PSB Gold,tweeter upgrade.

Sharpe49, I think you are well on your way to making a very good speaker a great one.

Your impressions of the PSB Gold are spot on. The Vifa metal dome is harsh sounding, and a bit hashy. A good soft dome would solve this problem, and the Vifa D27TG - 45 would do it for about $50 for the pair.

You are wise to also ratchet up the crossover. As I stated earlier, you will improve the speakers with the tweeter upgrade, but most loudspeakers are really hamstrung in their crossovers. Even many expensive speakers. You would be surprised. The Solens we spoke about being inferior to the SCRs are about as good as one could ever hope for in a manufactured speaker except in rare instances.

Coils make a big difference in impact, detail, and clarity. For this speaker, I would go with 12 gauge or better.

Resistors are the easiest, cheapest way to improve a speaker, outside of proper setup.

The PSB Gold is a bear to drive. The sensitivity is actually much lower than specified, 83 db/2.83V. Add to that the brutish impedence/phase angle, and most amplifiers are simply not able to drive the speaker like it is meant to be driven. The Bryston you are using sounds like a good solution for the bottom. I found the Adcom 5802 to not be up to the task. The Carver Lightstar/Sunfire amp really awakens the sleeping giant. Otherwise, the speaker merely sounds good, when you partner it with an amp that can take charge of it, the results are awe inspiring. And, this comes from a person who is not easily impressed by most speakers.

Good luck to you!

I'm interested in a tweeter upgrade as well since I own a pair of PSB silvers which use the same Vifa metal dome as the PSB Golds.

Does anyone know if the Vifa D27TG - 45 soft dome that Trelja mentions will just "drop in" to the PSB speakers????

What Specs would I look for? Just diameter? or electrical specs as well?

Please e-mail me if anyone has info on this.

Thanks.

I have the Gold i's. Are the drivers your talking about for the Gold's or the Gold i's?

BTW, they are a bear to drive. I shut down my Outlaw model-755 which is rated at 300WPC RMS into a 4 ohm load, and although I was playing them loud, it was not unreasonably so. Fortunately the 755 has good protection circuits and it came back to life after a brief cool down period.

I've considered getting another two channel amp for my rear speakers and using four channels of the 755 to bi-amp these monsters. Do you guys think this would help?

I've also kicked around the idea of getting a sub and cutting the gold's at about 40Hz thinking this might make things easier as well?

I'm using run of the mill 12 gauge wire, any ecommendations in this area?

Allot of question here, but you guys are very knowledgable about these speakers so I'm tapping in if you don't mind.

Loved the Gold's, absolutely in love with the Goldi's. When I purchased my original Gold's I was not originally impressed, I found them quite shrill on the top end. Having been a long time fan of Acoustat's, I was certain the answer was to rid myself of these bright barbarians. My solution - Classe amplification. Originally driven with Aragon 4004 II amps the Gold's were too much to bear, tried Bryston and Krell, didn't work, tried Classe and have never looked back.

A number of responses have dealt with the load the Gold's can present an amplifier, the fact that the Classe's are renowned for their ability to drive very low impedance load's, and are very popular among electrostatic and ribbon users says they'll drive anything.

I like all the solutions, but amplification must always be a consideration when the top gets unbearable.

Audio39, Did you ever try a tubed pre in front of those barbarians? Low and behold no shrill. At least that has been my experience.