Author Archives: David Bergmann

PSI Audio introduces an updated version of the A214-M centre speaker for immersive setups. The new tweeter was developed and is manufactured in the company’s own workshop, like the rest of the speakers. With this update, the transition to updated tweeters is complete – every active monitor in the entire range now features a driver upgrade. Apart from the tweeter, the A214-M retains its qualities: the proprietary PSI Audio technologies like CPR and AOI as well as its unwaveringly accurate reproduction.

PSI Audio upgrades A214-M with new tweeter

Over the past years, PSI Audio has successively integrated its newly developed tweeters in all its active monitor models. With the updated A214-M, this process is complete, and the entire range now features the improved high-frequency driver. The updated speaker delivers even more of the trademark PSI Audio clarity and fidelity.

A214-M: update for the immersive centre

The PSI Audio A214-M is the centre speaker solution from Switzerland. In surround or immersive setups, the centre speaker often needs to fit under a screen. The A214-M can be operated vertically or horizontally, the latter option being the choice for positioning it under a TV or projector screen. It delivers ample power even for demanding cinematic experiences and reproduces the entire spectrum from 53 Hz to 23 kHz with utmost precision, further improved by the new driver.

Handmade in Switzerland: the new precision tweeter

PSI Audio always strives for perfection, constantly looking for ways to further improve the products. A limiting factor used to be the availability of suitable components – until the company decided: “If you cannot find it, make it!” The engineers designed their own tweeters, meticulously developed to perfect the PSI Audio monitor range and handmade in the company’s Swiss workshop to ensure top-quality manufacturing. The new tweeter elevates the speaker range to an even higher level of accuracy, reproducing sound as it was intended.

Coherent sound across the entire range

One aspect of speaker design that has always played a major role in PSI Audio development is the coherence of sound across the different speaker models. In immersive setups in particular, different size monitor speakers are often combined to account for limitations in space. In order to still create a cohesive sound image, it is paramount that the speakers match in their sonic characteristics. This has always been the case for PSI Audio monitors, and with the A214-M now featuring the updated tweeter, coherence between the different models is guaranteed.

PSI Audio: Swiss quality and proprietary technology

PSI Audio prides itself on its in-house development and manufacturing, and on proprietary technology that makes the speakers’ outstanding acoustic accuracy possible in the first place. With Compensated Phase Response (CPR), Adaptive Output Impedance (AOI), Class G/H amplifiers and, of course, specifically designed drivers, every PSI Audio speaker is pushed to perfection. To make sure these technologies are implemented correctly, PSI Audio speakers are manufactured and calibrated completely in the company’s own workshop in Switzerland. 

The University of Surrey has installed a large immersive audio setup of 23 PSI Audio speakers in a new multi-purpose listening room. 17 A23-M, two A25-M and four Sub A225-M constitute an elaborate system that can be adjusted to accommodate a number of different formats, from ring of eight, quad and stereo to 5.x and 7.x to object-based formats like Dolby Atmos. The university for excellence in media creation and the pinnacle of Swiss precision sound – a match made in Surrey.

University of Surrey: excellence in media creation

When it comes to formal education in the field of media creation, the UK has a fairly comprehensive range of different schools and universities. The University of Surrey, however, enjoys the highest renown among them, its graduates regularly winning awards and working at the top of the industry. The unique blend of musical study, electronic music performance, audio engineering and sound-recording practice prepares the students for pretty much any job in the industry, from music production to broadcasting to research and development. All around the department’s hallways, there are posters that compile some of the graduates’ achievements – which tends to become a problem sometimes, as Senior Lecturer Alan Haigh explains: “Every time I show a graduate around, they go: I have got an award. Why am I not up there? So we need a lot more of them, or maybe take them down.”

Immersive sound for the creators of tomorrow

The impressive facilities encompass multiple high-end recording studios as well as actual broadcasting studios. In accordance with current developments, immersive audio plays a significant role as well. “We have one NHK-like room for research,” Alan Haigh elucidates. “There is a research project that uses the 22.2 setup to explore how you can generate immersive audio with all sorts of different speakers. Say you have a stereo system and other devices like phones, tablets or Bluetooth speakers in the room – can you connect them and make them create appropriate audio? That kind of research is going on there.” Dr Tom Hall adds: “We also have a Dolby Atmos room planned with a 9.4.4 setup.” And then there is the recently equipped room, of course – the one with the PSI Audio speakers.

PSI Audio delivers immaculate accuracy

The new Creative Music Technology Studio features a total of 23 PSI Audio speakers: a ring of eight A23-M on ear level, four A23-M as floor speakers, four A23-M as ceiling speakers, one A23-M as central ceiling speaker (“Voice of God”), two A25-M for the left and right channels and four Sub A225-M subwoofers. A setup of that size can be a challenge to handle, as Tom Hall confirms: “I spent most of my time with channel mappings. That is a lot of work, especially if you are switching between different configurations.” More important than the number of loudspeakers is their quality and coherence, especially if you want to recreate an authentic and seamless immersive experience. With their dynamic and natural transients, their linearity in frequency and phase and their sonic coherence across models, PSI Audio speakers excel in this field. And it shows: Tom Hall, Alan Haigh and Senior Lecturer Dr Russell Mason are very happy with the sound, its transparent and detailed reproduction of complex audio. The result is a room for a number of applications: it is a compositional space for immersive music; a small performance space; and, of course, a teaching space with a serious monitoring setup. Tom Hall is very happy with the result: “It’s just lovely to be in here. The students all love it. I really look forward to exploring the sonic possibilities of this new space.”

PSI Audio and Surrey University: a work in progress

An ambitious project like this is never quite finished, though, and so there are plans to further elaborate on the potential of the studio. Some more acoustic treatment is in the works. Different stands for the floor speakers to optimize their angle are also on the cards. “And a rug wouldn’t go amiss,” Tom Hall says with a smile. But despite the possibility for further improvement, the professors are enthusiastic about the sound, and how little digital correction it required. “We did a little EQ,” Alan Haigh explains. “I haven’t touched the top end, just a few little bass things, very minimal.” Apart from the sound, the 100 percent analogue design of the PSI Audio speakers appealed to Tom Hall. “There’s a trend to replace analogue circuitry with digital tech. But analogue, you know – it’s just what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else. That was attractive to me.”

This autumn, PSI Audio will be present at three big audio shows: on the 5th and 6th of October at the UK Audio Show in the Cambridge Suite; from 8th to 10th October at AES New York at booth 429; and on 11th and 12th October at beatcon in Berlin on the SAE Expert Stage with live bass trap demos. Visitors of these shows are cordially invited to find PSI Audio at the respective booths.

UK Audio Show: the hifi side of PSI Audio

Outstanding acoustic fidelity has always been the main mission of PSI Audio, so of course the company has turned heads in the hifi market, as well. At the UK Audio Show in the Staverton Park Hotel in Northamptonshire, PSI Audio will showcase its luxury hifi speakers Héritage3 and the unique Active Velocity Acoustic Absorber AVAA C214 bass trap in the Cambridge Suite. 

AES New York: precision speakers at the congress of the professionals

The Audio Engineering Society (AES) congress has long been established as one of the major events for networking and audio innovation. PSI Audio will exhibit at the show from 8th to 10th October at booth 429 in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. The Swiss manufacturer will present its ultra-precise all-analogue studio monitors A23-M, A17-M, the subwoofer Sub125-M and the innovative AVAA active bass trap in a special demo box.

beatcon: hip-hop production conference

PSI Audio enjoys increasing popularity in the hip-hop and R’n’B sectors of music production. In Germany, producers from these genres come together at beatcon. PSI Audio will be present together with German distributor Audiowerk at the SAE Expert Stage, showcasing its precision monitors A25-M and A17-M. 

PSI Audio: Swiss precision monitoring

With its own manufacture in Switzerland, PSI Audio produces all speakers in-house, from development to finished product, including painstaking calibration in the company’s anechoic chamber. The results are speakers that accurately reproduce sound true to its source. Proprietary technology in both circuit and driver design ensures that PSI Audio speakers perform like no other, producing a natural, fully transparent sound that will get professionals to their best mixing and mastering results quicker. Since all speakers are built to the same sonic ideal, they can be easily mixed for immersive setups, and there is no matched pairs – all PSI Audio speakers are matched.

Find PSI Audio at AES, beatcon and UK Audio Show

UK Audio Show

Staverton Park Hotel, Northamptonshire

5th & 6th October 2024

Cambridge Suite

https://www.chestergroup.org/uk-audio-show-2024/22

AES Convention New York

Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City, USA

8th – 10th October 2024

Booth 429

https://aesshow.com

beatcon 

Motorwerk, Berlin, Germany

11th – 12th October 2024

Zentralwerkstatt

PSI Audio announces the availability of the active bass trap AVAA C214 in white finish. The innovative Active Velocity Acoustic Absorber technology eliminates room modes from any room, making audio playback clearer, more transparent and more precise. With the AVAA C214, the technology has already found a more compact iteration, easy to integrate into any room. The elegant new white finish makes this integration even easier from a visual perspective, allowing the AVAA C214 to perfectly complement the interior design – while it makes the room modes vanish.

Eliminating room modes in style

The AVAA principle, first realized in the all-analogue AVAA C20, is the result of years of research by PSI Audio, and it keeps perplexing everyone who witnesses it. Essentially, the AVAA acts like a hole in the wall, eliminating room modes between 15 and 160 Hz without requiring calibration or tuning to specific frequencies. These room modes can seriously compromise the listening environment – the active bass trap AVAA makes short work of them and acoustically cleans up the room significantly. It is up to 45 times more efficient than classic porous absorbers of the same size, and because it does not work with antisound, it works for the entire room instead of just a small sweet spot. Plus, if the room changes, for example due to a move of house, the mobile AVAA unit can just be taken to the new room and resume its work there.

Acoustic black hole, but white: AVAA C214

Introduced at HIGH END in Munich this year, the PSI Audio AVAA C214 in white is now available for purchase. It operates on the same principle as the C20, but realizes it with a DSP, which allows for more flexibility, even more efficiency and a smaller footprint. The aluminium housing of the C214 is cylinder-shaped and more compact than the C20, making it easier to install in different places apart from room corners. Optional mounting brackets can bring the device to pretty much any place in the room, wherever it makes the most sense in both function and room design. Now available an elegant black or a beautiful white finish, the PSI Audio AVAA C214 complements any room’s interior design. 

See PSI Audio at upcoming shows around the world

PSI Audio will be present at a number of shows worldwide this autumn. Visitors are cordially invited to find PSI Audio at

• UK Audio Show: 7th – 8th October (Staverton Park Hotel, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom)
• AES New York: 8th – 10th October (Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City, USA)
• beatcon: 11th – 12th October (MOTORWERK, Berlin, Germany)

World-renowned music production facility Flux Studios recently upgraded their big tracking studio with PSI Audio A25-M three-way monitor speakers. The studio complex consists of a total of eight studios, each with their own live rooms or booths, and each tailored to specific applications. The Dangerous Room, Flux Studios’ main tracking studio, now features the A25-M as main monitors soffit-mounted in the walls. Studio manager and music producer Daniel Sanint states: “Once we heard them, we fell in love with them.”

One room per genre: Flux Studios

The studio complex Flux Studios has been home to popular artists of all genres, from Jennifer Lopez to Jon Batiste to Wu Tang Clan to Alan Cumming. This versatility of clients is part of the studios’ very design. There are eight studios with names such as the Dangerous Room, the Dungeon Room, the Inspiration Room, the Fabulous Room, the last of which is mainly used by studio founder Fab Dupont. Four of these studios are managed by producers, while the others are available for hire – and each room has its own personality and application. “We try to tailor all rooms for different needs,” explains Sanint. “The Dangerous Room is our main tracking room, the Dungeon Room is more tailored to hip-hop, the Transporter Room is our writing Mecca.” Every room has its own setup, with different monitoring for different tastes.

PSI Audio A25-M at the Dangerous Room

In the big tracking studio, the Dangerous Room, Flux Studios recently installed a pair of PSI Audio A25-M as mains in the soffit mounts. “We were struggling to find a modern solution and tried a lot of different speakers – active, passive, everything,” Sanint describes the selection process. As the studio already had PSI Audio A21-M and the active bass trap AVAA C20 in use, they decided to give the biggest model from the Swiss-made range a try. “We listened to the A25-M in the Fabulous Room and were extremely impressed. They translate very well, and they have power.” So the A25-M stayed with Flux Studios and were integrated into the Dangerous Room, where they are literally framed in the wall with picture frames – a brilliant design detail.

The ultimate in precision listening: A25-M

More important than its visual integration is its acoustic performance, of course, and the PSI Audio A25-M absolutely delivers on that front. The intricate three-way speaker design features a rotatable baffle for the mid- and high-frequency drivers so the speakers can be set up vertically or horizontally while maintaining its optimal dispersion and sweet spot. Meticulously handcrafted by experienced specialists in the Swiss manufacture and calibrated in the company’s own anechoic chamber, the A25-M provides full-range audio reproduction with maximum fidelity. Proprietary technology like Compensated Phase Response (CPR), Adaptive Output Impedance (AOI), Class G/H amplifiers and specially developed drivers ensure peak performance, and the acoustic clarity and transparency required for top-level audio production.

Tracking or mixing – Swiss monitoring is perfect for both

These qualities of the PSI Audio A25-M are put to good use at Flux Studios, as Daniel Sanint explains: “In tracking, you want to feel the energy. There is a lot going on, especially in the lows. That energy moves the room, it triggers compressors and so on. So having a truly full-range monitoring system is super helpful.” The accurate sound image also benefits the mixing process, of course, as Sanint can completely rely on the results he gets in the studio. “I finish a session, make a rough mix for the client, and later I listen to it at home and sure enough, it is amazing, it sounds great.” Sanint summarizes his experience with the A25-M: “Once we heard them, we fell in love with them.”