OOPS!

OOPS!  In my last post, I discussed how I was going to build a turntable.  Ummmm, well it turns out that I am a member of an audiophile club and I got wind of a sale of some speakers which I have wanted to try for a while.  I heard these particular speakers, or something similar by PSB at a friends house listening to some recordings.  I was impressed with the detail and the sound.  The speakers that I picked up this week are PSB 6T speakers.  I guess that the turntable will have to wait a bit longer, onto the back burner.
 

The PSB 6T speakers look huge, which they are not, they are pretty big though.  Those are actually 3 - 6.5" drivers, two woofers, one mid and upper mid, and a tweeter, they stand maybe 40 inches or so high, and only about 10 inches wide, the large part is they are 20" deep!  There is a little superficial cabinet damage, so I acquired them at a sweet price from a very nice fellow.  I believe he told me he was playing them on a 35WPC tube amp.  I would have liked to hear them with that setup!

  

Yamaha RX-V2070 and PSB 6T

As far as how they sound with my Yamaha amp, the sound is very precise, I heard musicians breathing on certain sections of music.  I will have to listen to them for a while to fully appreciate them.  I ran them for a few hours on the Yamaha home theater receiver; I played rock, metal, jazz, vocal, Sinatra, and some reggae.  My source was a computer WMA library fed to my system by a Music Streamer USB DAC.  On certain material the speakers sounded amazing but I found they were missing just a little something on the heavier rock songs like some Judas Priest that I had played.  I had them bi-amped to the Yamaha home theater receiver, an RX-V2070, 140 Watts x 7.  I was surprised how much bass they deliver.  Overall I felt that this receiver cannot push the PSBs to the volume level I would need them to achieve in order to de-throne the Klipsch KLF-20s that are usually bi-amped to this receiver and give wonderful performance.

Parasound HCA 800 II and PSB 6T

I listened to SACD / CD of Ray Charles - "Genius + Soul = Jazz" on my vintage (1991) Sony ES 5-disc carousel and on my Parasound HCA 800 II and the PSB 6Ts.  I felt a bit fatigued listening to the music while my system was configured this way.  I had a headache by the time I was done listening to the CD.  The sound was excellent, however it bothered me, sometimes to the point that I wanted to turn it down during some organ and horn sections.  I will have to listen to different material to be certain with this combination.  I will take another listen to the CD as well, on a different set of speakers and see if I notice the same harshness.  this was a tough listening session, I am hoping for different results with different music.  I spent some time, an album side to be exact listening to Ray Charles again, on LP.  I figured out what bothers me about the way this setup sounds.  It is the excellence of the tweeter, with this amp in particular, it makes the highs harsh.  I noticed it quite pronounced on scratch portions of my record.  I played side two on a different set of speakers, my Boston Acoustics T-930, which I have had since new.  This side sounded "better", I could still hear the pops and snaps, but it was much more agreeable sounding.  I have come to the conclusion that unless a recording is perfect and mid range rich, I should not listen using this combination of equipment.

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McIntosh MC250 and PSB 6T

Now I have the PSBs hooked to my McIntosh MC250 50 Watts x 2, to see how they sound. I just got my hands on some mono, extended play, 45RPM Benny Goodman small group jazz  records.  I played them through the McIntosh and the 5 sides I listened to were pretty awesome, very nice indeed.  I was a bit concerned that they might sound harsh with vinyl.  Imagine my delight when I did not hear the harshness that I had experienced with the Parasound.  I used a Grado MC mono cartridge on my Technics SL-B3 turntable.  I spent some more time with my digitized music collection, the source was a computer WMA library fed to my system by a Music Streamer USB DAC, this time I played some Taylor Swift with my daughter.  The sound was excellent, there was no harshness and the sound was very revealing, I sometimes was surprised that I was hearing a new thing here or there in the music I was listening to.  Overall, I would have to say that I have not experienced the issues that I had when pairing these speakers with the Parasound amp.  The sound when paired with the McIntosh is awesome, nice and full, a winner to my ears!

Summary
Not every amplifier and speaker combination works, I am very glad I have a variety.  These are awesome speakers and will have a home here for a while.  I am very glad to have a few amplifiers that I can try with different combinations of equipment in the attempt to hear music in as revealing a way as possible, without spending a fortune.  I will not be using these speakers with the Parasound due to the issues that I listed above.  However, the performance of my other two amplifiers was very good to excellent, even remarkable depending on the music and the volume.  If I only had one amp, I may not be keeping these due to the fact they do not play loud enough to satisfy my occasional need to crank the tunes to 11, otherwise these are very beautiful, revealing awesome sounding speakers.  I heard things in recordings that I had not heard with any of my other speakers, I am pretty impressed with the sound of this speaker. 

Jeffs Beer Rating - 4 out of 6 beers!  Solid!



Jeff's Beer Rating System:

1 Beer - Weak - did these come out of a kids toy?

2 Beer - OK - these would sound OK at a party.

3 Beer - Good - these would sound good just about anywhere, not great, but a good speaker at a good price, not revealing or articulate, but rocks the house down and handles music very nicely.

4 Beer - Solid - these would play very well with great recordings and a perfect room, quite a few of these are reasonably priced speakers, can be revealing and articulate, but usually a great sounding speaker and a good value to own.

5 Beer - Sweet - these would play articulate, revealing and sweet sounding music, source type is nearly irrelevant, nearly perfect sound with nearly any music or source, a nice speaker to have if you can afford it.

6 Beer - OMG - these would knock your socks off, sound amazing, redefine your idea of what a perfect speaker can sound like, it's almost like you are in the room with the performers, the speaker to have if you can afford it.



Equipment used during evaluation:

• PSB 6T Speakers
• Yamaha C-70 Pre-Amplifier
• McIntosh MC250
• Parasound HCA 800 II
• Yamaha RX-V2070 Home Theater Receiver
• Technics SL-B3 Belt-Drive Turntable
• Grado MC Mono Phono Cartridge
• Dell Precision Laptop M70
• Music Streamer DAC
• Knuconceptz Speaker cables
• Sony C77ES 5-disc carousel CD player
• Boston Acoustics T930 Speakers
• Klipsch KLF-20 Speakers

Keep Listening!

Jeff