PSB Loudspeakers (short for Paul and Sue Barton) was formed in in 1972 in St. Jacobs in Ontario Canada. For the entire time it has been trading, it has been overseen by the company founder Paul Barton. Barton, a native of Waterloo Ontario, was passionately interested in loudspeaker design from an early age and originally sold speaker kits to fellow students to assemble themselves. The kits were popular enough that he made the move into producing the speakers himself.
What marked PSB out from pretty much the beginning of its time in business was an interest in measurement, not simply as a means to an end where ‘lower equals better’ but as a means of trying to understand the speaker’s relationship with partnering electronics and the room it is in. Barton worked with Floyd Toole who was employed by the National Research Council of Canada at the time. Their work made use of principles like anechoic chambers and double blind listening tests that were unusual at the time but have become much more accepted.
Over the years, this measurement led approach has evolved into speakers that engineered to perform optimally when judged by an ear at the listening position rather than by a microphone at a set distance. Every PSB speaker is still tested in the anechoic chambers of the NRC and the company has also moved into headphones with the same dedicated application of science and measurement. Celebrating their half century in 2022, PSB is still run by Barton but is now owned by the Lembrook group and their product range is part of the wider portfolio that the group offers.
PSB Alpha IQ "You buy it because you want a lively, upfront sound from a small-but-flexible self-contained system that looks and feels almost as good as it sounds."
PSB PWM2 "Ultra-slim cabinets blend into the background while the dynamic, detailed, 3D soundstage projects out into the room. Architects, interior designers and, most importantly, audiophiles will all love them"
