Loudspeakers
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• Superb bass performance
• Accurate mids and highs
• Overall lovely sound quality
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• Imposing size
• Veneer finish
RRP
$18,999
PSB was founded by famous Canadian loudspeaker designer Paul Barton and his wife Sue (Paul and Sue Barton… PSB… get it?). Their company became so successful that the privately owned Canadian Lenbrook Group (which also owns the NAD and Bluesound brands) made the couple an o er for it that they couldn't refuse — particularly since they wanted Paul to stay on as the lead designer for all PSB products, so Paul got to sell his cake and eat it too!
Barton is renowned for being a 'sound quality first, looks second' designer; an engineer who won't sacrifice sound quality for fashion — and this philosophy is a little on show with the new Synchrony T800 design. They're not exactly small, nor are they exactly sculpted like some modern tower speaker designs. They also have rather blocky-looking outrigger feet at each tower's base that are, again, not exactly good-looking. In a world where most large and expensive loudspeakers are rather curvaceous, the T800 are decidedly boxy, not to mention only available in two finishes!
So even though the Synchrony T800 are touted as 'cost no object' designs, I suspect that, unlike some speaker manufacturers who shall remain mercifully nameless, Barton was unwilling to spend more money on cabinets than he did on the drivers and crossovers built into them.
THE EQUIPMENT
I have to admit that I was initially baffled by the description of the design of the Synchrony T800 as being a 'transitional' bass reflex one, so this was one of the first aspects of the design I investigated. It turns out that Barton has adapted a specific type of crossover design that is used in many two-way loudspeakers that use two bass/ midrange drivers in combination with a single tweeter, and repurposed it for use in this fourdriver, three-way configuration. I can't recall ever having seen this design approach previously. But before scrutinising that 'transitional' crossover topology further, let's first look at what I believe to be the most important aspect of the Synchrony T800's design — because it is by far and away the most important: the fact that it is a true threeway design using three large-cone (203mm)
