Intro and all review links are gathered in this thread.
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/loudspeakers/87531-intro-speaker-store-reviews-marshall.html
--The Store--
Oh boy, this is going to be a tough one to keep short. As I entered
Stereotypes, I was afraid that I'd caught them in the middle of a flooded basement scenario. There were set displays in the front of the store, but inventory, old and new, pricey and pedestrian, was piled up everywhere. Ths even carried over to some of the listening rooms. They may have been switching in some new product, but I think, mostly, they just had way more inventory than they could handle while still keeping a clean storefront.
I was approached by Howard who gave no indication that anything was amiss. My standard opener "...I would like to listen to the
PSB Imagine B" seemed to stump him a bit. He proceeded to take me behind a stack of boxes and equipment to a wall of small speakers, and give me a brief history of PSB speakers starting with the fact that he thought the entry level Image series was a waste of money, despite having them prominently displayed on his wall. So began the tour...
I was weaved through the many stacks, shown every bookshelf-style speaker in the front of the store, down the back hallway, and into two different listening rooms. I was given the history of each in turn, a description of their sound, who made them...and on and on. I was inexplicably shown a high-end sound bar, questioned on the type of music that I liked to listen in a way that felt like I was having my coolness quotient evaluated. Finally, after 45 minutes (I checked), I was listening to my first speaker, which was not the Imagine B I came for.
The system was running a digital dac into a solid state amp by Moon audio, and I noted that, to my ears the speakers in question, a pair of
PMC DB1, were a bit reserved in the high-end detailed. I was told the problem was likely the Kimber speaker cables that are notoriously “warmer” and may not be completely broken in, so I was switched to the approximately $1000 Nordost Red Dawn cables to open them up. Howard noted dismissively that Paul S. Barton, of PSB, didn't believe that speakers cables could significantly alter the sound. Implied was, "That guy that makes the speakers you wanted to hear? He's a moron". As a non-believer, I played along, noting upon 2nd listen with the Nordost that high end "might" have open up a bit, using the term to infer a possibly, no matter how small, as in "I
might win the lottery".
A seemingly endless parade of speakers was then shuffled in and out. I appreciated that the exact same position and equipment was use for each, and that I was typically left alone, volume control in had, to listen to each. This approach of putting the customer in control of the playback experience was welcome; I only wish that I had felt more in control of selecting the speakers that I was listening to, and, in fairness, had a been more assertive, I'm sure Howard would have honored my request.
---The Speaker--
After 3 hours (that is NOT an exaggeration), I was finally listening to the PSB Imagine B. I can see why people really like this speaker. Everything sounded really good. Not great, but good. I did feel that I was losing a bit of detail, especially in the mid-treble. For instance, on “Brilliant Mistake” by Elvis costello, there are a lot of recording flaws to my ears: pretty noticeable tape hiss, an overly-gated snare, a too spare low-end with a slightly anemic kick. Here’s the thing: on the PSB, it sounded really good. Better than it should.
The vast majority of folks, especially those new to high-fi, will love these speakers because everything will sound good, if not entirely accurate. Everything seemed well-balanced, smooth and musical. You could send some bad recordings and low-bitrates to these and have them sound better than most speakers out there. But, though they sounded good, they didn’t sound right.
Now, remember, my ears are a little broken. They are used to my too-crisp JBL Studio II. Couple that with the fact that the speaker I had just previously listened to, a Spendor S3/5R2 (horrible model name) is a sealed designed rated to only 75hz and offered little in the way of low-end to mask the present high-end, and maybe I had become accustom to pop and sizzle instead of accuracy. Any way you slice it, I’d love to listen to them again and think they are great speakers, but with a too-sweet sound, the PSB Imagine B didn’t make it to the top of my list.
--The Takeaway--
Stereotypes is a shopping experience for a specific type of clientele. Let me be clear: I applaud the freedom I was given to linger as long as I like. I very much appreciate the lack of sales pressure, and the ability to listen in a room by myself with prodding questions saved for the time between listens. In this regard, my experience at Stereotypes was top notch.
However, when a customer comes in asking to listen to a specific speaker, let them listen to it. Also, don't try to color their impression first. They had good gear (some amazingly good gear, I'm told, was upstairs, but I did not see it as my pocket book as small and I was running out of daylight), but the cluttered store and focus on non-speaker components of increasingly diminishing audible effect was off-putting.
Visit
Stereotypes If: If you fancy yourself an audiophile tweaker and want a relaxing listen of lots of obscure, high-end gear amongst like minds.
Avoid If: You're in a hurry.
