PSB’s Synchrony Series Goes BIG with T800 Premium Tower Speakers

About a year ago, PSB launched its new flagship Synchrony Series with the T600 floor-stander ($8,000/pair) and the B600 bookshelf model ($2,500/pair). These speakers definitely have flagship DNA, including all new drivers, more extensive internal bracing than in any other PSB speaker in the company’s history, and 5mm-thick aluminum baffle plates decoupled from the rest of the enclosure by 10 “isolation cups,” to suppress baffle talk and preserve fine detail. The T600’s outrigger feet are fitted with IsoAcoustics Gaia II isolators — an $800 “tweak” included in the purchase price — while the B600 bookshelves have custom IsoAcoustics isolators built directly into the bottom of their cabinets. All of this comes packaged in classy, if understated, rectangular cabinets finished in satin walnut veneer or high-gloss black paint, with acoustically-transparent, magnetically-attached grilles. These are impressive-looking speakers with prices that reflect both the high build quality on offer and PSB’s dedication to providing value. But when they came out last fall, eagle-eyed readers noticed a couple of things that hinted at a potential expansion of the Synchrony Series down the line. First, there was the obvious lack of a dedicated center-channel speaker — and for now, we’re still waiting on that. But second, some longtime PSB fans couldn’t help but notice that the T600 was noticeably smaller than the company’s previous flagship model. Standing just over 41 inches tall and weighing in at 77 lbs, the T600 wasn’t what I would call petite, and its trio of 6.5-inch woofers can make substantial bass. The previous Synchrony Series (launched in the mid-2000s, and out of production for some time) was headed up by a speaker not much larger — the top-of-the-line Synchrony One was 43 inches tall, and also used three 6.5-inch woofers. But in the interim, PSB had launched a larger flagship, 2014’s Imagine T3 floorstander, with a cabinet nearly 48 inches tall, and 7-inch woofers. It remained the leader of the PSB pack until the T600 arrived on the scene in 2021. Compared to the Imagine T3, the T600’s shorter cabinet and smaller woofers left me wondering: did designer Paul Barton decide to scale things back for his new flagship, or was something bigger on the horizon? Now we know that he, in fact, had a big ace up his sleeve: the new PSB Synchrony T800 ($12,000/pair).

PSB Passif 50 Retro-Style Speakers

Hot off the heels of PSB’s retro-styled Passif 50 Anniversary Edition loudspeakers comes the Synchrony T800, a new flagship model marking the company’s 50-year milestone. Like the T600, the T800 features a 5-way transitional array (more on that later), employing three larger 8-inch woofers and a 5.25-inch midrange driver, all featuring cast baskets, woven carbon-fiber cones, mass-loaded rubber surrounds, and advanced motor structures that maintain constant magnetic force in the voice coil gap. The 1-inch titanium dome tweeter is a PSB signature, featuring ferrofluid damping and a neodymium magnet. Thanks in part to the larger woofers, the T800 delivers wider full-frequency bandwidth than the T600, and can play louder than any other PSB design, while offering greater efficiency and lower distortion across all volume levels. Power handling capacity is also greater than on the T600, making the T800 appropriate for large rooms and the powerful amplifiers that tend to go with them. The T800 “carries the largest and most accurate performance envelope of any PSB loudspeaker to date and delivers a caliber of micro-detail and realism that exceeds previous flagship designs,” according to the company. Among the most salient improvements is a new driver platform yielding a significant reduction of non-linear distortion. This reportedly keeps THD and intermodulation distortion low while delivering higher sound pressure levels without compression, resulting in deep bass impact and a more open midrange. The new driver platform is also said to provide dramatically better micro-dynamics (small gradations in sound) compared to PSB’s previous designs. Reduced driver distortion is provided by a number of components working together in an advanced driver assembly, including Faraday rings, longer voice coils, and symmetrical magnetic drive.

PSB Synchrony T800 Tower Speakers

PSB is famous for its crossover designs, and the Synchrony T800 uses what the company describes as “the most advanced amplitude-perfect Linkwitz-Riley 4th-order crossover that PSB Speakers has ever utilized, featuring high-voltage poly film capacitors and oxygen-free interconnect wire for complete driver control.” As in the T600, the woofers in the T800 form a transitional-array design, meaning that the three woofers cover progressively narrower frequency bands as you move down the speaker. The top woofer covers the entire bass region, from the lowest frequencies all the way up to the crossover point with the midrange driver. The middle woofer starts at the bottom as well, but rolls off much lower, well before the midrange crossover point. Finally, the bottom woofer plays only the lowest frequencies. According to Paul Barton, this unusual woofer array produces smoother bass response because it “randomizes” the phenomenon of floor bounce, in which the low-frequency sound waves that bounce off the floor interfere with the sound coming directly from the woofers. The T800 is specified to deliver bass all the way down to 21 Hz (-3dB), with “well-defined, extended low-frequency performance comparable to a premium quality subwoofer,” according to PSB. But extension is only one aspect of bass performance; a speaker also needs to deliver high output at those low frequencies. The company says that the T800 plays deeper and louder than any other PSB speaker, with high efficiency (92dB at 1m) and low distortion at any level, delivering wide dynamic range and the kind of volume levels you’d experience at a live performance, even in large listening rooms. Those listeners with common room resonance problems at low frequencies can use the provided port bungs to fine-tune the T800’s bass output.

IsoAcoustics Gaia II Isolation Feet Included with PSB T800 Towers

The PSB T800, IsoAcoustics Feet Included!

The T800’s impressive bass performance is helped along, of course, by the speaker’s increased cabinet volume. It stands nearly 48 inches tall, 15 inches wide, and just over 15.5 inches deep. Each of the 8-inch woofers sits in its own individually-tuned chamber with its own rear-firing port to break up in-speaker standing waves. As in the T600 and B600, the T800’s acoustically-inert MDF cabinet is strengthened by a decoupled aluminum front baffle plate, increasing the density of the baffle and the enclosure’s overall rigidity. Each T800 speaker weighs a substantial 100 pounds, and sits on outrigger stabilizers fitted with custom-designed IsoAcoustics Gaia II isolation feet. These are said to “prevent mechanical energy produced by the drivers and cabinet from being reflected back into the enclosure,” while at the same time “resisting lateral movement and oscillations to maintain accuracy and alignment with the listening position.” According to PSB, the IsoAcoustics isolation feet offer greater sound clarity and openness by reducing internal reflections and protecting the speaker from external vibrations. (We have tested the larger Gaia I and Gaia Titan isolators from IsoAcoustics, and came away very impressed with their performance. See the November, 2021 review by Theo Nicolakis.)

PSB says that the Synchrony T800:

 “furthers the Synchrony Series and represents the finest application of True to Nature sound – one marked by the highest possible level of tonal accuracy, thrilling dynamics, impactful bass, transparent midrange, pinpoint imaging, and exquisite detail,” giving it the ability to “handle the most complex recordings — be it an orchestral soundtrack, quiet nature sounds or live action movie - with a degree of dynamic and power handling unlike any other PSB speaker that has ever come before it.”

  PSB Speakers Synchrony B600 & PWM Home Theater Speakers Review

Unlike the smaller T600, the T800 leaves us with no inkling that Paul Barton is holding out on us. It looks like a true flagship-level product, with a relatively high price to match (for PSB, anyway). The only question is whether PSB fans with aspirations of a Synchrony home theater will be satisfied using one of the brand’s high-end on-wall speakers (the $1,599/each PWM2 or the $2,749/each PWM3) as a center-channel speaker. The company tells us that they “have been voiced and have very similar dispersion characteristics as the Synchrony T600 and B600,” but I think that many of us would prefer a dedicated Synchrony Series center-channel speaker — preferably a 3-way design with a vertically-oriented tweeter and midrange driver. That said, YouTuber and friend of Audioholics Shane Lee reviewed a combo system using the Synchrony B600 bookshelf speakers and the aforementioned on-walls.

Would you be happy using a skinny on-wall speaker as the center channel in a home theater system anchored by PSB’s beefy new towers? Share your thoughts in the related forum thread below.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.