2009 Editors Choice Awards - Speakers
Under $500
PSB Alpha B1
Yet another “how does he do it?” loudspeaker from the prolific mind of Paul Barton. The new, more curvaceous Alpha combines mind-bending dynamics and rich mids in a speaker barely a foot tall. Even the midbass has a power and pitch definition rarely experienced in this modest price range. Only the nebulous soundstaging is less than excellent.
Reviewed by Neil Gader, Issue 170$500-$1000
PSB T45/55
As successors to the popular Image Series, the T45 and T55 had big shoes to fill. These small and mid-sized floorstanders do not disappoint. Both are well balanced tonally, with superior driver integration, excellent output capability, and a fair amount of extension. Soundstaging is merely adequate, and the treble is coolish, but macrodynamics are gutsy and fine details delicately reproduced.
T45 reviewed by Jim Hannon, AVgM, Issue 11; T55 reviewed by Neil Gader, Issue 152$1000-$1500
PSB Imagine B
Think Imagine T minus a midbass driver and a floorstanding enclosure. There’s the same voice in the expressive midrange and treble and, with only minor exceptions, the same superb balance. The B can’t quite chew on bass lines and kick drums and organ riffs as if there were rice cakes like the T can, but as if to compensate the B seems a bit lighter and fleeter of foot in the upper mids and lower treble.
Reviewed by Neil Gader, Issue 189$1500-$2000
PSB Synchrony Two B
Another brilliant two-way compact from the wand of Paul Barton and crew. The “Mini-Me” to the larger Synchrony Two, the Two B is more of a classic “voice” speaker and a windfall for choral-music listeners and singer/songwriter aficionados. Capable of solid 60Hz extension, the Two B only shows a bit of port push and wobbly pitch as it approaches its bottom-end bump-stops. A decathlete with a well-honed balance that few competitors will be able to match.
Reviewed by Neil Gader, Issue 177$3000-$5000
PSB Synchrony Two
A sonic extrovert, with a dark voluptuous tonality that reaches deep into the lower midrange and bottom octaves, the Synchrony Two offers bone-rattling, dynabic excitement in a sleek, five-driver, two-way, bass reflex design. Two of its woofers high-pass to the tweeter at differing frequencies, giving this PSB marvelous coherence and extension from bottom to top. A slight dip in the presence range and som residual lag in the bass suggest that careful attention to setup is required.
Reviewed by Neil Gader, Issue 177
