I have a pair of Synchronly ones. They are as good as anythineg for the price and better than most. Paul Barton is one of the best speaker designeres on the planet. Just listen., hard to go wrong with nuthing in the line.
Very good bang for your buck speaker. Well crafted with a sound on the warm side, not a detailed speaker but very musical. There is definely a house sound, nothing wrong with that; I like it. The Synchrony line is entry-level audiophile with crisp highs, lush midrange and deep tight bass. All have metal tweeters and can sound too forward with some electronics. Fiberglass drivers with beautiful wood cabinets. Next level down is Imagine; an excellent budget line. Same tweeters with Ceramic/Polypropyline woofers and nice wood cabinet. Similiar in sound, not as full range or as focused. Both levels present a huge soundstage and with the right placement and treated room, the speakers will disappear into the music. Image is the lower line, very affordable and same timbre as the higher end, but lesser quality cabinets, bass is less tight, less extension but very good sound for it's price. All are easy to drive, have high sensitivity, designed in Canada, built in China. 5 year warranty.
The metal tweeters can become an real issue. That's why the speaker cable selection and front end need to be a good match. My advice is don't buy a pair of PSBs w/o hearing them first.
PSB speakers (I owned a pair of Stratus Golds for a while) tend to fall on the "ruthlessly revealing" side of the acoustic spectrum. If you can match them with high quality tube components and appropriate cables and interconnects you can have a fabulous sound, but it takes time and patience. They are never a waste of money but be prepared to experiment. The Stratus Golds are particularly nice speakers. The lower end models I cant personally speak for
Heard their Syncrony speaker. Very ordinary. Some wag evidently said it was the 20th best speaker ever made or some number like that - can't remember exactly what it was. As one guy said at the time you could be forgiven thinking if it was the 20th best speaker only 20 speakers were ever made.
Normally I would say check it out for yourself but in this case I think you can give them a miss and look at others if it requires you to go out of you way at all to hear it. There are many other speakers I would actively seek out first. In that price range I like the Martin Logan Electromotion - a good deal cheaper as well - you can spend the difference on better source equipment - check it out.
I have Platinum T8's, M2's and a C2 in my home theater (Anthem D2v/A5). I couldn't be happier. I keep trying more exotic speakers, but the PSB's are still here.
I had never heard of PSB speakers but bought a pair of the original PSB Stratus tower speakers (precursor to the Stratus Gold) a few weeks ago locally as it was just too good of a deal to pass up and some audiophile friends highly recommended that I buy them. And I am glad I did because they are great speakers - very detailed, open and transparent. Lively and with lots of bass. It is a very clear and neutral-sounding speaker. I would higly recommend the Stratus series. I have not heard other PSB models but the PSB Stratus is a wonderful speaker!
I have a pair of Image t5. They are on the warm side, laid back, smooth, very acceptable overall sound for the money. I would say that their strengths are in the small foot print, slim cabinets, and the amount of bass impact they can produce. They go lower than 40hz, and that's great for bassy music and movies. To me, it is an excellent value. It really depends on what you like to listen to.
The Imagine T2 towers are probably the 'sweet spot' in terms of bang for buck. $3500/pr. I have listened to them back and forth with the Synchrony 1's, and yes the $5500 Synch's are better, but $2K better would be an individuel call based on the rest of the system, and the room. Soundstage is deep, wide, focused. My dealer has Vandy's, Totem, Vienna Acoustics, but the PSB's are his go-to until budget gets a lot higher. I also listened to the Vandy 'Treo' (I think, it was $6K a pair), and they sounded good, but had AR amps, and a high end vinyl setup playing through them, making the system-cost 2 or 3 times as high, so not a fair comparison. There certainly wasn't that much of an improvement in sound imho.
Since Paul Barton is a musician, his speakers sound realistic on acoustic instruments - especially the strings.
I really dig them. You will probably like them too, but you should definitely hear them b4 buying, as there are many many dealers - you should be able to find a dealer near you.
If you can't, then buy clean ones used, and if you don't like them, you can resell them, and not lose too much money, if at all.
A good friend has a pair of Synchrony One's. Extremely well made, moderately sized floorstander that really fails to move me sonically. They simply don't sound like real music and epitomize what I would call a "hifi" sound. Also, no matter what we did with the bass port plugs (in, out, top, bottom port) the bass does not satisfy. They go plenty deep for a speaker of this size but there is a one note quality and a bump at a certain frequency that could not be resolved by placement or use of the plugs. In my view this is one of those speakers that would be fine for a home theater system but not for two channel audio.
I have listened to the PSB Imagine T and Imagine T2 and both are very good speakers. Some of my favourites at that price point and I have listened to many. It basically cmae down to the Imagine T or T2 and Focal 726. Still haven't decided, although I have been told to listen to Focus Audio...currently trying to find somewhere to listen to them.
I own image 4t and 65t, stratus silver and gold, and synchrony one. Each is excellent in its price range, and each higher priced speaker is better than its lower cousin. There is a house sound, which is basically neutral, with more cost providing more range, detail and coherence. PSB, like many Canadian speakers uses the government anechoic lab to test their designs, DMSO it's not just guesswork. A quality product at a bargain price. It's not the best ever made, but I haven't heard better at any price point.
In my experience, they are worth trying. As you can see from the above, there are those that love them and those that don't.
The bottom line is that PSB is a good speaker company (among others) and their products are worth consideration. How they're going to sound in your system is kind of up in the air. What pre/amp are you running?
If your upstream equipment tends to run on the warmer, more laid back side, then the metal domes probably won't be a problem. I run a decent mid-fi system consisting of an old NAD pre amp and an Aragon amp with a set of Paradigm Studio 10s and don't have any problems at all with the metal domes.
I've got the PSB Imagine T series powered by a NAD 375 BEE in a 2 channel audio system. The main source is a Linn Unidisk 1.1. The system has a REL R-328 subwoofer. I have listened to these PSB speakers with and without the subwoofer. I use the system for TV and DVDs and CDs too. IMO these speakers are a great value. The NAD/PSB combo must be curing some of the complaints mentioned above because I have not experienced any fatigue even after listening for several hours to rock, jazz and folk. The bass is more than sufficient, although I have grown accustomed to the subwoofer being on so I have plenty of bass. I will note that, IMO, the PSB Imagines sound better with more power. I hooked up a lower powered Denon amplifier (90W) and it clearly and negatively affected the sound quality. When I switched back to the NAD(150W conservatively), the PSBs had greater clarity and sounded much better.
I have a set of stratus gold I's, very nice. But, you really need a strong ss amp, like a Parasound hca-3500 to drive them properly. They will produce some of the best bass ever, with a big amp. Dont listen to people about the dome tweetet. It takes a very long time burn in the tweeter and then it will mellow out.
HAS ANYONE HAD PROBLEMS WITH CHANNEL GOING OUT WITH THE PSB IMAGINE W3 ON-WALL SPEAKER? Using this speaker as a sound bar mounted to a Sharp Aquos TV and the left channel isn't working. All wiring has checked out ok. Any ideas on trouble shooting this issue?
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