PSB Platinum T6 Wes Phillips SoundStage

They say that hi-fi reviewing is a lot like prostitution. You start out doing it because it’s fun, then you do it because other people seem to enjoy it and you like making them happy. Before you know it, you’re doing it for the money and it becomes a chore.

But if you’re really lucky, you can avoid that sorry fate if you happen to run into products that remind you of the reason you started in the first place. You know, the good stuff -- products that elevate the art of hi-fi reproduction without requiring you to write a check that your banker mistakes for this year’s IRA donation.

Too bad there aren’t a lot more of ‘em, but I reckon that’s what makes ‘em so special. Sometimes they run in packs, though, and it seems to me that an awfully large number of the ones in the speaker category have come out of the workshop of Paul Barton.

PSB Speakers is best known for its “quality for value” offerings -- loudspeakers that marry solid engineering to affordability. The Stratus Gold-i, for example, measured as well as (or better than) any $15,000 loudspeaker I’ve heard, and for a puritanical $2699.

What distinguishes PSB’s Platinum series from the company’s other lines is simply that it carries that same philosophy to a more ambitious level. You know -- better parts, more contempo styling, and higher prices. But -- and here’s the part that truly is startling -- not all that much higher. The top-of-the-line T8 barely clocks in at $7k, and the T6, the next dearest and the subject of this review, costs $4999 USD per pair.

That ain’t cheap, but some high-end loudspeaker manufacturers don’t even offer entry-level speakers for that few ducats. Nothing against those companies, of course, but when you pay those dizzying prices, you ought to expect that they will make listening to music a transformative experience. I didn’t anticipate that from a pair of $5000 floorstanders, but that’s precisely what I got.

Oh yeah -- one thing extra: sound that made me question everything I thought I knew about how speakers ought to sound. PSB doesn’t charge extra for that -- think of it as lagniappe.

Keep your ears open (seventh Rule of Acquisition)
The T6es are floorstanders with an unprepossessing profile -- at 10” W by 13” D by 45”H, they don’t take up any more space than a pair of stand-mounted monitors. They come in black ash or cherry veneer -- both in a subdued matte finish -- and sport “platinum” gray grilles, a combination that looks less flashy than it sounds. Under the grille, the front baffle laminates an aluminum panel onto the cabinet, presumably for greater rigidity. Normally, I eschew speaker grilles, but the addition to the household of a kitten who views all furniture as equal parts target and jungle gym made the use of the grille a prudent measure. Fortunately, the grille really does seem to be as close to acoustically transparent as makes no difference.

The T6’s cabinet is constructed from 1” MDF and is internally braced and shielded. There are cast-aluminum top and bottom “caps,” and the bottom cap accepts four threaded spikes for leveling/mass-loading. The woofer compartment is reflex-loaded, with the flared front-facing port located at the bottom of the tower, just above the bottom cap.

The T6 employs six drivers: three 6 1/2” woofers with woven fiberglass cones, two 3 1/2” midrange drivers with woven fiberglass cones, and a 1” ferrofluid-cooled aluminum-dome tweeter, which is located between the two mids in what PSB describes as a “D’Appolito Array.” All of the drivers are proprietary and made to PSB’s specs.

I put that in quotes because the D’Appolito, as I understand it, specifies an odd-order crossover, and the T6 uses a fourth-order slope; on the other hand, Paul Barton is a speaker-design genius, and I’m the sort of guy who has to say “as I understand it” when talking about crossovers -- so you decide whom to trust. In one of those coincidences that make my life so much more interesting than it has any right to be, Paul Barton called me just as I completed typing the preceding sentence, so I asked him about it. “It’s not a textbook fourth-order crossover,” Barton explained. “I use an optimizer [computer program], and I choose my windows [crossover points] and let it calibrate the slope.” After the computer does the heavy lifting, Barton irons out the phase abnormalities -- which is more art than science. Barton explained that he is extremely concerned with directivity and power handling, “because the in-room energy doesn’t change, but where it goes does.”

The crossover points, by the way, are 300Hz and 2kHz -- and, while we’re doing the numbers, PSB claims the T6es deliver 30Hz to 30kHz, +/- 3dB.

Speaker connections are made via two pairs of heavy-duty, gold-plated, solid-metal five-way binding posts. These may appear “down market” to folks used to WBT’s impressive audio jewelry, but I found them easier to use, and I was able to really cinch ‘em down against my cables’ spades with the help of a nut driver (which isn’t possible with the WBTs).

Hear all, trust nothing (190th Rule of Acquisition)
I installed the Platinum T6es at the end of a system consisting of a McCormack UDP-1 universal A/V player, Mark Levinson No.320S or Blue Circle BC3 Galatea Mk II preamp, McCormack DNA-500 or darTZeel NHB-108 power amp, and my reference Shunyata Research Aries interconnects and Lyra speaker cables.

Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than the question is an answer (208th Rule of Acquisition)
The Platinum T6es went into my system just after I had completed a review of the Aerial Acoustics 20T loudspeakers, which appeared on onhifi.com. I wasn’t happy at bidding those $23,000 paragons farewell, so no one could have been more surprised than I was when I installed the T6es and gasped at what I heard.

That was “gasped,” as in amazement, not whimpered in disappointment or moaned in distress. I flat-out couldn’t believe how good the T6es sounded straight out of their boxes. Did they smoke the 20Ts? Well, no. Speakers as good as the Aerial 20Ts don’t get “smoked,” even if you happen to prefer the sound of another loudspeaker, but it was also obvious that speakers like the PSB Platinum T6es don’t get “smoked” either, even by those that cost almost five times more.

Obviously, I was in for an interesting audition.

I said it before, but it bears repeating: Paul Barton is a speaker-design genius. What was obvious from note one was that the Platinum T6 is an extremely accurate loudspeaker. That first note, by the way, was the opening of “FA Swing” from John Jorgensen’s Franco American Swing [JJ 7009], and I nearly hurt myself when I swung my neck around looking for the musicians who were so clearly in the room.

You’d think I’d be used to that, but the thing about magic is that it remains magic even when you’re expecting it. And what was so entrancing from the get-go with the Platinum T6es was their relaxed and completely convincing portrayal of the musical overtones of Jorgensen’s guitar and clarinet. Yes, the fundamentals were right, but the harmonic overtones were so relaxed and natural, it felt as though Jorgensen was right there with me. Have you had that happen so regularly that you’ve become jaded to it?
Me neither.

Usually, I like to let a new product cook-in. I try not to pay that much attention to it while I play a lot of music through it and, after I reckon the “new” has worn off, I start to drag out the tried-and-true demo material. The T6es sounded so remarkable right off the bat that I forgot all about patience and all that jazz and immediately pulled out the big guns.

Steve Swallow, in other words. Swallow’s bass playing, to my way of thinking, is an essential test of the music-making abilities of any audio component, combining, as it does, punchiness with supple swagger. Fortunately, I’d just acquired L’histoire du Clochard [Palmetto PM 2103] by the Steve Swallow/Ohad Talmor Sextet, so I lost no time inserting it into the UDP-1 and cranking it up.

“Making Ends Meet” begins with Swallow’s inimitable walking bass -- a saunter that immediately goes stratospherically into regions of the neck where mortal bass players fear to tread, followed by the sextet’s unique sax/trumpet/trombone/violin/clarinet voicing. Swallow both pushes and pulls the ensemble along, running ahead of it rhythmically and then loping back to underpin it with his velvet whale song.

But...but...but...the T6es didn’t sound quite right, somehow. I couldn’t fault them for their timbre or for capturing the swing and sway of the ensemble -- that was for sure. But Swallow’s deep musings lacked impact, I thought. His tone didn’t have the rich roundness I relished and that had to be wrong -- didn’t it? After all, I had just completed auditioning the Aerial 20Ts, loudspeakers that had “all the sock and wallop I could have asked for.” If the 20Ts (which are also rated down to 30Hz) were right, the T6es had to be wrong, right?

I wasn’t so sure. After all, I know Steve Swallow’s sound, and the T6es were delivering his tone with precision. The other instruments were scarily present -- maybe I needed to play around with placement more. Maybe the speakers needed that burn-in I’d been so eager to skip.

Sh’yeah on both of those. I discovered that the Platinum towers did need to be pulled out into the room more than many other loudspeakers I’ve auditioned if I wanted them to develop as much bass impact as they were capable of -- in my room this was about 36” out, as opposed to the 26” I had started with. And yes the T6es, like all speakers I have auditioned, did open up down below once I gave their three woofers a thorough workout (about 100 hours into the audition, I’d estimate).

However, the bottom end on the Platinum T6es never got plumy or rich the way some audiophiles like it. They go deep and they deliver lots of power, but they don’t have that soft purr that so many ported loudspeakers deliver. And that left me questioning what I was hearing for a long time. It drove me a bit nuts, in fact. I embarked upon a quest for perfect bass reproduction.

Eberhard Weber’s “Solo for Bass” from Endless Days [ECM 013420] was punchy and full-bodied. The T6es not only captured Weber’s woody tone and subterranean reach, they delivered the power and pop of his plucking without soft-pedaling the tenderness with which he coaxed string sustain out of his instrument. And when my bass obsession let me hear it, the T6es also painted Weber’s orchestral colors with astonishing subtlety -- the T6 is the rare speaker that can let you forget that things like speakers exist.

D’oh! That was my problem -- I wasn’t forgetting about hi-fi. I was fretting over it. Once I remembered that, things became much clearer. Hi-fi is like a sweater -- you start pulling at any single thread and the whole thing will unravel. I had to start listening to music rather than frequency ranges or I’d drive myself dotty.

For the record, however, the Platinum T6es are not bass deficient. In fact, I think they have less bass distortion than almost any other loudspeaker I’ve heard -- at least in a moderately sized room. If you have a big room, you might want to try the T8s.
And I don’t want to imply that the T6es are less than exemplary anywhere else in their range of reproduction either. They simply get out of the way of the music they reproduce. Speakers? What speakers?

On Endless Days’ “Concerto for Bass,” for example, Rainer Brüninghaus’s piano possesses the sort of clarity and presence that made me forget all about my mission to determine if Weber’s bass sounded “right.” (It did, all right?) Actually, even that makes my reaction sound more analytical than it was. I didn’t think, oh, how accurate; I thought, oh my, how beautiful.

Isn’t that what high-fidelity reproduction is supposed to do?

Anything worth doing is worth doing twice (12th Rule of Acquisition)
Having inserted the T6es into the rather large hole left in my system by the Aerial 20Ts ($23,000 per pair), I should probably address how they, ummm, measured up. Actually, I won’t know how they really measured until approximately the same time you do -- what I mean is how they compared to the 20Ts.

I suppose I should start with that size issue. The Aerials are much more massive and they are the personification of audio jewelry, which is not meant as a put-down. Their fine woodwork and luxurious componentry are matched by an elegance that will make them seem at home in rooms filled with furniture by Stickley or Moser (or the Greene brothers, come to that). I don’t mean to imply that the PSBs wouldn’t be -- they are good-looking (especially when you consider that handsome is as handsome does). They simply lack the design splendor of their $20,000+ counterparts.

And, if you listen to them in the really large rooms that are the natural habitat of a speaker like the 20Ts, they might lack a bit of their audio splendor, too. The 20Ts can fill a large space with more bottom end, and their drivers don’t really gel until you get about 10’-12’ away front them.

In my room, however, the T6es were a better fit than the 20Ts, and, while I was seduced by the sparkle and sweetness of the 20Ts, I thought the T6es were more accurate.

Some of that came down to that bass issue again. Listening to Land of the Sun [Verve 288702] by Charlie Haden, I couldn’t help but be aware of the size and impact of Haden’s instrument with the 20Ts. However, while Haden has presence and heft, he’s not a power player like some double bassists, and the T6es presented him as less the star of the group than one of its members -- which jibes perfectly with the sound I’ve experienced at Haden’s concerts.

This sense of proportion was particularly apt, since the other members of the group -- which includes Joe Lovano, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Ignacio Berroa -- aren’t back-up players in any sense of the term. Did the 20Ts produce Lavano’s beefy tenor sound in all its brassy glory? Well, so did the T6es -- and perhaps they even presented a bit more of the bite for which Lovano is so well known.

I love that ribbon tweeter on the Aerials, but I have to confess that the T6es made it seem to err on the sweet side of real.

And this is where we get into the tricky issue of preference. I liked what the Aerials did with music. I liked it a lot. However, I suspect that recordings sounded a little better through the 20Ts than they should have -- especially those that weren’t quite perfect to begin with.

You see, I would hear things with the PSB T6es that I hadn’t heard with the Aerials. Not low-level details or soundstaging spatial cues (both sets of speakers handled those quite nicely, thank you), but rather issues of balance and timbre. It began to occur to me that if I were mixing a recording, I’d trust the Aerials to tell me how good it sounded, but I’d trust the PSBs to tell me precisely what it sounded like -- which is not the same thing.

You might think that’s a criticism of both sets of speakers, but it’s not. You already knew that no two speakers sound exactly alike. You probably also suspect that living with a pair of $20,000 loudspeakers is a pretty attractive proposition -- and I’m here to testify that it is. The surprise -- at least it surprised me -- is how competitive a pair of $5000 loudspeakers could be to such exalted competition. And, in the long run, I stopped comparing the PSBs to the Aerial 20Ts -- or even my long-term references, the 2003 onhifi.com Product of the Year Amphion Xenons. I simply focused on the music.

Try it sometime -- if your loudspeakers let you.

Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to (third Rule of Acquisition)
If your main point of reference is other hi-fi components, the PSB Platinum T6es may sound a bit anemic. While I satisfied myself that they don’t lack for bass extension or impact, they do lack a certain ripeness in their nether regions that some audiophiles may hanker for -- especially those used to listening to systems with midbass bloom. That’s a matter of taste, however, and not accuracy.

In my room, playing the music I love, I couldn’t fault the T6es on any level. If you value accuracy and timbral truth, these are speakers that will definitely set your heart a-flutter. They are most definitely this reviewer’s choice and a Reviewers’ Choice component if ever I have heard one.

Any consumer prepared to spend $5000 ought to demand a lot from a pair of loudspeakers. With the PSB Platinum T6es, you’re going to get even more than you bargained for.

Call that lagniappe.


...Wes Phillips

PSB Platinum M2 Doug Schneider SoundStage

The M2 is the entry-level speaker in the Platinum lineup. It retails for $1999 USD per pair, and optional stands that are designed specifically for it are priced at $449 per pair. Above the M2 are the floorstanding T6 and T8 speakers, retailing at $4999 and $6999 per pair, respectively. (Wes Phillips just reviewed the T6.) There are also two center-channel models -- the C2 and C4, retailing for $1499 and $1999 -- and the Tri-mode surrounds and SubSonic 10 powered subwoofer, which are priced at $2399 per pair and $2499 each, respectively

The M2 has quite stout dimensions for a two-way speaker: 9 3/8”W x 15 7/16”H x 13”D. Each speaker weighs about 30 pounds. All Platinum speakers sport real-wood veneer on the sides and rear -- black ash or cherry -- along with aluminum top and bottom caps and aluminum front-edge rails. The aluminum caps and rails make the speaker more aesthetically pleasing, but they are also there to help control cabinet resonances. Pry off the grille -- admittedly, it’s a little tricky to get your fingers underneath to pull it -- and you’ll see that the entire front baffle has an aluminum plate. The M2 is as sturdy as it is stocky.

The top and bottom aluminum caps are rounded, which helps give the speaker a more sculpted appearance, but that also means it will wobble like a Weeble if you place it on a flat surface. So PSB also supplies screw-in spikes and rubber feet for the speaker’s bottom should you wish to place the M2 on a flat surface or traditional stands.
More than likely, though, buyers will opt for the dedicated M2 stands that screw directly into the bottom of the speakers, extending the speakers’ visual style all the way to the floor. When using these stands you can still use the spikes and rubber feet, but instead they screw into the top plate of the stand as opposed to the bottom cap on the speaker. (Spikes are generally better for piercing through carpet to give the speaker a firm foundation, while rubber feet are generally preferred by people who have hardwood floors and don’t want to chance marking them up with spikes.)

From top to bottom, particularly with the matching stands, it’s obvious that the folks at PSB took some time to give the M2, and all the Platinum models for that matter, a distinctive, unique, and elegant appearance. I think the M2 is one of the more attractive minimonitors on the market; if you ask my wife, it’s the best-looking one that’s come into our house in the last year or so (and there have been many). She particularly likes the color of the real-wood veneer -- the review pair was supplied in cherry -- and the way the wood contrasts with the aluminum caps and rails. She also likes the silver-colored grilles, which I think are distinctive too. All in all, the M2 doesn’t look like the typical Canadian-made bookshelf speaker of yore. It has a Scandinavian look to it with a dash of space-age appeal.

Although the M2’s appearance may not scream “I Am Canadian,” at the speaker’s heart is a very typical Canadian-conceived design -- no surprise with Paul Barton at the helm. Today Barton is known as the “grandfather of the Canadian loudspeaker industry.”
Slide off the grille and you’ll see a 6 1/2” woven-fiberglass-cone woofer with a rubber surround atop a 1” aluminum-dome ferrofluid-cooled tweeter. Porting is done through a wide slot on the lower part of the front of the cabinet. The drive units, which are custom-made for PSB, appear to be of good quality, but a most interesting feature is that the woofer is mounted above the tweeter, something Barton started with his Stratus Gold speakers released many years ago. I asked Paul about this and how it relates to the M2’s performance, given that most two-ways have the tweeter and woofer the other way around. But before I get to exactly why it is he has that arrangement, you have to understand his design goals.

As is typical of NRC-aided speaker designers, Barton doesn’t just consider on-axis response when he’s designing. He looks above, below, to the side, and all the way around the speaker -- everywhere, basically. Doing so is important because in a typical room we don’t just hear the direct sound of the speaker -- we hear the direct sound as well as the reflected sound that has been bouncing around the room. Some speaker designers break these various response fields down into direct sound (the sound that comes directly from the speaker to our ears) as well as indirect sound, which is broken down into the reflective response (the first reflections from the floor, side walls, and ceiling) and reverberant response (the response from the sound waves that travel back behind the speaker and reflect off the boundaries and then arrive at the listener). PSB speakers are designed so that the frequency response of the direct and indirect fields are quite similar -- even and controlled on- and off-axis response -- because it has been shown in tests that our ears and brains like speakers that exhibit such behavior.
Back to the woofer-over-the-tweeter placement, as the arrangement might throw some people for a loop. It’s important to remember that it’s not necessarily the positioning of the drivers but the way the drivers sum, mid-air, that dictates the way the speaker will sound. Barton explained in one of my many conversations with him that with any tweeter/woofer arrangement, whether it’s tweeter over woofer or woofer over tweeter, you will have a “lobe” somewhere off-axis -- the lobe being the interference of one driver with another as a result of having different “acoustic centers.” (Place your finger at a point in space and then measure the distance from that single point to center of the tweeter, and then the center of the woofer -- it will be different, and that difference will introduce phase errors.) Typically, the lobe manifests itself as a substantial dip in the frequency response. Barton says that with the tweeter over the woofer, the lobe will normally happen above the speaker’s plane, which can result in a discontinuity when a listener stands. His woofer-over-tweeter arrangement results in the strongest lobe occurring toward the floor, which is less likely to be heard unless the listener is lying down on the floor and listening from down there.

Barton crosses over the M2’s woofer to the tweeter at 2.2kHz. The M2’s binding posts -- which are nothing special but nothing to knock either -- allow for single wiring (the way I used the speakers) and biwiring or biamping should you choose that route. According to PSB’s specs, the M2’s sensitivity is rated at 88dB anechoically and 90dB in-room, the -3dB point for bass response is 50Hz, the nominal and minimum impedance is 4 ohms, and recommended amplifier power ranges from 15 to 200 watts.

Systems
The M2’s warmed up in my living-room system, which has a Nakamichi AV-10 receiver coupled to a Kenwood DV-S700 DVD player. Speaker cables were Nordost Red Dawn IIs and interconnects were out-of-the-box generic stuff. The next step for the M2s was, of course, my reference system, where they were driven by the Zanden Model 600 integrated amp. The source was a Theta Data Basic transport driving the Benchmark Media DAC1. Interconnects in this setup were Nordost Quattro-Fil, and the digital cable was I2Digital’s X-60. Speaker cables were Nirvana S-L. All electronics were plugged into an ExactPower EP15A power regenerator.

Sound
Even though my living-room system is not used for critical listening -- the setup is not ideal and the electronics are just OK -- the M2s sounded remarkably good. “Full and fleshed-out bass, excellent clarity in the midrange, sparkling highs” -- that’s what my listening notes said.

I was amazed at the clarity and definition of Johnny Cash’s “Solitary Man” (American III: Solitary Man [American 69691]). Cash’s voice had texture and detail without any excess warmth or bloat. Chestiness -- that overblown, resonant quality that often plagues male vocals on lesser speakers -- wasn’t there. Ditto for Tracy Chapman’s Telling Stories [Elektra 62478], which also exhibited impressive clarity and detail.

All in all, this living-room setup proved to me that you don’t need an ideal room or have to spend a fortune on electronics to get the M2s to sound good. That’s key for someone who has an inexpensive integrated amplifier or preamp/power-amp combo and is wondering if his electronics can do justice to these minimonitors. Chalk one up to the “put your money where your speakers are” crowd.

In my main system the M2s sounded even better, but in the beginning of the auditioning in this system, the speakers struck me as somewhat unspectacular, which surprised me at first, given how they sounded initially. The M2s weren’t doing anything wrong per se -- there was little to criticize -- but they weren’t leaping out and grabbing me as some speakers do. It took me about two weeks, and a visit from my niece, who loves music but knows nothing about high-end audio, to realize that the unspectacular nature of the M2’s presentation is actually one of the speakers more spectacular traits. Confusing? Not really, at least when you realize that the M2 is strikingly neutral in its presentation and not a speaker that has obvious colorations that jump out and grab you. The reviewer in me was, for a time, confused about exactly what I was hearing.

My niece was interested in learning more about good sound, so I started with some Ani DiFranco discs -- music from an artist she knows but has never heard through a system of this caliber. I played Not a Pretty Girl [Righteous Babe 7], probably my favorite DiFranco disc overall and one that has remarkable sound.

DiFranco’s voice was as pure-sounding as I’d heard anywhere, and the level of detail the M2s could unravel was a textbook case in the intricacies of high-end audio -- exactly what I wanted to demonstrate to my niece. “The Million You Never Made” is one of DiFranco’s aggressive bests. The song picks up pace throughout, and by the end her voice and guitar transcend, presenting an almost machine-gun-like assault. I’ve heard some speakers play this and fall apart trying to keep up, becoming cloudy- and confused-sounding as DiFranco gets edgier in her delivery -- sort of like they’re tripping over their own feet trying to keep up. The M2s, though, kept on their feet and kept the distinction between DiFranco’s voice and her rapid-fire guitar easy to discern.
“Hour Follows Hour” and “32 Flavors,” the two tracks that follow, don’t have the same speed and attack, but they’re chock-full of rich detail and texture. It was here that I could explain tonal balance, detail, and clarity -- the kind of things that we look for in our high-end systems. Again it’s in these areas that the M2s do almost nothing wrong, sounding as neutral and natural as speakers at any price.

DiFranco’s discs often have a very intricately and sometimes uniquely laid-out soundstage, and these two tracks are no exception. I learned quickly that the M2s won’t play any phasey tricks and lay things outside the left and right speakers if they shouldn’t be there, but they will place the images strongly within the soundstage and render a good sense of depth if the recording engineer has done his or her work and actually captured it (it still amazes me how many recordings have no credible soundstage information). That’s exactly what we heard on DiFranco’s disc -- perfectly placed instruments with strong outlines indicating their precise positions, and an easy-to-discern sense of depth and space.

For a more thorough examination of soundstaging and what I could achieve in my room through the M2s, I brought out an old standby, the choral-based soundtrack to the movie The Mission [Virgin 90567-2]. This disc usually transforms my moderately sized listening room into a nearly full-size concert hall that defies the wall boundaries. Another part of the test with this music is not just how the stage is laid out, but how distinct each voice remains within the stage. On lesser speakers -- which could mean less-expensive speakers but doesn’t necessarily mean that -- the singers in the chorus start to overlap and their positions blur. The hyper-precise M2s, though, keep everything distinct, making for a pinpoint-accurate and spacious presentation.

All summed up, the overall performance of the PSB M2s makes them an ideal teaching tool. They do so little wrong, and draw so little attention to themselves. In fact, that is precisely why they were so unspectacular at first. The M2s are rather characterless in their quest for precision. There are no trumped-up or laid-back midrange or other such sonic anomalies that might grab your attention but wear thin over the years. The Avanté IIs were speakers I kept for many years, and I suspect that buyers of the M2s will likely keep theirs for many years as well, because they serve as a conduit to the music, adding little if any coloration to the signal. Such performance is usually more enjoyable over the long term even if it doesn’t have gee-whiz appeal right off the bat.

But that’s not to say that the M2s are sheer perfection. When I played the recordings I mention, and I explained the aspects of performance to my niece, I also had to discuss fine points about the bass range of small speakers. For example, on DiFranco’s “32 Flavors” there’s low end whump from the bass drum that the M2s certainly could deliver as deeply as some larger speakers. The M2s strike as low, for example, as Paradigm’s Signature S2s, which are the same size and have a similar driver configuration. But there are bigger speakers for a reason -- deep bass.

It’s no news flash that you get only so much bass from a minimonitor with a 6 1/2” woofer. In contrast to the M2s is something like the floorstanding MB Quart Vera VS 1F that I’m reviewing next. It has two 6 1/2” woofers, a much larger cabinet, and, as a result, can produce slam-it-home bass that goes deeper and with greater output than the M2s. But the MB Quart speakers are also more than double the price of the M2s. Similarly, PSB has its own larger speakers. How much you value deep bass will help determine if the M2s are right for you.
M2 and S2
One of the most recent hotshot speaker releases is the Paradigm Reference Signature S2 -- a two-way bookshelf loudspeaker that also represents Paradigm’s assault on the state of the minimonitor art. Priced from $1900 to $2220 per pair depending on finish, the S2 is natural competition for the M2.

Because I have both speakers at home, one day I asked my wife a simple question: “Which looks better?” Hands down and without question, she picked the M2. That’s not to say that the S2 looks bad -- quite the opposite. The heavily lacquered bird’s-eye maple is simply gorgeous; she could admire that, too. But it was the M2’s lines, styling, and particularly the choice of colors that grabbed her attention. The fact that the M2s have matching stands and the S2s do not only increased their appeal. Me? I’m caught in the middle -- I like the look of both, and because I can admire the sonic qualities of the M2 and S2, there’s really no clear winner in my mind.

The two speakers sound more similar than they look, but there still are enough sonic differences between them that some people will prefer one over the other. I found both to extend to roughly the same point in the bass -- no surprise given the speakers’ size, both in terms of cabinet and drivers used. The low bass won’t sway any buyers one way or the other. The S2, though, does have a hint of warmth down low -- not in the lowest reaches, but above that, around 100Hz or so -- that the M2 doesn’t. The M2, on the other hand, has a more gradual transition from the lower mids to the bass region.
There are more significant differences, though, in the upper midrange and highs. The M2s have a little more energy up there -- not much, just a touch. That makes the M2 more forward-sounding than the S2. If the music you play has a lot of midband energy -- and plenty of pop and rock does -- you’ll hear it quite easily. The highs of the M2 are also a touch more prominent. Again, not much, but a little bit. Overall, that makes the M2 more immediate-sounding, and the S2 a touch laid-back and lush in comparison.

When it comes to soundstaging, both lay out well-specified space with loads of detail, but the M2 tends to place voices prominently and along the speaker plane, where the S2 lays them back just a notch.

The S2 and M2 embody the pinnacle of common-sense two-way bookshelf-speaker design. For $2000 you should expect a lot, and both speakers deliver a lot. Despite how good these speakers look and how well they’re made, you can also spend more and get something that has even more sex appeal and whizzier cabinet materials. In terms of sound quality, though, I have yet to hear a two-way speaker that can outperform these two Canadian champs across the board. Hence, if you’re out two-way-speaker shopping and you spend more than $2000 and don’t hear the PSB Platinum M2 and Paradigm Signature S2, you haven’t done your homework.

From Avanté II to M2
When I talked to Paul Barton some time ago about his Platinum speakers, he said, with pride, that with this line, which represents the top of PSB speaker design, he could not compromise and produce inferior sonics. More specifically, he meant that he would not stray from neutrality. For the audiophile who wants a no-compromise two-way monitor that will reproduce exactly what’s on a recording (minus the lowest bass), the PSB Platinum M2 holds nothing back. This is a speaker with a character -- a rather characterless one -- that gives a clear view into the performance, for better or worse.
But unlike a lot of speakers that offer studio-monitor-type performance, the M2 doesn’t look like some unsightly, industrial black box that you want to hide away. Speakers are speakers -- with drivers, crossovers, binding posts, and all -- and few can be considered art. But the M2 is a looker -- at least as far as stand-mounted speakers go. For about $2500 (with stands, which I consider more or less just part of the package) you get a fantastic-looking pair of loudspeakers with remarkably few sonic compromises. This makes the PSB Platinum M2 a significant achievement indeed....Doug Schneider

The smallest Platinum in the line is the M2, a two-way, bass-reflex design with a front-firing rectangular port situated at the cabinet’s base. Like the larger floor-standing Platinum models, the M2 is designed with die-cast-aluminum top and bottom trim-caps. These are structural elements—not window dressing —and are bolted down from inside the enclosure. Carrying the metal theme forward, the high-density MDF front baffle uses a distinctive anodized aluminum laminate and is framed in die cast aluminum. Interior bracing is stout. Of particular note is the four-pane “window”- brace between the tweeter and mid/bass drivers.

The driver complement consists of a 6.5" mid/bass transducer with a woven fiberglass diaphragm and rubber surround, and a 1" Ferrofluid-cooled aluminum- dome tweeter with a shielded magnet capable of extended high-frequency response to accommodate the wider bandwidth of hi-rez source material like SACD or DVD-A. This is a tweeter-below/mid/bass-above design, which, in conjunction with a fourthorder Linkwitz–Riley crossover, is said by PSB to be optimal for phase linearity linearity in the vertical plane. PSB’s optional 24" stands have the built-in advantage of mechanically bolting to the M2 for the ultimate in rigidity. For bi-wiring duty dual-5-way gold-plated binding posts are standard. All Platinum speakers are shielded for video—a first for PSB’s premium products.

The sonic strengths of the M2 fairly fly out of the blocks with an exciting “live” feel that energizes most material —an unfettered immediacy that gives the music a compelling sense of realism. Big speaker dynamism makes the smallish M2 sound much larger than its size would suggest. The M2 also seems devoid of typical cabinet artifacts and resonances. Source material doesn’t appear to “center” in and around the enclosure; driver integration is excellent.

The overall character of the M2 is midrange-forward in emphasis and a bit dry in comparison with the more rounded, warmish sound of my reference compact, the ATC SCM20SL. Bass response is solid down to the stated 55Hz; there’s useable response below that, but the M2 rolls off fairly steeply below 50Hz. At reasonable levels, the port is commendably quiet. The M2 is not one of those monitors that boosts the midbass in order to disguise a lack of low-end grunt. Its low-frequency energy is highly controlled, and the speaker is able to handle the dynamic charge of gut-rupturing brass sections or the pounding lower octaves of a grand piano with equal aplomb. Full orchestra is necessarily reduced in dynamic scale, but the M2 has the midrange dynamics to keep pace with a fast subwoofer like PSB’s own SubSonic 10.

Truthful vocal reproduction is the area I’m most sensitive to. I consider it a vital aspect in evaluating a loudspeaker’s performance and a “deal-breaker” if the results are sub-par. If a loudspeaker captures the essence of male and female voice, I consider that it’s playing in the big leagues. In the M2’s case, from James Taylor’s “Boatman” [Hourglass, Columbia SACD], with its intricate four-part harmony, to Dusty Springfield’s sensual classic “The Look of Love” [Casino Royale, Colgems/Classic Records DAD], singers of both genders sounded continuous from bass to falsetto. On occasion, as in Norah Jones’s “Come Away with Me” [Blue Note SACD], the gently brushed snare and softly played ride cymbals gave away the tweeter’s location. Still, Jones’s vocals were sweet and smooth and natural, within the limits of a typical studio setting. All performers were imaged impressively, as well, with nearly unwavering solidity. There can be only one conclusion: The M2 is playing in the big leagues.

On an orchestral work like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring [Cleveland/Maazel; Telarc SACD], the M2 didn’t shrink from the dynamics of the “Sacrificial Dance.” The thunder of the bass drum didn’t faze it—only a hint of bass augmentation from the port was audible. I also felt there was a general brilliance in the lower treble that overlaid the brass and wind sections, especially the trumpets and the chirping piccolo. In this and other symphonic music, the M2 created a wide contiguous soundstage, with exemplary imaging that was as natural as it was well-defined. Midrange bloom, however, was a bit constricted, creating a more analytical sense of the performance.

The M2 was highly responsive to component swaps, a trait that made switching between the tube and direct outputs of the Shanling SCD-T200 SACD player both informative and fun. During “1B” from Appalachian Journey [Sony SACD], I preferred the M2’s violin reproduction via the slightly warmer top end of the tube output stage. On the other hand, when listening to a good jazz-combo recording like The Bill Cunliffe Trio Live at Bernie’s [Groove Note SACD], I preferred the M2 through the direct outputs for the crisper transient attack coming off the piano—a further lesson that it’s the rare system that can be all things to all musical genres.

The overall excellent M2 doesn’t provide much of a target for criticism, but every loudspeaker involves a tradeoff or two. In this instance I found that at higher amplitudes, the lowest frequencies of the M2 would bloom a bit too much, revealing a trace of port noise. Bass didn’t become loose with overhang; rather, there was a subtle muddying of the tonal waters. For example, on Tom Waits’s “Take It With Me” [Mule Variations; Anti- Epitaph], the M2s reproduced Waits’s close-miked vocal with captivating sensitivity and detailing. The loose action, honky-tonk piano reflected every one of the hard miles it had endured. But the accompanying acoustic bass, which is mixed in at a fairly low level, seemed to occasionally cloud the tonal picture. In the PSB’s defence, keep in mind that the M2 is only a hair’s breadth taller than 15 inches!

At the other end of the spectrum, I can only speculate about whether the treble brilliance I noted in a narrow band was due to a slight frequency rise or to the material (as in physical) differences between aluminum and fabric domes. It was probably the result of a little of each. I loved the transient speed and low-level detailing of light percussion during “The Look of Love.” It was flat-out addicting. Yet I was a bit at odds over Dusty’s heavier sibilance as she sang “…is saying so much more than words could ever say….”

A lot of glam loudspeakers do some things spectacularly well at first listen; later, their equally spectacular blind spots signal that the honeymoon’s over. The PSB Platinum M2 is like a versatile ball player—capable of handling every position on the audio playing field with grace and ease. The M2 may not blow the foam off your latte, but over the long haul it will put a lot more music in your life. Does it live up to PSB’s “great for the money” rep? Well, no. Actually it goes it one better—the Platinum M2 is just plain great."

The PSB Platinum M2 multichannel system is a compact rig of the highest order. In the right-sized room it balances sheer force with poise and finesse. Its virtues are many, its weaknesses few. Naturally there are systems out there that can best it. But you will pay dearly trying.

When I was discussing the possibility of reviewing their new Platinum speakers with PSB, they hinted that the stand-mounted M2 was the hot ticket in the line – which I assumed meant that if it was not the best speaker, then it was certainly the best value. But instead of requesting the M2 for the key left and right channels, I held out for the floorstanding, $4700/pair T6. We wanted to include PSB’s best center-channel speaker, the C4, in the package; the T6, topped in the Platinum line only by the larger T8, has a speaker complement close to that of the C4. Though this would not guarantee a good match (the possible effect that the C4’s horizontal driver configuration would have on its timbre match with the T6s was still an unknown), it seemed like a good option. But I was nonetheless intrigued by the M2s, so I also requested a pair of them to try as an alternate front L/R option.
When I compared the T6 with the M2 in the 2-channel mode, however, it became obvious, at least in my system, that the T6, while more highly detailed than the M2, had a too-cool, analytical, and sometimes edgy quality that, for me, was a little off-putting. But just before press time – and long after I had decided to concentrate on a system that used the M2 for the left and right front channels – PSB informed us that the T6 was to undergo a running change that would likely address these concerns. We will therefore report on the revised T6 in a future report. -- TJN