Yesterday afternoon, I trekked to HiFi Lounge in Festival, Alabang to finally audition properly & compare the PSB B25 to those speakers I auditioned last Sunday in Shang. Ayoko kasi patagalin pa at baka makalimutan ko yung mga sounds last Sunday
Like sir Nesty informed above, the PSB B25 was indeed connected to an integrated Nad315BEE, but i requested them to hook it up to their Onkyo Tx-sr604 AVR instead.
The PSB B25 exhibited an open soundscape which was rich in detail, fluid smooth in its high, mids & ample lows and to be honest I prefer this over the B&W 685 which I auditioned last Sunday.
A bit of toe-in and it got a spacious imaging in the center & somewhat made the speakers invisible - even if you look at the speakers, parang hindi dun galing yung sound.
I would say that it has similarities with the Paradigm Titans I heard last Sunday - but just a tad less steroids in the bass department.
I also auditioned their Focal 705s, a smaller brother of the 707s that I heard last Sunday in Audio Visual Driver in Shang. Beforehand, one of our members here pointed me to an add here in pDVD about this speaker being sold by HiFi Lounge since last April '06. With that in mind, I figured this must've been auditioned a lot thru the year - thus baka, tama din si Focal & hopefully hindi na harsh/brite yung tweeter nya 'coz break-in na sya.
Well, I was pleasantly surprised that the tweeter wasnt that bright anymore, which made me focus to its overall characteristics - unfortunately, i find it lacking in both space and depth wherein sound concentrated just in front of the speaker and imaging kinda suffered.
I also tried Mission Volare V1 (or was that V6??) and while it does show more promising than Focal, it didnt give the smooth & open soundscape that the PSB B25 provided........and at less cost to boot!
After all the audio stuff - I requested to try the PSB B25 for HT naman. No center channel connected, no sub and no surrounds - just so I can listen to the front PSB speakers.
The soundscape was there, smooth dialogue.......but somewhat a bit lagging in the effects department. While you may see chaos on the screen......and you do hear them.....but it just wasnt crisp enough to realistically convey the chaos.
Nonetheless, I felt that the PSB B25 are really great speakers & even the cheapest in my short list! I'd recommend them to anyone
Today, I woke up thinking that the Paradigm Titan Monitor V.5 might be the ticket for both audio as well as video - it had that "oomph" factor in it that I may be looking for HT. After some scouting in the net, I found the distributor Hi-Fi Plus in Ermita.
Unfortunately, they run out of Titan stocks
Mga mid February pa yata. But I still auditioned their Mini Monitor which was the next size down the Titans.
While I did find them to be a bit bright (might still mellow down after break-in), the sound was definitely crisp & smooth - fully detailed, but a tad short in the bass. Understandable, as I heard the Titans last Sunday in Shang & it DOES have bass forward
Sayang lang - walang audi na video eh.
On my way back & passing thru Makati, took a bit of detour & visited Home Theater in Tordesillas st.
I re-auditioned the B&W 685 & reaffirmed my findings similar to my audition of it last Sunday in Shang.
However, Mr. Butch Tuason seemed to have something hidden under his sleeves in the form of B&W 602 s3 which he just remembered he still has 1 in-stock.
Out it came, plug it up, fired it up..........and i believe I was in Nirvana!
After a few mindless curses to myself, I was dumbfounded to say the least
While this post is getting too long, i wont bore you with any adjectives to describe the characteristics of this speaker set, but after a seemingly short auditioned - I haggled to the point of almost begging and finally had those babies wrapped up & tucked to the backseat of my car!