Kicking off a relationship with openness and honesty is always a good policy, so I love it when manufacturers don’t try to hide (often economically necessary) offshore manufacturing with “Designed in _____” badging. And to be sure, there is a “Designed and Engineered in Canada” label on the packaging for PSB’s new Imagine B50 bookshelf speakers ($699/pair, all prices USD). But that’s just as quickly followed by a transparent and prominent “Made in China.”
Why does it matter? Well, for me, I think that sort of transparency makes it a little easier to take seriously PSB’s promise that the Imagine B50 delivers “harmonious true-to-nature sound and unexpectedly deep bass extension” for such a meager price—not to mention in such a meager package. Each speaker—which is sold and shipped in pairs—measures just 6.75″W × 11.8″H × 9.9″D. It’s a two-way bass-reflex design, with a 1″ titanium-dome tweeter, a 5.25″ woven-carbon-fiber woofer, and a rear-mounted slot port, making it theoretically a good fit for small listening rooms or nearfield systems.
Interestingly, PSB’s pack-in literature seems to assume that you’ll be using the speakers as satellites in a surround-sound system, connected to an A/V receiver. I don’t know why that amused me so. But at any rate, I’m guessing not many people who purchase the B50s will bother reading the manual anyway—either the abridged one-page pack-in or the longer online version available on PSB’s website.
Lifting out the EPS endcap, our first look at the speakers is a bit of a tease, although I very much like the fabric-bag wrap protecting the finish, especially in contrast with the plastic bag you’d expect at this price point. You can also just make out the accessories box tucked away in between the speakers in this photo.
That box, by the way, contains a pair of nicely wrapped grilles that I have no intention of unwrapping. At least yet. Let the next reviewer unseal them if he or she chooses. The only way I’d install the grilles would be if the speakers need some high-frequency roll-off I can’t accomplish with positioning (not likely with PSBs), if the speakers look better with them on (fat chance), or if they need some extra protection.
With the Imagine B50 fully undressed and sprung from its box, we get our first real look at the design of this exceedingly low-cost speaker, and I find myself falling back on the clichéd observation that photos don’t do it full justice. To be fair, the satin finish (seen here in black, but also available in white) is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, and I cannot tell you the number of times I had to grab a microfiber cloth and wipe the cabinets down whilst photographing the unboxing process, just as a prophylactic against identity theft or potentially being framed for murder. But when wiped down, the finish looks really nice, and the drivers themselves are quite eye-catching as well.
If this is your first experience with PSB speakers, it’s worth pointing out that I don’t have the cabinet upside-down here. The 5.25″ woven-carbon-fiber woofer is, indeed, positioned over the tweeter. PSB chief designer Paul Barton prefers this arrangement because it minimizes lobing issues if, for example, you stand up to dance or—more likely—your ear height is a little higher than the anticipated 36″ to 39″.
Here’s another instance in which photography doesn’t match reality: The intense lighting required to take anything resembling a decent photo in my black hole of a home makes the woven fiber look quite shimmery, whereas in natural lighting the woofers have a more subtle matte-like sheen.
Conversely, in intense light the aluminum rings around the tweeter and woofer look a little flat compared with the kaleidoscope of colors that iridesce from them in more natural light. It’s subtle, to be sure, but as less intense light rakes across the metallic accents, you get a spray of colors of the sort you see when looking at the business side of a CD or Blu-ray.
This close-up of the tweeter also gives us a better look at its distinctive waveguide.
Spinning the speaker back-to-front, we see a somewhat unusual sight for a stand-mount speaker in this price range: two sets of binding posts with removable jumpers. It’s difficult for me to imagine many people bi-amping speakers that cost $699/pair, but maybe I’m wrong about that. Below that, we also get our first peek at the slot port, which aids in extending the Imagine B50’s frequency response down to an astonishing 45Hz (±3dB).
I should go ahead and admit that I had a bit more background information about the Imagine B50 ahead of my review than is typically the case. I knew, for example, that Paul Barton designed the speaker with a 24″ stand in mind. Given that my only speaker stands are 32″ tall, I asked PSB’s press relations team if they wouldn’t mind loaning me some Paul-approved stands.
The Synchrony SST-24 stands they sent came from a tradeshow, and they’ve obviously been ridden hard and put away wet, but all the hardware was still there, and thankfully, the instructions were salvaged.
Turns out, the instructions were hardly necessary. The SST-24 ($599/pair) is designed asymmetrically, such that there’s a defined front and back to each part, and you can’t connect them incorrectly due to the spacing of the screw holes.
In this shot, you can also see how the back of the vertical column has a larger open area than the front. That’s for cable management, and the space is plenty sufficient for any reasonable gauge of speaker cable you might use with your Imagine B50s.
I won’t bore you with the assembly process for the stands, since it’s so straightforward: put pieces that fit together next to one another, insert bolts, tighten bolts, congratulate self for a job well done. With the assembly done and the speakers placed atop their stands, the complete Imagine B50 / Synchrony SST-24 is an understated little stunner, and I can’t wait to settle in and start listening.
The amp I’ll be using to drive them, by the way, is my new NAD C 3050, which I’ll be writing about more soon. Keep an eye out for that, as well as my full review of the PSB Imagine B50, coming soon to SoundStage! Access.
. . . Dennis Burger
dennisb@soundstagenetwork.com
