The Perfect Vision-Platinum M2
Published by: The Perfect Vision
Date of Issue: March 2004
Reviewer: Neil Gader
Paul Barton Takes Off the Gloves"The M2s provided remarkable overall performance for loudspeakers of such modest dimensions."
PSB Platinum M2 Multichannel Loudspeaker System In thirty years of making loudspeakers, PSB has consistently delivered high performance – and even higher value.
So what happens when a designer like the talented Paul Barton gets to run with a robust parts budget and shoot for the stars?
Enter PSB’s newest and most ambitious offerings, the Platinum Series. This new flagship line incorporates design techniques and build quality that represent a significant advancement beyond the company’s previous offerings. We chose for review the Platinum M2 left and right, C2 center channel, S2 surrounds, and SubSonic 10 subwoofer, at a total package price of $8396.
The celebrated Surround Triplets – monopolar, dipolar, and bipolar – have devotees split fairly evenly in each camp, PSB meets this challenge with the S2 surround loudspeaker yet produced. Since the S2 is really two complete speakers joined at a ninety degree angle, buys can either run them as bipoles, or use the supplied binding post jumpers and wire them out-of-phase as dipoles, or even (now get this) wire each S2’s front-firing section as a side-surround and the back-wall-firing section as a back-surround channel. Voila (with French-Canadian dialect naturally): Seven channels from five loudspeakers.
As a stereo pair I found that they projected an immediacy and speed that fairly leaped from the enclosure into the room. Their presentation of images was crystal-cut in clarity. Low-frequency extension was tight and extended down into the 50Hz region. With a rich, warmish midrange tonality, the music seemed filled with energy and momentum.
The M2s provided remarkable overall performance for loudspeakers of such modest dimensions. The Platinum system listed themselves into a whole new weight division with multichannel sources. Thanks to the SubSonic 10 subwoofer and the dynamically effortless C2 center channel, a welterweight stereo system bulked up into a light-heavy surround one.
The PSB system reproduced dialogue particulately, and remained imperturbable when assaulted by demanding soundtracks like The Matrix Reloaded or The Dream Is Alive. The full-throttle dynamics of the C2 added weight and momentum to the rhythm section during Paul McCartneys’ performance of “Let It Be” [Concert for New York]. With some systems the drums on this track sound puny and lifeless, but the C2 let loose the kit’s full explosiveness in a way that I’ve rarely heard before.
A lot of lip service is paid to timbre matching but the Platinum system actually realizes it. In either music or movie playback it reproduced soundstages and halls with vivid, free-breathing, dimensionality. During Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue” [Blood On The Tracks, Columbia SACD], ambient energy seemed to be propelled into the listening room, lighting up the entire acoustic of the recording venue with all the transient details, from guitar flat-picking to percussion rhythms and harmonica. Similarly, the voices in the surround speakers remained consistent in tonal character across the front left, center, and right channels.
Another key to the Platinum’s success was th SubSonic 10, which performed at near-apocalyptic levels. Built like a bomb shelter, the cabinet was inert even at high volumes. The fore-and aft-firing woofers created a balance that added to this sense of soundstage stability. Plummeting with east into the mid-20Hz range, the SubSonic 10 seemed to yawn at the most difficult material I threw at it.
….the SubSonic 10 delivered low frequencies like a howitzer lobbing artillery shells across a battlefield.
Such crucial subtleties are simply not resolved by lesser loudspeaker systems.
The PSB Platinum M2 multichannel system is a compact rig of the highest order. In the right-sized room it balances sheer force with poise and finesse. Its virtues are many, its weaknesses few. Naturally there are systems out there that can best it. But you will pay dearly trying.