John Atkinson

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PSB Platinum T8 loudspeaker
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson  |  Nov 16, 2003  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2003  |  0 comments
The talented loudspeaker engineer is a man who is always in competition with himself. When PSB's Paul Barton put the finishing touches on his Stratus Gold model back in 1990 (footnote 1), I'm sure he had more ideas in mind that he could have used in a flagship design. Yet the Gold offered so much performance at such a competitive price—$2000/pair in 1991, rising to $2100/pair by 1997, then $2400/pair for the the Gold i, an evolutionary development—that it was not surprising that Barton applied his talents to developing ranges of more affordable speakers, such as the best-selling Alpha and Image series.
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PSB Stratus Gold loudspeaker
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson, Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 01, 1991  |  0 comments
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 a 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 a few years ago, and still has a lower profile here than, well, certainly that other three-letter company. But not for lack of trying. They have at least 10 models—at last count.
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PSB Synchrony One loudspeaker
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson  |  Apr 18, 2008  |  1 comments
"Something's wrong. It sounds confused."
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PSB Synchrony T600 loudspeaker
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson  |  Oct 29, 2021  |  20 comments
Exactly five years ago as I write these words, I reviewed an elegant-looking and elegant-sounding tower loudspeaker from Canadian manufacturer PSB: the Imagine T3. Priced at $7498/pair before it was discontinued, the T3 combined three woofers, each housed in its own vented subenclosure, with a 5.25" midrange unit mounted above a 1" tweeter.
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PSB's New Flagship Speaker
CES 2007
John Atkinson  |  Jan 14, 2007  |  1 comments
Canadian speaker company PSB has majored in high-performance affordable speakers, with its tiny Alpha, introduced in 1992, becoming on of the best-selling speakers of all time. Designer Paul Barton (above), however, has been working on a flagship PSB speaker, which he demmed at the Lenbrook suite at the Hard Rock Hotel. Yet to be named, the new speaker will cost a still-affordable $4500/pair and spearheads a new line of six models to be introduced in the second quarter this year.
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Published at Last—the Book of McIntosh
CES 2007
John Atkinson  |  Jan 13, 2007  |  1 comments
Whenever I have caught up with Ken Kessler (left) at audio shows in the past two years, he has uncharacteristically grumbled about all the work he was doing writing and compiling McIntosh...For the Love of Music. "Every time I interview someone connected with the iconic Binghampton audio company, they tell me about two more people I didn't know existed whom I should interview."
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Pure Music Does DSD
AXPONA NYC 2011
John Atkinson  |  Jun 26, 2011  |  0 comments

In Channel D's own room at Axpona, Rob Robinson demmed the latest version of his Pure Vinyl LP ripping program and Pure Music audio file player program for me. One of the new features of Pure Music v1.8 is the ability to play DSD files as well as hi-rez PCM, and to emphasize that fact, I photographed the display of Rob's Playback Designs MPD-3 D/A converter ($6500) to show that it was receiving DSD data via USB2.0.

Despite the small room, the music—David Elias's "Freedom on the Freeway"—sounded excellent, with an analog-like ease to the presentation. The rest of the system comprised Joseph Pulsar speakers ($7000/pair) driven by a Hegel H20 amplifier. Blue Coast and 2L are already offering DSD files for download, and I understand that there are many live concerts available from tapes via bit torrent sites.

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Pure Vinyl & Music from Channel D
AXPONA 2013
John Atkinson  |  Mar 13, 2013  |  1 comments
Channel D's Rob Robinson was using the same combination of Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers, Hegel amplification, and a Lynx Hilo D/A processor that he used at earlier shows to show off the LP rips made with his Pure Vinyl program for the Mac, now in its v3.1 incarnation. In honor of the late Alvin Lee, Rob played me a rip from a Kevin Gray-mastered 10 Years After LP, made with an Artemis turntable/arm, Zu DL103 cartridge, and the latest version of the Channel D SETA L solid-state phono preamplifier. I have been getting increasingly impatient with the occasional ticks and pops with my LP rips, as eliminating them is too much like work. But there was no such noise on Rob's rips, a tribute to his LP player.
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Q Acoustics 5040 loudspeaker
Budget Component ReviewsFloor Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson  |  Dec 29, 2023  |  126 comments
When I reviewed the Concept 50 loudspeaker from the UK's Q Acoustics in August 2022, I concluded that the Concept 50 lowers the sweet price spot for affordable tower speakers to $3000/pair. Now I have another pair of Q Acoustics loudspeakers in the house for review. Like the earlier speaker, the 5040 is a slim, elegant-looking tower with a vertical D'Appolito drive-unit array comprising a 0.9" fabric-dome tweeter positioned between the two 5" plastic-cone woofers. But the price is half that of the Concept 50: $1499/pair. Will this be a new sweet spot? We shall see.
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Q Acoustics Concept 300 loudspeaker
Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
John Atkinson  |  Jan 03, 2020  |  30 comments
When I performed the measurements of the Q Acoustics Concept 500 loudspeaker to accompany Thomas J. Norton's review in March 2019, I was impressed by what I found. The floorstanding Concept 500 offers a high level of audio engineering excellence for its price of $5999.99/pair. When I attended a Q Acoustics press briefing a few months back, where the English company announced the US availability of their stand-mounted Concept 300, I didn't hesitate to ask for a pair to review.
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