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"The Honda Accord of Bookshelf Speakers"
PSB's Image B6 monitor is compact and easy to place, but it's a true heavyweight when it comes to performance. The B6 shares its technological inspiration and some of its sonic attributes with the company's flagship Synchrony loudspeakers. Thanks to its compact size and full-frequency sound, the B6 is especially well suited for 2.1 subwoofer / satellite systems, front-channel use in smaller rooms or systems, or in that 'second' hi-fi system for home or office.
"I'd never heard Paul McCartney's voice sound so natural and mellifluous," reports Robert J. Reina in the June 2010 issue of Stereophile. "Yep. It's the Honda Accord of bookshelf speakers." Reina concludes that the B6 "performs at a level well beyond its price."
Clay/Ceramic-filled Polypropylene Driver
The B6 features a 6-1/2-inch speaker plus the one-inch tweeter in a 14-inch high cabinet. It shares the injection-molded, clay/ceramic-filled polypropylene designs of the tower drivers, which also include dual magnets, polycarbonate baskets, and rubber surrounds. It is rated up to 125 and 150 watts at 6 ohms, respectively.
The B6 features 40mm rear ports and, like the Towers, PSB’s sturdy multiway gold-plated binding posts that accept bare wire, lugs, banana plugs, open and closed spades, and enable bi-wiring and bi-amplification. Bi-wiring reduces interference by allowing the two channels to separate electronically when routed through an amplifier. Bi-amping allows the use of two amplifiers to separately power the woofer and the tweeter.
Along with more robust baffles made from 1-1/8-inch thick MDF, a material usually reserved for more expensive models, the new Image speakers exhibit a highly finished look, with clean and soft, esthetically pleasing lines and no visible fasteners.
New Heights of Performance and Sophistication
PSB introduces a dramatically new edition of its successful Image Series speakers benefiting from top-level technology trickled down from the highly acclaimed Synchrony and Imagine Series. Many of the features that debuted in the flagship Synchrony Series in 2007, and then introduced to the stylish Imagine Series in 2008, are now available in the all-new Image Series.
Long considered among the most versatile and affordable of PSB's major speaker lines, Image Series speakers have been remodeled and equipped with many of the features and enhancements developed in recent years for PSB's award- winning Synchrony and Imagine Series loudspeakers. Scaling the size of the whole Image project was a major objective.
The new Image Series represents the final stage of a profound three-phase reconsideration of PSB product offerings in freestanding speakers that began with Synchrony, then moved to the Imagine Series. With the new Image Series, PSB again raises the traditional PSB virtues to new heights of performance and sophistication, whether judged technically or by rigorous standards of subjective evaluation.
Fundamental Acoustical Research
Like all PSB speakers, the new Image designs benefit from the world-class acoustical resources of Canada's National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada. For more than 35 years PSB founder and design team chief Paul Barton has returned again and again to the NRC to conduct fundamental studies of loudspeakers and room acoustics in its anechoic chamber as well as vital subjective evaluations in its listening-studio facilities. Mr. Barton's research at the NRC, which included an extensive three-year development project for Synchrony, played an important role in the design of the new Image Series. |