Old Rusty

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Craigslist

Summary:
Sweet, sweet candy...Pick 'em up cheap, bi-wire & sit back & groove! Serious bottom-end, sweet midrange and singing tweets. You cannot go wrong with these babies.

Strengths:
Very well constructed, heavy as hell. Made in Canada by hosers, eh!

Weaknesses:
None so far.

Similar Products Used:
Good lord...way too many.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Paul and Tony's Ster

Summary:
I love these speakers. To my ears, they are clear, solid and fun to listen to for many hours. I have them working with a HSU subwoofer, and together, they can really rock the house on DVDs or CDs. I liked their sound so much that I purchased a PSB 8C to go with them in HT. Oh sure, I could get a taller speaker, a wider speaker, a more expensive speaker, but why? Other than my ego, there is no reason to replace these wonderful sounding PSB speakers.

Strengths:
Each time I have upgraded a component in the system, the speakers have upgraded their own sound to match the improvement. They sounded great with a powerful Panasonic HT unit BUT they were an entirely new speaker with a top of the line Kenwood driver. And when I added a NAD C521BEE CD player, again, they raised their performance level to match. I don't think I've reached their maximum potential... but what more can a 56 year old man hear? Not much.

Weaknesses:
To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is always a burning question. Get a few extra bucks in your pocket, and you get the fever BUT I have to slap myself each time this happens... Are you happy with your current speakers? Yes. Are they meeting your needs? Yes. Do you really love listening to them? Yes. So now, I score browny points and give the extra coin to my WIFE so that she can buy another horse!

Similar Products Used:
AR LSTs back in the good old days before my system was stolen!

Price Paid:  $750.00 from Madison, WI

Summary:
Short and Sweet: I've bought 3 pairs of speakers since the psb 800i (B&W's just last month for 1,500) and have returned every pair. Nothing comes close to the 800i for pure, simple music listening at any volume level. I have dropped them, my dog has pushed in the woofer cones with his nose, and I've used various low-mid grade amps. I recently hooked up a SimAudio Moon I-5 integrated amp to it and...well...they are even better. Unreal. I was shopping for $2,000 speakers to "match" my new amp. I'm not shopping anymore. If you want better sound from them, get a better amp. And enjoy the fact that you have sound that rivals speakers 2 and possibly 3 times the price. These are good, solid, precise sounding speakers. Any music sounds good, especially female vocals and loungey, percussion-based tracks. These babies rock. Thanks Canada!

Strengths:
Everything, including the construction. Speakers are for LISTENING, not LOOKING. If you want speakers that LOOK nice, get B&W's and turn up the TV.

Weaknesses:
Connectors are plastic, but whatever...that's 50-100 bucks in your pocket for CD's.

Similar Products Used:
B&W, Signet, PSB, KEF

Summary:
This is a follow up to my previous review. I have since upgraded to a Harman-Kardon Signature 2.0 DD/DTS processor/tuner/preamp and its matching Signature 2.1 amp (100w x 5). These units used to sell for about $3500 and I got them as a demo for $860 shipped. (You can get them for $999 at www.harmanaudio.com) I am surprised at the sound difference over my Denon DD-ready AVR-2600 with Technics SH-AC500D DD/DTS processor. There is more detail (can hear the echos of the guitar chamber, breathing, vibration of the strings, etc.), soundstage (width and depth), imaging is locked in more, realism to the acoustic instruments, ambience, etc. I was interested how it would make these speakers sound with electronics costing much more and they were up to the task. This says alot for these speakers as you wold almost never put electronics that cost 4x or more (MSRP) than the speakers. Very satisfied and enjoying listening to my CD's all over again!

Strengths:
very good bass, crisp clean highs, natural midrange, imaging and soundstage

Weaknesses:
none at this price or even 2 times as much

Similar Products Used:
listened to quite a few including Paradigm, B&W, NHT, etc.

Price Paid:  $500.00 from whitby audio

Summary:
THE PSB 800i's ARE A ECELLENT SOUNDING SPEAKER WITH NICE CRISP HIGHS AND POWERFULL BASS , THEY ARE WORTH EVERY PENNY . THEY ARE DISCONTINUED , AS PSB CAME OUT WITH A NEW LINE , THE IMAGE SERIES , YOU STILL MIGHT BE ABLE TO FIND SOME 800i's AT A PSB DEALER IF YOU CAN YOU WILL MORE THAN HAPPY WITH YOUR PURCHASE .

MY SYSTEM ICLUDES THE FOLLOWING

MARANTZ AV-9000 PRE/PRO THX ULTRA
MARANTZ MM 9000 5CH/AMP THX ULTRA
MARANTZ DVD 18 PLAYER THX ULTRA
MARANTZ CC65 S.E.
PSB 800i's fronts L/R
PSB 500i's rears L/R
PSB 200i's center C
CERWIN VEGA SUB /with NAD 214 BRIDGED MONO AMP .

Strengths:
nice crisp highs ,powerfull bass , very nice sounding

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
paradigm,