NEWS: Designer speakers, Canadian-style

Combining performance with good looks is a constant battle for speaker designers, but Canadian company PSB reckons it's pulled it off with its new G-Design range, which has sleek high-gloss black cabinets and top-notch drive units.

The range comprise three models, which can be used together to create a complete surround system. The baby of the range is the £600-a-pair GB1, the B standing for 'bookshelf', which uses a 16.5cm mid/bass unit with a woven fibreglass cone and 25mm aluminium dome tweeter with a neodymium magnet.

The tweeter is designed for wide, but controlled, dispersion, and is filled with ferrofluid for consistent operation even at high levels. The woofer, meanwhile, is the same one found in the company's Platinum series speakers, and is 'engineered for dynamic range, controlled expression, and exceptionally linear high-output reproduction'.

The floorstanding GT1 – T for 'tower' – uses a pair of the mid/bass units with the same tweeter, and sells for £1200/pr, while the centre speaker, timbre-matched to the other models in the range, uses a pair of 13.5cm woofers flanking the tweeter. It sells for £450.

PSB speakers are distributed in the UK by Armour Home Electronics.

Andrew has written about audio and video products for the past 20+ years, and been a consumer journalist for more than 30 years, starting his career on camera magazines. Andrew has contributed to titles including What Hi-Fi?, GramophoneJazzwise and Hi-Fi CriticHi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice. I’ve also written for a number of non-specialist and overseas magazines.