_{Prices listed are in CA$.}

You might assume that my mood darkened when a bass beat began pounding through my hotel room wall from the adjacent room while I was trying to concentrate on my writing, but it was the opposite. My mood was lifted. Swayed by the music’s tribal pulsations and sense of immediacy, I got off my seat and moved, dance-like, across the hardwood floor. I was living in the moment.

While my feet shuffled, I thought, “These speakers must be ceiling-high, with woofers the size of space-aiming satellites. So imagine my surprise when I went next door into what turned out to be the PSB Speaker room and discovered that the speakers I’d heard stood no higher than my waist.

The model was part of the company’s new speaker line being launched in North America at the show and due out this November. Imagine! That’s the name of the series – Imagine — which consists of three models, the B50 standmount ($900/pair) and two 3-way floorstanders: the T65 ($2700/pair) and the T54 ($2100/pair). The latter, the “middle” model, was the one that pummeled my wall and charmed me out of my seat. Imagine!

I’m happy to report that deep, firm bass wasn’t the only trick this pony could do. The system, fed FLAC files streamed from a tablet through a 130Wpc, phono stage-equipped, Hypex UcD class-D NAD C389 BluOS DAC amplifier ($2600), and linked with AudioQuest cabling, delivered a transparent picture that was detailed, nuanced, harmonically rich, and formed a soundstage that reached out toward me.