PSE-144
Nothing like other horns
Horns have long been considered problemmatic by serious audio enthusiasts. Typical problems include major coloration and listening fatigue. Their imaging is often a weak point, often a considerable step back from conventional designs. In all these areas, PSE-144 represents a step forward.
Why it doesn't sound like other horns
A key to overcoming all these problems is that PSE-144 radiates from an ideal point source.
PSE-144 loads a compression driver and four symmetrically mounted midrange drivers into a single horn that combines their outputs into a coherent point source. The elliptical horn launches an idealized point source into the listening room with unparalleled dispersion control extending down to 250 Hz.
Conventional multi way horns separate each horn physically, such that their outputs have severe off axis comb filtering. This tends to damage their coherence with unavoidable damage to imaging. Often the apparent source size is very much tied to the physical form of the horn. Some horns may space a tweeter as much as 7 wavelengths apart at the crossover point.
The point source difference is well illustrated by listening with your head in front of the horn mouth. All sound appears to come from a region at the throat the size of a tennis ball. Even a near field monitor will tend to sound disjointed at this range, with treble and midrange separated from each other.
Extreme dispersion control
Where most designers pay lip service to off axis response, PSE-144 represents a state of the art approach. Effective radiation control is maintained across the entire bandwidth. This is illustrated in the waterfall plot below.
The horn profile is carefully engineered to radiate sound with a constant directivity approach. This offers a range of benefits, but two in particular stand out.
Firstly, this results in very stable imaging that doesn't fall apart when moving out of the sweet spot.
Secondly, many room acoustics problems are greatly tamed, with the result being far greater fidelity and tonal accuracy.
It simply sounds real
Perhaps the strongest feature of this loudspeaker is that it simply gets out of the way - it sounds real. From the moment the music starts, the desire to analyse is put aside and a musical experience unfolds. The music is simply there arrayed out in front of you. Nothing is missing, nothing is exaggerated, nothing draws attention.
Specifications
- Fully active or passive hybrid
- 1” compression driver
- 4 x 4” paper cone midrange drivers
- 18” high excursion woofer
- Horn 250 – 20k +/- 0.5 dB
- Impedance: 8 ohms
- Sensitivity: 100 dB
