Prior or current owners of PSB Stratus Gold

"maybe we are all satisfied...", nothing wrong with that position, but that begs the question, why were the Gold's discontinued?

I think the answer is that when you discover that you can no longer put up with Gold's shortcomings, you move onto the next pair of speakers and until the romance wears thin, move on again.

In reference to Mirage, I owned a pair of the M3Si speakers and ran them with two Bryston 4B amps and a couple of the big Mirage subs with dedicated crossovers and eventually grew tired of their flaws.

Some of us are just harder to please than others, or what we expect the music to sound like is just different from other folks who are more content to leave things as they are and enjoy them for what they are.

AS long as we enjoy , no one is wrong.

The Golds had a 10 year run, counting the Goldi, which is quite a long time for a unit from a high production outfit like PSB. The new top of the line Synchrony One is built in China, has a completely different cabinet structure with completely different drivers and I suppose, reflects Paul Barton's latest thinking on the state of the art in affordable speakers. I have seriously considered buying a pair, but have no ability to audition locally. I have heard and read that they are more accurate, but maybe not as warm as the Golds. While I can appreciate the design concepts used in the Synchrony One, I wont spend that kind of money without an audition.

I still own my Gold I's. My amp is a Bryston 4B-sst2. Very compatible together. I like to crank my music occasionally. Currently very satisfied after spending lots of money on lots of other combinations. I too am looking for an upgrade to the Gold I's, but it always seems like I need to spend >7K (to include tight room-shaking bass), which I cannot afford at this time.

I believe the reason PSB stopped making these is due to the size and width of the speaker, causing a low WAF. So glad I got a pair near the tail end of line offering. I wish speaker companies would ignore the WAF thing and just make some affordable full range stereo towers with front firing ports and woofers :)

For now I stick with the Gold I's. I enjoyed reading about other's suggestions. I may try a couple out in my casual search.

I have owned a used pair of the PSB Stratus Gold I version, which I bought on A-gon four years ago. I have been happy with the speakers broad range of talents; they may not be outstanding in any one single area, but they do an excellent job overall. I have them in a relatively small room, 15 feet deep and 12.5 feet wide, with the speakers at either side of the short wall; the front of the speaker is 3 feet away from the back wall. In such a small room, it helps to have that forward-firing bass port. I enjoy concert music from Baroque to Stravinsky, jazz, male and female vocalists, Gilbert and Sullivan, traditional folk, country/western, bluegrass, and 60's, 70's rock and roll. I initially drove the speakers with a McIntosh 7100 amp (100 watts into 8 ohms;150 watts into 4 ohms), but that wasn't enough power, so I now use a McIntosh 7300, with 300 watts into 8 ohms, 4 ohms, and 2 ohms, through Mac's autoformer. I don't fuss much with cables; I just use Blue Jeans 12 gauge speaker cables and Blue Jeans interconnects. These speakers sound great with all of the different music I play, whether it's cranked up for the full experience, or toned down for evening listening. I have auditioned other speakers, including the Harbeth SL5 and the new PSB Synchrony 1, but feel no reason to move up.

I have the original golds. I feel they sound better than the I model. I have been listening to many speakers at many price ranges for the last 30 years. I feel that there is no reason to upgrade. It would cost me over 10x the money for a 1% performance increase. I use Stratus Golds for front and surrounds in my HT. I use the stratus C6i for a center. As far as amplification goes: I am currently using the NAD M25 to Bi amp. I have used many others such as Carver, Adcom, Anthem, and more. I have been most pleased with Anthem and NAD. I have heard PSB driven by Mcintosh and the results were very good. Other speakers in the category are rare. I do like the Tyler D20, KEF Blade, Reference, and Q900, Dynaudio C4. The Magico Q3 and Q5 are great but exponentially more expensive.