PSB Synchrony S

PSB Synchrony S owner's manual

• 2 Dipole/Bipole surround speakers
• 4 Grilles (installed)
• 8 Adhesive backed rubber feet
• 4 Input terminal jumpers (installed)
• 4 Input terminal jumper wires (each is 3" long and has spade connectors on both ends)
• 2 Wall mount brackets
• 8 Drywall anchors
• 8 Drywall screws
• Owner's manual (English/ French/ Spanish)
• Wall mounting template
• psb website information

Features & specs

Driver Technology

Surround Design: A Synchrony S speaker is two 2-way speakers built into one triangular shaped cabinet; each having its own woofer, tweeter, and crossover. The drivers are mounted on baffles facing in different directions, approximately 120° apart. Because the two speaker sections are wired to discrete terminals there are multiple ways to connect the drivers; as a dipole speaker (out of phase using the included jumper wires), as a bipole speaker (in phase using the factory installed jumpers), or as two separate channels. If you're mounting the speakers on the side walls in line with your listening position, the dipole mode will create a diffuse, ambient soundfield. If you're placing them behind your listening position, the bipole mode fires the drivers in phase to flood the area with surround sound. It's also possible to use one pair of Synchrony S speakers for both surround and surround back channels, wiring the forward firing baffles to the surround channels and the rear firing baffles to the surround back channels.

Cone Design: The woofer cones are a laminated sandwich design; each has a fine weave fiberglass layer along with a compressed, felted natural fiber laminate. The result is a rigid cone with added damping properties. The central dustcap offers a second connection to the voice coil to improve bass and midrange control. The inherent distortion resulting from the magnetic field generated by the input signal reacting with the field in the magnetic structure's air gap and the self-induction and impedance that varies with cone movement are addressed using an aluminum shorting ring within the magnet structure, an aluminum phase plug on the pole piece, and a shorted copper turn on top of the pole piece. The aluminum phase plug also mechanically smoothes the response and acts as a heat sink for the voice coil, reducing power compression. The drivers use cast aluminum baskets and rubber surrounds.

Tweeters: The 1" titanium, Ferrofluid cooled dome tweeters have a neodymium motor structure and an aluminum heat sink. The mass (low) and stiffness (high) are optimized for the required wide frequency response.

Crossover Network: The crossovers (two networks per speaker) are 2-way acoustical fourth order Linkwitz-Riley type with a 24 dB/octave slope. Tight tolerances were used when choosing the crossover components; heavy multi-laminated iron cores are used for large value inductors, high gauge wire air core inductors are used for medium and small values, all the capacitors are low loss and film capacitors are used for the midrange and treble frequencies.

Enclosure Design

Cabinet: The cabinet is an integral part of speaker design and has a dramatic effect on the overall sound of a speaker. PSB uses a combination of aluminum and wood in the construction of the Synchrony S. Both speaker baffles are made of double wall aluminum extrusions. The aluminum panels are very rigid and precisely machined with contours to preserve the sonic characteristics of the drivers. The front, top, and bottom panels are seven layers of 3mm MDF, curved for added stiffness, with a wood veneer exterior. While rigid, MDF also has inherent damping properties to absorb energy that might otherwise color the music.

Connections

Dual Binding Posts: The dual 5-way binding post input terminals are located on the lower rear of the speaker cabinet. Out of the box the two sets of binding posts are shorted together (in phase) by gold-plated jumpers. With the jumpers removed the two sections of the speaker can be wired out of phase (dipole) using the included jumper wires, or wired to separate channels. The binding posts will accept spade connectors, single or dual banana plugs, pin connectors, and bare wire up to 8 gauge.

Mounting Options

Mounting: The Synchrony S can be wall mounted using the included brackets. The bracket adds approximately 3/16" to the depth of the speaker.

Specifications

Frequency Response:

• On Axis @ 0°: 62-23,000 Hz (+/-3 dB)
• On Axis @ 0°: 65-20,000 Hz (+/-1.5 dB)
• Off Axis @ 30°: 65-10,000 Hz (+/-1.5 dB)
• Low Frequency Cutoff -10 dB: 55 Hz

Sensitivity:

• Anechoic Chamber: 86 dB
• Typical Listening Room: 88 dB