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PSB Alpha P5 Speaker Review

Pepperjack

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Ouch. Amir is going to need some donations so he can travel and make new friends...this site has to be brutally on relationships...the nrc analysis stuff is pretty disturbing though, was really relying on them a lot prior to discovering asr.
 
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amirm

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Ouch. Amir is going to need some donations so he can travel and make new friends...this site has to be brutally on relationships...
I almost wrote that in the review. At this rate, I won't have single industry friend left! Already lost a bunch. :(
 

Pepperjack

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I almost wrote that in the review. At this rate, I won't have single industry friend left! Already lost a bunch. :(
Of course at some point someone will have to buy you out haha (business acquisition I mean)
 

Kachda

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Wow, this is a very poor showing. I was impressed when I auditioned the Imagine T3 (which does have decent spins from NRC), not that I am any kind of trained listener. But it's disappointing that PSB would even choose to sell speakers like this, even if to meet a pricepoint. Selling such crap will hurt the image of the brand since not everyone will hear the T3.

After Amir's slaying of the old school British brands (except KEF R3, thankfully since I had already bought them), onto the Canadians. next should be a Paradigm. I once heard a Paradigm Studio and it almost tore my ears off with it's brightness.
 
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amirm

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After Amir's slaying of the old school British brands, onto the Canadians. next should be a Paradigm. I once heard a Paradigm Studio and it also tore my ears off with it's brightness.
I am super interested in testing a Paradigm. Let me see if I can find something reasonable from them.....
 

lmaobrah

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Noob question here. Could anyone explain me a bit about "Directivity"?
How could we know there's error in the graph? What is it and how it affect the sound?
 

Kachda

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spacevector

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This speaker looks similarly bad as the Sony SSCS5 which apparently was transformed to another world after EQ.

Amira, will you please sit tight on this speaker for a day or two? I'ma solicit some EQ for you to try.

@QMuse @flipflop @Maiky76 @pierre pretty please
 
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Kachda

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Noob question here. Could anyone explain me a bit about "Directivity"?
How could we know there's error in the graph? What is it and how it affect the sound?

This article will help - https://www.sausalitoaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Interpreting-Spinorama-Charts.pdf

In brief, directivity error happens when the on-axis and early reflections have different shapes at some point. On-axis may be flat but there may be a dip on early reflections at some frequency. This will cause the overall SPL of that frequency to be lower at your listening position, leading to a non-flat response overall. Look for places where there are dips or peaks in the Directivity Index. Ideaally the DI should be smooth and rising gradually over freuquencies, but not too much (<10db at the highest frequencies).
 
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amirm

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Sancus

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Why is there so much variation in the aspect ratio of the contour maps with each review? It seems to me like they should always be identical, both in terms of aspect ratio and in terms of resolution.

This one is 1.19(911 x 762), the Salk WOW1 was 1.9(870x457). But every review is a bit different, despite always covering the same frequency range and angles. The way they are right now, to compare them side by side you HAVE to resize the images first otherwise it's very easy to draw mistaken conclusions.
 

napilopez

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Thanks Amir!

I guess I'll play a bit of devil's advocate again to give PSB some benefit of the doubt :).

That hole below 700Hz is really puzzling and I really don't know what's going on there or how it made it into the speaker as it shows clearly in the NRC measurement, not to mention ASR, Stereophile's, and mine. Edit: I especially don't get the claim of +/- 1.5 dB from 65Hz to 10kHz; it's very rare to see a mainstream manufacturer claim an accuracy window of less than +/- 3dB, so I have no idea how they arrived at this figure, as they specifically claim it is for the anechoic response.

Although it's probably not quite as audible as it looks on-axis because there's more room interaction than in the upper half of the response.

But otherwise, to be fair, the speaker is designed for an upside down configuration and the smoothness of the top portion does depend on where you choose your reference point. Amir said he did it from the tweeter (unless he changed the reference axis in the software), where stereophile and I did it from the woofer, and the NRC/soundstage did it from the top of the cabinet (opposite of the tweeter). Unfortunately, PSB doesn't mention the intended axis, but top of the cabinet or woofer level is more realistic from a typical seated height. It doesn't quite 'fix' the response but it does seem to mellow it out a bit.

Here's how the LW and PIR compare for me vs the NFS. I got quite a bit less bass than Amir did, and I can't quite seem to match the bass contour here even if i try messing around with the individual woofer and port files, so not totally sure what the differences are there.

P5 ASR vs me.png


Similar, but at the same time my results were definitely more acceptable. Of course, in the low mids part of that may just be the lack of resolution. Here's the same measurements overlaid:

P5 overlaid.png


Again similar, but the deviations are just a bit less extreme from my reference point.

Similar to what the soundstage/NRC got for their listening window, which I'm guessing is what PSB optimized for; it's quite nice above 700Hz.

1596772476796.png


Also perhaps worth noting that the grille actually tames that top octave and maybe even improves the response??
P5 Grille.png


All that being said, I did also prefer the Q acoustics 3020i, which scored better too.

Yes, just eye balling the spin data I would never have guessed a score so high. Not that it is high, but it is higher than I thought it would get by a good bit. Maybe the score thing is just a bad idea.

I thought it might score higher than it looked (though I'd already done the score for my own measurements) because the PIR isn't that bad and that's the biggest chunk of the score. And the way the NBD scores work, by looking at individual chunks rather than the whole picture, seems to help it out.

Here is my attempt to do the same +/- 30-degree response Stereophile uses, at 300Hz and up:
View attachment 76981
I believe the stereophile window is +/- 15 degrees (a 30 degree window meaning 30 degrees total)
 
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Dennis Murphy

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Why is there so much variation in the aspect ratio of the contour maps with each review? It seems to me like they should always be identical, both in terms of aspect ratio and in terms of resolution.

This one is 1.19(911 x 762), the Salk WOW1 was 1.9(870x457). But every review is a bit different, despite always covering the same frequency range and angles. The way they are right now, to compare them side by side you HAVE to resize the images first otherwise it's very easy to draw mistaken conclusions.
I've been wondering about the same thing. When Amir reviewed my Pioneer BS22 mod, the first thing I happened onto was the waterfall plot, which seemed to show a crater-like dip in the lower treble. I was sure the panther was going to be in several pieces, but when I scrolled up to where I should have been, he was wielding a golf club.
 

Ron Texas

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With that jagged frequency response, I am surprised the preference rating wasn't worse. Thank you @amirm for adding another speaker to the database. Tests of the bad ones are as important as the good ones.
 
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amirm

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You probably still have some in Northridge, CA.
Those are the ones I have lost actually. They barely return my emails if at all. All other requests such as samples to measure have been turned down.
 
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