Well these babies sound Great! But be aware they require a substantiat burn in period to smooth that tweeter which can sound a bit dry at first. Midrange is as neutral as some of the best. After attending this winter's CES I can say that in order to find better sound, (or alot better sound) and yes it is out there, just listen to a well tuned pair of the German Acoustics or for that matter, the "Big" Dunleavys you have to spend at least two to four times as much. The PSB's are a superb value!!!.
P.S. it is a bit hard to find these speakers to listen to in the S.F. Bay Area. A call to P.S.B. lead me to Total Media Concepts in Foster City. Their staff treated me with the utmost of respect. They took me to their private showroom which mated the PSB's with some excellent electronics. The sound was glorious and the glass of Chateau Montelina Cabernet was a nice touch. Thanks Guys!! I
love my PSB's.

The 800i speakers are just great. The clarity of vocals is astounding. This speaker absolutely has the biggest bang for the buck. And while I'm on the
subject of bang these things have great bass.

I just traded in a pair of PSB 300i's (nice bookshelfs in their own right) for some 800i's. I absolutely love them. I tried out the 500i's, which are a nice sensitive speaker with a great midrange, but don't offer quite the power handling for my tastes. Next, I tried the 600i's which were more on par w/power handling, have an upgraded tweeter, but were LESS sensitive than the 500i and sounded unacceptably muddy in the midrange. Finally, HALLELUJAH...I tried the 800i's and they tickled my ears to death. They are the perfect blend of the 500i's sensitivity with the high freq. clarity and power handling of the 600i's, and on top of that an extended low freq. range because of their 2nd 8" woofer (500's have just one). This is an absolutely wonderful speaker for $800! I was blown away! p.s. tried out all models with SR-680 Marantz Receiver.

After being the new owner of the PSB-800i for a month. I have decided that if I can't sell my B&W604 in the next 2 weeks, I will see if the overpriced B&W garbages can be used as boat anchors. Many thanks to PSB for bringing music back to my life.

Over the years, I have owned a few home audio speakers. While I'm certainly no high end expert, I'm no newbie at this either. I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the pack between a high end expert and a newbie audio buff. My current speakers are the PSB century 800i. While I'm sure many persons out there can probaly give me the names of speakers that they think sound better than the 800i's, I can honestly say that for the under 1,000 dollar speaker, the 800i's sound silky smooth with most musical applications with very good (much better than average I think) stereo imaging! Music on a cloud almost! While I'm sure there are speakers out there that may sound "SOME" better out there, I'd bet they cost considerably more than the 800is cost! Everyone hears differently I guess. The debates or discussions over which speaker sounds best will continue. I can honestly tell you that I have only heard one bad speaker in my life. The Bose 201's. Those speakers sounded as if the music was coming out of two tin cans. I once heard the Bose 901 speakers in a musical in Paris once. The 901's were positioned throughout the auditorium. I thought they sounded just fine! Would I buy them? probably not, but many out there would. It all comes back to how we hear the music. I said I have never heard a bad pair of speakers. There are many speakers that would not appeal to me personally, but I would not call them junk speakers either. I get somewhat amused at those that blast people for shopping at places like Best Buy's or Circuit City. Both of these stores sell some fine audio products, including speakers. That doesn't mean I would own many of the speakers that they or others might sell, but it certainly doesn't mean that they sell junk either. I know what I like in a speaker and I guess many of you all like certain things about certain speakers as well. I just happen to like the PSB 800i speaker system! To me that is all that matters! Since 5 stars means perfection I guess, I will not give them 5 stars, but they are closer to 5 stars than 4, so what the hey I will punch in 5!
"By the home outside of Lagrange they gottah lot of nice girls"

ZZ Top

SunVol

Well, I've had my pair of the PSB 800i's for three weeks now and have to say they are sounding better every day. I compaired them to Energy E:XL26, Paridigm M7's, Polk Audio RT600 and others. By far the PSB 800i was the smoothest of the lot. Great base, layed back midrange and nice crisp hi's. For the $650 cdn price tag they are unmistakably the tops in their class.
I know there are better speakers out there. But I've not heard better in this price range. They present a large sound stage - very nice imaging. A 5 star rating does not indicate that they are the perfect sounding speaker, but they are indeed tops in their class.

I've recently purchased a pair of 800i PSBs to get me by until I win the lottery. I've bought and sold numerous systems and played around building half a dozen or so homemade speakers myself. For the money I've never been disappointed with PSBs. This is my third pair and I'm always impressed with every aspect of these speakers! The first thing I noticed was that a few of you have mentioned the lenghty burn in time required for these 800s. No kidding! When I first set them up they didn't meet my expectations at all, even knowing about the necessary burn in time. HOWEVER after 4/5 days of round the clock use they changed quite a bit. Night and day, I couldn't beleive the difference. The tweeters smoothed out nicely and the lows became more dementional, the mids more natural. The vocals are unreal, super defined and very clear without being too frontal like the Stratus Silvers. These are not as airy as an electrostatic panel or a bi-polar, but expect BIG sound. I mean huge sound. My listening room is 17' x 11.5' and I was surprised how much space these speakers require. They do have a conservative footprint but wait till you hear the soundstage. They need space to breath. My rack right now consists of a Bryston 4BST Pro, a Denon pre-amp (can't afford the Bryston pre right now), NAD CD, Yamaha tuner, MIT T2+T3 interconnects, Audioquest Crystal cables (they are biwired into my 800s), and all run through your typical Panamax surge protector (a must if you value your hard earned cash). The 800s are easy to drive at 8 ohms and sound better if you can place them out from the wall more than a foot or so.
I'm going to rate them a five too, we all could find something to gripe about but why bother. For around 6-700 bones Cdn you can't get much better than this. In a word, wow.

I did a significant amount of research and finally concluded that for the money this speaker is unbeatable. I compared this speaker to a few others, namely, the NHT Supertwo and the Platinum PT-808. The Platinum's were actually my favorite, and they retail at the same $800 as the 800i's, but I got the 800i's at a much better price via Reference A/V out in California. After getting these speakers home, I can say they are excellent. I have them paired with the NAD 340 and I couldn't be happier.
Excellent speakers, excellent buy.

E.
p.s., I'm more than happy with the build quality.

Crisp highs, warm, natural midrange and very good bass

I spent quite a bit of time listening to speakers looking to upgrade from my bottom of the line Klipsch bookshelves (KG .5 - about $150 a pair). I also wanted to get a pair of towers so my 1 year old wouldn't knock them over and get hurt (or damage my stuff!!!) I have DD and DTS using a Denon AVR-2600 receiver paired with a Technics SH-AC500D DD/DTS processor. I had listened to Klipsch, B&W, Paradigm, Sound Dynamics, Energy, Wharfdale, Psb, Boston Accoustics, Infinity, Cambridge Soundworks, Definitive Technology, Atlantic Technology, and others. I found that I steered toward the warmer, but not real lax sound. I found some Klipsch RF-3 and KLF-10/20 (yes, not all Klipsch are bright I found) that I liked, Paradigm, Psb and Sound Dymanics. Well, I found a place selling a pair of 800i's and 300i's (blemishes from Psb - haven't found the cosmetic blemish though... :) ) for a cheap price. I ended up getting both pairs for $660 including shipping. I found they needed break in, but the treble became crisp, but not edgy. The midrange and voices both male and female sounded natural. The subtleties in the recordings shown through. Big 3 dimensional soundstage and nice imaging. The bass is also VERY good. I had good usuable bass in the low 30's. Bass was well defined and not boomy. I continue to be surprised at how good they are. I have my 200i center channel coming and will be all set. Highly recommend snatching up the remaining Century speakers, especially the 800i's. I have both pairs in a nice cherry finish which I like alot better than the standard black that many under $1000 speakers are finished in.

I got a pretty good deal on these speakers and have had them for about a month now. At first, I thought they were okay. I was a little dissappointed because I expected the sound to be orgasmic since they were so highly reviewed EVERYWHERE. After I shook off the idea that they weren't suppose to be a substitute for sex, I really began to enjoy them. They are crystal clear. My music is pretty diverse ranging from artists like Sara McLachlan, Mariah Carey(Okay, everyone stop gagging) to more bass intensive music like Puff Daddy. I must say the psb 800is handle all these types of music extremely well. The dual 8'' drivers have more (way more) than enough bass. If you don't believe me, listen to the first 5 seconds of Usher's "You make me wanna" with the volume turned up (they can handle quite a bit of wattage) and you can feel it in the middle of your chest. Also for a great (though not orgasmic, you can tell I miss my girlfriend) experience, listen to a few of Mariah Carey's songs and you can see how clear the higher frequencies are. Also besides the musicality of these speakers, they are very well built and look great. They are slim and are not too obtrusive.

For home theater, they seem to perform pretty well. I put them in phantom mode and they have enough bass that I am actually rethinking the idea of getting a sub (and save 800 bucks). I am waiting for the my center (the PSB C5, a little overkill for the 800i) to come. Can't wait. It should sound unbelievable.

Get these speakers. You will not be dissappointed whether you are a causual listener or an obsessive compulsive (a.k.a. audiophile).