PSB Speakers speakers User Manual

Thank you for your purchase. Our speakers are designed to make high-performance sound easy to
bring into your life. They have the wide frequency and dynamic range, natural tonal balance, and pre­cise spatial imaging needed to make both music and movies powerfully lifelike and enjoyable. All of
our models match closely in tonal balance to allow easy mixing in home theater systems.

The quick-start instructions below will get you going. But we hope you will read through this booklet
to help assure your maximum enjoyment.

I. QUICK-SSTART GGUIDE

A.

Be sure power to your amplifier/receiver and other electronics is off before making
connections.

B.

Install bumpers or feet with adjustable levelers or spikes.

1.

Bumpers ((Bookshelf aand CCenter CChannel SSpeakers)
Attach the adhesive-backed bumpers near the corners of bookshelf and center
channel speakers, to protect the finish of the speaker and the finish of the furni­ture beneath.

2,

Molded FFeet aand SStabilizers, AAdjustable RRubber LLevelers aand AAdjustable SSpikes
(Tower SSpeakers)
Screw the supplied molded feet into the threaded inserts located in the corners
of the speaker bottom. In Image Series models, speaker spikes for carpet use or
threaded rubber isolation levelers for hard floor use can be inserted into the feet.
In other models, spikes or levelers go directly into the threaded inserts in the
pedestal base on the bottom of the speaker rather than into feet.

a) Carpet UUse

Screw four spikes with four lock nuts into the inserts located in the four
corners of the speaker bottom, Locate the speakers and adjust to the
desired height (higher for thicker carpet) and tighten the lock nuts with the
wrench.

b) Hard FFloor UUse

Screw four threaded rubber isolation bumpers with four lock nuts into the
inserts located in the four corners of the speaker bottom. Adjust and tight­en the lock nuts with nut wrench.

www.psbspeakers.com [phone]

C

. Position your main speakers, as symmetrically as possible, at a comfortable listening

distance—slightly closer to each other than they are to you. (For surround speakers,
see later instructions.)

D

. Using standard 18 gauge lamp “zip cord” wire or better, connect the Red (positive)

terminal on each channel of your amp/receiver to a Red terminal post on that chan­nel’s speaker, and the Black (negative) terminal to a Black terminal post on the speak­er.

E

. Setting the volume low beforehand, turn on your associated equipment, find a

comfortable listening volume—and enjoy your favorite audio and/or video selections.

F

. After you have settled in with your speakers, read through this booklet.

Be ssure tto

read ““Protecting YYour IInvestment.”

II. ADDITIONAL DDETAILS OON CCONNECTING YYOUR SSPEAKERS

A. Important: AAlways tturn ooff yyour eelectronic eequipment bbefore cconnecting sspeakers. IIf

you ddon’t, ssevere ddamage tto eequipment aand/or yyour eears mmay rresult.

B. Selecting SSpeaker WWire

We recommend the following gauge of standard two-conductor wire for the wiring dis­tances specified;

if yyou pprefer, yyou ccan uuse hheavier ((lower-ggauge) wwire

.

Under 25 ft (7.5 m): 18-gauge – (1.0 mm) (lamp cord)
25-50 ft (15 m): 16-gauge – (1.3 mm) (heater cord)
50-100 ft (30 m): 14-gauge – (1.6 mm)
Over 100 ft (>30 m): 12-gauge – (2.0 mm)

C Connecting IIn PPhase

Connect speakers identically to your amplifier or receiver on each channel—

Red

amp/receiver terminal

to RRed

speaker terminal,

Black tto BBlack

. This will ensure that
the diaphragms of the speakers on both channels move forward and backward togeth­er (“in-phase”), rather than in opposition (“out-of-phase”). In-phase connection pro­vides maximum clarity and bass, while out-of-phase connection results in frequency
cancellations and produces thinner and less distinct sound—with less bass, vague
vocal quality, and no solid center image. To help insure the proper connection, the
two separate conducting wires in a standard two-conductor speaker cable are coded
in one way or another to be distinguishable from each other. (The jacket of one wire
may be ribbed or marked with “+” signs, or one wire under the insulation may be a
different color from the other.) Use this wire-coding, together with the amp/receiver
and speaker color-coding, to be sure you are connecting the same wire of a given pair
to a like-coded terminal at both ends of your connection.

OWNER’S GGUIDE

E. Bi-wwiring aand BBi-aamping

The metal jumper strap that connects the two sets of terminals on some of our speak­ers is removable. This allows you to connect either separate cables to the separated
woofer and tweeter terminals (“bi-wiring”) or separate amplifiers (“bi-amping”). With
Bi-Amp hookup you must use either identical amplifiers or amplifiers adjusted to have
the same voltage gain. Consult your PSB dealer for further information. (Illustrations
are for one speaker hookup only). With single cable inputs, the jumper straps must be
in place and both sets of terminals tightened firmly.

III. SPEAKER PPLACEMENT—MAXIMIZING YYOUR EENJOYMENT

The positioning of your main left-right speakers for stereo or home theater can play a major
role in their performance. We hope you will read through the placement discussion on
these next few pages, beginning with these basics:

A.

The optimum placement height for main speakers is normally with their tweeters at
about the same height as your ears when you are seated. Our tower speakers are
designed for optimal listening when seated. For our compact monitors, we offer
accessory speaker stands to achieve the right height if you are not using existing
shelves or furniture. You may prefer to tilt the speakers towards ear level if the proper
height is not possible.

B.

You will generally get the best imaging and other spatial qualities if your speakers and
your usual seating position form an almost equilateral triangle, with the speakers not
quite as far apart from each other as they are from you. If you must sit closer to one
speaker than the other, use the Balance control on your electronics (or the individual
level controls on home theater channels) to give the more distant speaker a balancing
boost in volume.

C.

The best high-frequency dispersion, producing the widest “sweet spot” in which you
and others can sit and enjoy optimum high-frequency definition, will result when your
speaker enclosures are positioned vertically rather than horizontally. If you need to
place compact monitor enclosures horizontally, the speakers will still perform very
well, but the seating area where you will enjoy optimum sound will become more nar­row. We suggest you position the tweeters to the outside away from the center line.

D.

If you sit equally distant from both speakers, angling the speakers inward (“toeing
them in’) about 5 to 10 degrees usually produces the best convergence of high fre­quencies where you listen. Different listening positions may require different toe-in.

E.

To go beyond these basics and experiment with positioning for optimum performance,
please read the placement guidelines that follow. They are about the speakers, the
room, and you.

1. The SSpeakers iin RRelation tto RRoom BBoundaries

The position of your speakers with respect to the walls, floor, and ceiling of your
listening room will often affect their sound in major ways.

a)

The closer you place speakers to the boundary surfaces of your room, the
greater the proportion of bass in their overall sound. This is due to the
enclosing, “focusing” effects of nearby surfaces on longer-wavelength
(lower) frequencies. Positioning the speakers near the intersection of two
surfaces (wall and wall, wall and floor, or wall and ceiling) will produce
more apparent bass than placement near a single surface. The greatest
proportion of bass is delivered by placement near three intersecting sur­faces—in a room corner near the floor or ceiling, where the convergence of
the two walls and the floor/ceiling produces an amplifying effect that is a bit
like that of a megaphone. And the least bass comes from placing a speaker
away from all boundaries. Your own tastes should decide what proportion
of bass response seems right in your room.

D.

Be sure all wiring terminals, are tightened firmly secure, but be careful not to
overtighten and damage the connectors.

Figure 1: Wiring in Phase Between Speakers and Amplifier

Figure 2: Bi-wire and Bi-amp Wiring Between Speakers and Amplifier

BI-WWIRE HHOOKUP BI-AAMP HHOOKUP