New PSB Synchrony Speakers: Good Value for High Performance?

gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
PSB has launched two new flagship speakers, the Synchrony T600 floorstanders ($8,000/pair) and the Synchrony B600 stand-mount speaker ($2,500/pair). The speakers are brand new from the ground up, featuring new carbon-fiber woofers and upgraded titanium dome tweeters, along with new crossovers and cabinets. The rectangular design is a departure from PSB’s recent flagships. Will buyers embrace the new look? Read on to learn more.

I don’t do anything that isn’t good value, and I don’t do things that aren’t going to do something to the product. People throw a lot of things at products that aren’t necessary, and sometimes they throw things at products that make it even worse. Value is a really high priority and I’m proud to say it’s something we’ve stuck to over almost 50 years.
— Paul Barton

psb.jpg


Read: PSB Synchrony Series Speaker Preview
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
Very cool write up!

@gene , friendly heads up: typo in the title of the thread: PSY instead of PSB
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Yes, good review. Nice to see Canadian companies putting out some really good products.
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Maybe Gene had a certain South Korean musician on his mind?
Gene is bar-none the most hardcore K-pop fan that I know, so I have no doubt that he was thinking of K-pop superstar Psy when he wrote that headline. May the Gangnam Style never fall out of fashion! ;)
 
L

lejack

Enthusiast
It's very likely, that the decision to neglect Yom Kippur, was not intentional. They were probably unaware of it. I'm Jewish, but not offended.
 
G

G-wreck

Audiophyte
Andrew Robinson basically said this speaker was fussy about amps and apparently sounds like garbage unless you have a very specific amplifier. I take all of his reviews with a grain of salt though. His apparent listening room looks to be an echo chamber and I suspect bad reviews are often due to his bad room.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Andrew Robinson basically said this speaker was fussy about amps and apparently sounds like garbage unless you have a very specific amplifier. I take all of his reviews with a grain of salt though. His apparent listening room looks to be an echo chamber and I suspect bad reviews are often due to his bad room.
While I enjoy his reviews for entertainment value, they are purely subjective (like Darko and Guttenburg) and yes, taken with a grain of salt (or a bag of salt sometimes ;)). Most amplifiers out there have the same flat response and will have the same sound signature (if an amp can have one). The only thing that would make sense to me is differences in rated power as higher powered amps will have more headroom and yield more dynamic range, and be less likely to reach the clipping point. The ability to handle lower impedances would be the other aspect, as some speakers can dip below 4 ohms at lower frequencies where more power is needed. How much you want to trust someone's ears in that regard is another matter.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Thanks for posting the preview and capturing the notes in their reveal. Will Audioholics do a real review done on these speakers with measurements?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Thanks for posting the preview and capturing the notes in their reveal. Will Audioholics do a real review done on these speakers with measurements?
I hope so. Those speakers have quite a few features in common with my left and right mains. I suspect that the BSC duty is offloaded to the upper woofer, like mine.

In addition the lower woofer just handles the lowest frequencies. However, my researches showed that trying to do this with passive crossovers is not at all ideal.

This does really require an active solution to implement well. In addition the lower F3 point is 24 Hz. So essentially that speaker is a full range speaker, and probably at that price the cheapest one on the market.

However an active or hybrid active/passive would have allowed the LFE signal to be mixed in to the three woofers. That would have dispensed with the need for subs, I'm pretty certain. In addition an active solution allows for variable BSC to allow the speaker to be voiced to the room and its position in the room.

I have no need of separate subs, and I can attest to the high value of some of the concepts this speaker employs.

My design from 2005, has stood the test of time very well, and with the extremely natural bass of the TL design has been an outstanding success.

If there is one thing I have learned through all this, is that there could be a lot more speakers on the market than current choices. Designers have not been nearly as imaginative as they should have been.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
I hope so. Those speakers have quite a few features in common with my left and right mains. I suspect that the BSC duty is offloaded to the upper woofer, like mine.

In addition the lower woofer just handles the lowest frequencies. However, my researches showed that trying to do this with passive crossovers is not at all ideal.

This does really require an active solution to implement well. In addition the lower F3 point is 24 Hz. So essentially that speaker is a full range speaker, and probably at that price the cheapest one on the market.

However an active or hybrid active/passive would have allowed the LFE signal to be mixed in to the three woofers. That would have dispensed with the need for subs, I'm pretty certain. In addition an active solution allows for variable BSC to allow the speaker to be voiced to the room and its position in the room.

I have no need of separate subs, and I can attest to the high value of some of the concepts this speaker employs.

My design from 2005, has stood the test of time very well, and with the extremely natural bass of the TL design has been an outstanding success.

If there is one thing I have learned through all this, is that there could be a lot more speakers on the market than current choices. Designers have not been nearly as imaginative as they should have been.
Paul Barton is no newcomer to traditional arrays and has been using them for at least 20 years now. If his measurenents at the NRC showed that arrays were ineffective, he would have stopped years ago. Im happy to see that he is going all out trying to reduce cabinet vibration, the bane of loudspeakers in general.

I would still augment these speakers with a sub in most homes as most homes didnt design the room dimensions that would place these speakers at an optimum location with respect to the listener position for even bass response. Although bass extension is important, people with multiple subs are more interested in evening out the in room bass response.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Reviews in from the very credible Soundstage Mag and from Stereophile.


 

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