Price Paid:  $299.00 from Camera's Inc.

Summary:
I bought the A/V's to replace an old pair of Bose bookshelf speakers. They sounded incredible in the soundroom at the dealer, reproducing complex material with clarity and unexpected dynamics for their size. When I brought them home, it was a different story. The sound is very compressed at anything below screaming volume, difficult to get any high-end despite tedious EQ tweaking. Planning to upgrade to a better receiver soon, hope to enjoy improved results.

Strengths:
Quality construction, attractive finish, good reproduction of mids.

Weaknesses:
Highs are almost non-existent at low to moderate volumes. Can't remove grilles to allow sound to breathe.

Price Paid:  $240.00 from alternative audio

Summary:
I believe my pair was bought in'98. Even though i'm looking to upgrade my psb alphas I love these speakers. Very natural and elegant sounding for the price. These speakers have lots of potential. They are very quiet (no typical mid-fi sizzle) and love resolution. I used to use a cambridge audio integraded with them and this this combo gave me a very, natural and true sound with a stunning ability for timbre and especially ambience. They are awesome for all kinds of music. I do'nt know what else to say. I would buy these over any paradigm speakers in a second. Or for that matter any other similarily priced speaker. They make the music sound closer and more intimate to your ear than the competitors. Have phun!

Strengths:
This speaker one has one strength. But it takes it a long way! natural, elegant, and balanced tonal character. And by this i mean it does nothing wrong. The ones how say these speakers don't have slam you are definetly not pairing them to the equipment they deserve :P

Weaknesses:
As the room gets larger, their sound dilutes and starts losing coherency, bass, and focus. Keep them in a small to medium sized room.

Similar Products Used:
paradigm mini monitors, b&w 302

Price Paid:  $185.00 from audio dealer in NYC

Summary:
A great small speaker, using them for my rears in surround sound. Would not hesitate to use them up front for main speakers. Surprisingly good bass out of these boxes.

Build quilty could be a little better. But they do sound nice with excellent detail.

An excellent value, may buy a second pair as B speakers for the dining room.

Strengths:
Better sound than anticipated out of these boxes

Weaknesses:
Speaker wire connectors could be better

Similar Products Used:
Def Tech, Bose, JBL

Price Paid:  $230.00 from Audio Insight, Plano TX

Summary:
Shopping to upgrade my Home Theater and was completely sold on these babies.

Great sound! The DefTech's I listened to couldn't compete.
Music sounds great as well as movies. For their size, I loved the bass. That sounded great for music. For movies, though, the sub is definitely needed. Has a nice crossover for music and movies when using the sub.

The non-removeable grill is more of a mental thing that you can't actually look at the speaker. Its a minor drawback.

Strengths:
Great sound for the size and price

Weaknesses:
Non-removeable grill

Similar Products Used:
Definitive ProCinema

Price Paid:  $180.00 from soundseller.com

Summary:
POSITIVE:
Let me start by saying that these are great speakers. They use a very nice crossover network that uses air core inductors rather than ferrite core, so they introduce no non-linearities (thus lowering the THD drastically). They use a high excursion, shielded 6.5" woofer, and a very nice tweeter. They look great, especially with the cherry finish. Their main purpose in life is as low SPL compact monitors, but to crank up the volume, you'll need to make some super simple mods (see below). Their crossover seems to use at least one Zobel network for impedence equalization(I think, I haven't traced it thouroughly) and two 1st order networks for the woofer and tweeter. Since the rolloff of the mechanical woofer and tweeter is also first order, they add to the crossover to make the rolloff 2nd order overall. Once again, very nice flat frequency response and respectable phase response. The port is bigger in diameter than the previous model of Alpha, this results in marked reduction in wind noise, assuming you perform the below modifications.

NEGATIVES: (but these have remedies, read below)
These speakers are not well sealed, in fact, if you blow into the port, a significant amount of air whistles out the back and from around the woofer. This whistling is audible during low, heavy, bass hits (like in movies, not usually in music). This leakage also decreases the bass capability a bit, especially at very low frequencies (where the speaker needs all the efficiency it can get).

Also, the ports have sharp edges inside and out, and even a bit of burring from production. This causes excess wind noise during heavy bass reproduction.

SIMPLE REMEDIES:
The great thing PSB did while introducing these faults, was make the speaker disassemblable. Just unscrew the back and remove it. Unplug the speaker connectors, being careful to mark where they went. Use some caulk to caulk around the woofer where most of the leakage is. Buy some very thin weather stripping and line the edge where the back presses against (the screws will punch through the stripping).

Now, use some really coarse sand paper to sand down the edges of the inside of the port, making them nice and round and burr free.

Reconnect the speaker connectors (if you want, you can solder them as a "feel good"), put the insulation back in, and seal 'm up.

You now have some Alphas that will perform up there with speakers 2-3 times the price.

I highly recommend these speakers. The simple performance enhancing mods are actually kind of fun to make, plus, you get to see the quality of the speaker inside and out. The crossover looks very professional (not slapped together like cheaper brands). There is a lack of saw dust and wood chips in the interior, unlike cheaper brands, and everything looks precision fit. I just wonder why PSB didn't seal the woofer and the rear panel more effectively and round out the port edges. Oh well. That's why they git a 5 star bargain and only a 4 star overall rating!

Buy these, and have fun!
-Erik
PS I'll be putting a section on these mods on my website:
www.crazyprojects.org
Look for it (today is friday 4/20/2001, it oughta be up this weekend). E-mail me with questions or comments: erikb@ksu.edu

Strengths:
accuracy, warmth, frequency response, driver and crossover quality, appearance, reputation, build quality (with an exception), bass reproduction for size, ease of positioning

Weaknesses:
quality of sealing, quality of port (but not too bad)

Similar Products Used:
Alphas (the grand daddies to the AVs)