Description: Two-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 0.75" (25mm) Mylar-dome tweeter, 4.5" (110mm) Bextrene-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 3kHz. Crossover slopes: not specified. Frequency response: 80Hz-20kHz ±3dB at 1m with grilles on. Sensitivity: 82dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 16 ohms (1977-1984); 10 ohms (1989 onward). Amplifier requirements: 50W maximum.
Dimensions: 12" H by 7.5" W by 6.25" D. Enclosure volume: 5 liters. Weight: 11.7 lbs each.
Serial numbers of review samples: S0429 & #S0430 (1976 pair), none noted…
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Sidebar 3: BBC LS3/5a Specifications
This must be the month I drew the right straw to review "loudspeakers with three-letter initials." Elsewhere in this issue I describe my experiences with pair of JBLs. Everyone knows that JBL stands for "James B. Lansing," founder of that company. You do, don't you? But PSB? If you've been paying attention here, you probably remember that JGH reviewed one of their loudspeakers back in May 1988. If you haven't, well, listen up. PSB is named after Paul Barton and his wife Sue, who formed Canada-based PSB in 1971. (Paul is still their chief designer.) The company was unknown in the US until just…
Sound
Coming to the PSB after an extended diet of dipole listening via the Apogee Stages, I had a bit of sonic gear-shifting to do. I'm not one to sing the praises of one or another particular design approach—the "all else is gaslight" school of thought. But dipoles and forward radiators excite the room in such different ways that changing from one to the other inevitably involves a period of readjustment to what is, to a degree, an "altered" listening environment.
Coming to the PSB after an extended diet of dipole listening via the Apogee Stages, I had a bit of sonic gear-shifting to do. I'm not one to sing the praises of one or another particular design approach—the "all else is gaslight" school of thought. But dipoles and forward radiators excite the room in such different ways that changing from one to the other inevitably involves a period of readjustment to what is, to a degree, an "altered" listening environment.
Once I was over that (thankfully brief) period of acclimatization, the PSBs presented me with an open, detailed, clear…
How does the Stratus Gold stack up against the competition? As mentioned earlier, I have recently spent a great deal of time listening to the Apogee Stages which, with their stands, are just a bit more expensive than the PSBs. The Apogees have the softer top octave. Their sound is not as obviously open and airy as that from the PSBs, but they do not lack for detail. The Stages sound, to this listener, more coherent, with a more precise soundstage (both in width and depth), but the PSBs sound decidedly more convincing from a non-optimum listening position than do the Apogees. The low end of…
Sidebar: 1991 Measurements
Fig.1 shows the impedance (magnitude and phase) of the PSB. Note that it does drop below 4 ohms from 70 to 400Hz. This indicates that some caution should be exercised in the choice of amplifier, but should not cause a problem with most well-designed separates. The port is tuned to about 27Hz, shown by the minimum at that frequency.
Fig.1 PSB Stratus Gold, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed) (2 ohms/vertical div.).
Fig.2 is the (MLSSA-derived) impulse response of the PSB. Visible is a small amount of ultrasonic ringing,…
Thomas J. Norton listened again to the Stratus Gold in April 1997 (Vol.20 No.4):
Six years. Has it really been six years since I first reviewed the $2100/pair PSB Stratus Gold loudspeakers? More, actually—I completed my writeup of the Gold at the end of 1990, and the review appeared in the February 1991 Stereophile. Since that original review, Stereophile reviewers (myself included) have heard the Stratus Golds at trade shows and elsewhere—certainly enough to renew our confidence in the product and justify its continued recommendation. But we have not had samples to audition in our own…
John Atkinson reviewed the PSB Stratus Gold i in October 1997 (Vol.20 No.10):
The original PSB Stratus Gold has been a consistent presence in Stereophile's "Recommended Components" listing since Thomas J. Norton first reviewed it in February 1991 (Vol.14 No.2). Initially launched at a price of $2000/pair, the Gold had crept up to $2100/pair by the end of its seven-year life, which still made this three-way floorstanding design a sonic bargain. When Tom Norton recently did a "Follow-Up" on the original Stratus Gold (Vol.20 No.4, p.247) he concluded that "you can also spend a lot more than…
Annie Lennox's 1995 Medusa CD (Arista 25717-2), for example, features some superb arrangements, but the engineer and producer definitely had too heavy a hand with the treble seasoning. While it was possible to get off on this album at moderate playback levels—the PSB's neutral midrange helping to bring out Lennox's winsome way with words—the slightly cold treble was not sympathetic to the recorded balance at high spls. Note that this high-frequency "coldness" was not a serious flaw, only that it was noticeable in the context of the superbly clean midrange. Tom Norton discovered a similar…
Sidebar 1: 1997 System and Setup
The Stratus Golds ended up about 30" from my listening room's rear wall (which is faced with books and LPs) and approximately 60" from the side walls (which also have bookshelves covering some of their surfaces). The amplifiers used were all solid-state: a Pass Labs Aleph 3, a Mark Levinson No.333, and a pair of Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks. The preamplifier was primarily the remote-controlled Mark Levinson No.38S, replaced late in the auditioning by the new Levinson '380S. A Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS was used to amplify LP signals from a Linn Sondek/…
Sidebar 2: 1997 Measurements
The Stratus Gold i was relatively insensitive, 2.83V raising a calculated 84dB on the midrange axis at 1m. Its impedance curve (fig.1) also suggested that it needs to be partnered by an amplifier capable of a healthy current delivery. Not only does the impedance drop to a low 2.72 ohms at 97Hz, but the phase angle is quite severe through the midbass region. This curve, however, does imply excellent low-bass extension, the "saddle" in the curve around 25Hz indicating the tuning of the big port.
Fig.1 PSB Stratus Gold i, electrical impedance (…