives than movie ads. What's underneath all the adjectival bloat? What are the factors that really determine speaker performance?

Hear For Yourself

You will know how speakers sound when you get them home, but here are the ways to make sure that a showroom listening comparison of speakers is productive and at least somewhat predictive of what they will really sound like in your listening room.

Some Theory Underlying Sub Design

What Subs are really for, and why it matters.

As you go down the frequency scale, there comes a point — more accurately, a range — where sound starts to change from something your ears perceive to something your body feels.

Audiophile vs Videophile

It's a grudge match between the MP3 vs Hi-Fi formats, and what low-fi has done to the speaker industry. It was audio that transformed 20-inch televisions into big screens. It was audio that gave birth to home theater and yet, in recent years, with the advent of high definition television, has become the forgotten child.