PSB Synchrony Two Home Theater Speaker System

Beyond Great Sound

Several months back the A/V rumor mill started churning as word got out that PSB was releasing a new top-tier family of speakers called the Synchrony Series. PSB is known for packing loads of performance into its low- and mid-priced designs, so listeners were excited to see what company founder and chief designer Paul Barton could do when setting out to build speakers where performance took precedence over pricing. When I met with Barton at CEDIA 2007, he was reluctant to toot his own horn but did quietly allow himself to say that his new flagships produce less distortion than most other speakers, regardless of cost. Most of all, though, I think Barton takes real delight in blowing listeners’ minds with speakers that deliver unexpected levels of performance for the money. As you’ll see in a moment, the Synchrony line fits that profile.

Features

Our PSB Synchrony surround system consisted of two Synchrony Two floorstanders, a Synchrony Two C center channel, a pair of Synchrony S surround speakers, and an HD10 powered subwoofer—collectively selling for $7799. Rather than giving a model-by-model run-down, let me simply summarize the key technologies in play throughout the line.

Synchrony models feature rigid and well-damped enclosures that incorporate front and rear panels made of double-walled aluminum, with curved 21mm-thick sidewalls made of laminated MDF. The objective is to have a structure that minimizes unwanted resonance and is stiff enough to let you hear the pure sound of PSB’s drivers without contributing bad vibes of its own. For example, each of the three mid-bass drivers in the Synchrony Two floorstanders has its own internally isolated, ducted mounting chamber.

Next, Synchrony speakers provide the finest drive units PSB has ever made. All models feature light, responsive, ferrofluid-cooled 1-inch titanium dome tweeters with mid/bass drivers whose cones are made of an usual laminate of fine-weave fiberglass and natural fiber—a combination said to offer an ideal mix of stiffness and internal damping.

Finally, the HD10 subwoofer combines a powerful 750-watt “class H” amplifier with a “severe duty” 10-inch woofer and dual opposing 10-inch passive radiators. PSB isn’t kidding with its severe duty terminology since the HD10 has been put through a brutal “15-hour test of being driven continuously to maximum output.” Do not attempt this at home (unless you want to scare the bejibbers out of your kids or neighbors).

Barton says the Synchrony designs are less revolutionary than evolutionary—the result of “refinement, refinement, and more refinement,” but if that is the case, then refinement certainly has a distinctive charm of its own.

Movie Performance

If I had to sum up the PSB Synchrony system in just a few words, they would be purity, focus, dynamics and, most importantly, emotional content—qualities that play out beautifully in movies and music.

Perhaps a small example will illustrate my point. If you watch the opening minutes of Open Range on DVD, you’ll notice the film’s primary musical theme is introduced through a sweet, melancholy trumpet solo, even as distant thunder is heard in the background. I’ve probably watched/ heard that passage a zillion times, yet the Synchrony system made it sound fresh and new in ways that really snapped me to attention.

First, the PSBs simply nailed the soulful, burnished glow of the trumpet solo in a pure, natural, and lifelike way, making the opening theme sound breathtakingly beautiful. Much like one of those zoomed-in, micro-molecular scenes from CSI, the PSBs let you explore the interior richness of sounds so you can’t help but be fascinated by what you hear. Second, the PSBs made the deep, sharply focused crack and rumble of the opening peal of thunder sound so real, and so precisely positioned on a distant hillside, that for a split-second I wondered if a real storm was approaching. One of the Synchrony system’s greatest strengths is its ability to create the illusion that sounds are emanating from pinpoint locations within a 3D soundstage, and not from the speakers themselves.

Next, I cued up the Spider-Man 3 DVD, playing the terrifying scene in which the murderer Flint Marko gets atomized (and turned into the Sandman) through a high-energy particle physics experiment gone horribly wrong. As the “de-molecularizer” gets moving, it emits powerful, throbbing noises that the Synchrony system reproduced with the greatest of ease (though the sheetrock was taking a royal beating from all the bass energy turned loose in the room). At the same time, the arms of the de-molecularizer begin to swirl around Marko, sounding louder and louder as they pick up speed—an effect perfectly mimicked by the Synchrony rig. The scene is both visually and sonically unnerving; as Marko is gradually reduced to grains of sand, listeners have the eerie sense of heavy, pulsating mechanical arms whipping in a circle from the front of the room to sweep just behind their heads (a sound that makes even the most unflappable movie watchers flinch). The point is that the Synchrony system draws and then holds your attention—especially on an emotional level—as few others can.