The Sound Of Music

PSB SubSeries 450 Subwoofer

- David Vaughn

PRICE $1,499

FOUNDED IN 1972 IN ONTARIO, PSB Speakers has grown from one man’s passion for audio into an international speaker company with more than 50 distributors and approximately 1,000 dealers. Paul Barton got his start in audio when he was just 11 years old, making speakers with his father. As he became more confident with his designs when he was in high school, he started to sell his speakers to college students at the nearby University of Waterloo. From the beginning, Barton’s goal was to create high-performance, high value loudspeakers for music and, eventually, for home cinema applications.

Two years after he launched PSB, Barton began a relationship with Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), which continues to this day. Through the NRC’s work in psychoacoustics and PSB’s use of what is now a renowned anechoic chamber, PSB has been able to refine their designs. Other manufacturers have since jumped on the bandwagon, and some have even modeled their own anechoic chambers after the NRC’s. But PSB was an early pioneer in this type of speaker development, and it’s a hallmark of Barton’s passion and desire to always provide a better sounding product.

Over the years, I’ve heard various demos of PSB models, but I’ve never auditioned any in my own system. When PSB’s latest subwoofer, the SubSeries 450, arrived on my doorstep, I was definitely curious to see if this successful manufacturer of full-range speakers could compete in the subwoofer arena with highly regarded internet-direct companies. I currently use two beasts from such companies: an SVS PC-Ultra cylinder and a Hsu Research VTF-15H MK2, located in the front left corner and midway along the right wall, respectively, in my room. Let’s see how the PSB fared against these big boys.

Design and Build