PSB Image 4T 2.5-Way Tower Speakers — Made in Canada, Bi-Wire

PSB Image 4T — The 2.5-Way Canadian Tower Its Own Designer Kept in His Reference System

A pair of Made-in-Canada PSB Image 4T floorstanders in black ash, the model Paul Barton singled out of a ten-speaker line as the one he was most excited about, complete with their outrigger stabilizers.

The Designer’s Own Reference

That is not a sales line, it is on the record. When Stereophile asked Barton in 1999 which model in the forthcoming Image series interested him most — a range that ran from three hundred to fourteen hundred and fifty dollars a pair — he named this one without hesitating, and it is the least expensive floorstander in the line. The magazine reviewed it the following year against speakers costing more.

Two-and-a-Half Ways

The reason is the driver arrangement, and it is cleverer than the specification sheet lets on. The 4T is not a three-way and it is not a conventional two-way. Barton calls it a two-and-a-half-way. There are two identical 5.25 inch woofers, but they do different jobs: the upper one runs almost all the way to 2.5 kHz and doubles as the midrange driver, which is why it sits high on the baffle right beneath the tweeter, while the lower one is rolled off above 500 Hz and simply adds bass. Putting the midrange duty in the driver nearest the tweeter is what gives the speaker its even dispersion through the range your ear cares most about, and it is the reason a cabinet this narrow does not sound narrow.

Why the Cabinet Is Narrow

The narrowness is deliberate rather than a cost saving. Barton’s stated approach on the Image line was to reach for low-frequency extension by using two or three small woofers rather than one large one, specifically so the cabinets could stay slim enough to live in a real room. At six and a half inches wide, the 4T disappears against a wall in a way that a single-ten-inch tower never will, and the two front-firing ports mean it is not fighting the wall behind it either. Barton developed the Image line at Canada’s National Research Council in Ottawa, whose anechoic chamber he has used for decades, and the cabinets are stamped made in Canada — which for anyone buying these in this city means they were both voiced and built without leaving the country, the voicing about twenty minutes down the road.

Build Quality

The build details are the ones that survive a couple of decades, and they are all here. Two full pairs of five-way gold-plated binding posts, so the speaker is bi-wirable and bi-ampable rather than just nominally bi-wirable. A curved, modular baffle with a floating grille, which is the Image series’ signature and the reason these still look current. Magnetic shielding throughout, so they can sit hard against a display without consequence. And the outrigger stabilizers are included, which matters more than it sounds: they carry both adjustable spikes and rubber levellers, so the same pair works on carpet or on hardwood without hunting for parts that stopped being available years ago.

What the Review Said

Stereophile’s reviewer put the 4T in his reference system alongside speakers at up to a thousand dollars a pair and wrote about the midbass through the midrange as a window of extraordinary naturalness, praising vocals in particular for body and freedom from coloration. These sold for $649 USD a pair when new.

Condition

Cosmetically this pair is graded Very Good.

A designer’s own favourite from a line he developed at the National Research Council and built in Canada, still slim enough for any room and still doing the thing it was praised for. Available for pickup in Kanata, or shipped across Canada and internationally — we have sent equipment to fifteen countries in the past year, each piece packed in-house in 275 lb test double-wall boxes. Live shipping rates for your address are calculated at checkout. Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and our Perpetual Trade-Back Program. Available for audition by appointment in Kanata.

PSB Image 4T Specifications

• Type: Two-and-a-half-way, three-driver floorstanding loudspeaker, dual front-firing ports, magnetically shielded
• Drive units: One 1 inch aluminium-dome ferrofluid-cooled tweeter, two reflex-loaded 5.25 inch polypropylene-cone woofers with rubber surrounds
• Crossover frequencies: 500 Hz and 2.2 kHz
• Frequency response: 38 Hz – 21,000 Hz, plus or minus 3 dB
• Sensitivity: 89 dB / 2.83 V / m, anechoic
• Nominal impedance: 6 ohms, minimum 4 ohms
• Recommended amplifier power: 10 – 150 watts
• Connections: Two pairs of five-way gold-plated binding posts, bi-wirable and bi-ampable
• Cabinet: Curved modular baffle with floating grille, black ash
• Country of manufacture: Canada
• Included: PSB outrigger stabilizers with adjustable spikes and rubber levellers
• Original retail: $649 USD per pair
• Dimensions: (Width x Height x Depth) 6.5 x 36 x 14.25 inches (165 x 914 x 362 mm)
• Weight: 37 lbs (16.8 kg) each

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