It’s a fact of life that many of us live in smaller spaces and must often rent properties that don’t lend themselves to having a dedicated music or entertainment room. If you fall into that category but still want a decent music system, the new PSB Alpha IQ speakers could be the ones for you.
PSB Is hardly a household name in the consumer audio world, but the Canada-based brand has been making excellent speakers for over half a century. PSB’s speakers may look a little conservative, but the technology behind them is cutting-edge.
These new powered Alpha IQ speakers combine speaker with a high-quality amplifier, wireless received and a comprehensive range of inputs that mean you can have hi-fi quality sound without wires and streamed directly from your iPhone using the excellent BluOS app, which can work with just about every music streaming service on the planet.
Setting up the Alpha IQ bookshelf speakers is a piece of cake. Using a smartphone, you can be up and running in minutes. I’m an iPhone user and with the help of my iPhone SE, I connected the Alpha IQ with my home wireless network for accessing my TIDAL account. However, I could have chosen Spotify Connect, Qobuz, Amazon Music and many more.
These diminutive bookshelf speakers are just under 25cm tall and far more petite than I had expected. The build quality is top notch and the speakers are available in White, Black, Dutch Orange, Midnight Blue or Tangerine Yellow. Each speaker has its own power cable (a removable figure-of-eight design) and a 4-inch polypropylene woofer with a 0.75-inch tweeter for higher frequencies. The speakers are so compact they will fit on almost any bookshelf or even sit happily on either side of a TV.
Unlike some active speakers, the Alpha IQs are wireless and don’t require a speaker cable to connect them. As well as connecting to a home network via wireless, you can also go online with Ethernet. The primary speaker has some controls on the top plate for playing and pausing and for adjusting volume levels, so you don’t need to get your smartphone out to stop the music if you don’t want to. There’s no remote provided with the speakers, which is a bit of an oversight.
Once powered up, the primary speaker displays a flashing LED behind the woofer that flashes blue and purple while you use your smartphone to connect it to a wireless network. Once that’s done, the two speakers talk to each other and LEDs on both cabinets turn green. That’s all there is to getting these stunning little speakers up and running. Once that’s done, you can control everything using the BluOS app on your smartphone, tablet or computer.
BluOS is superb for supporting a vast range or music streaming services. Whether you like Spotify, Amazon Music, TIDAL, Radio Paradise, Qobuz or many other sources, BluOS has your back. There’s also support for Apple AirPlay 2, TIDAL Connect and Spotify Connect. The wireless signal to the PSB can support streamed audio files up to 192kHz and 24-bit resolution, which takes it way beyond AirPlay.
PSB has also added support for Bluetooth with Qualcomm’s aptX HD audio codec so you can stream music in high quality from up to 10 meters away. Bluetooth audio has come a long way in recent years, so it would have been nice to see support for LDAC and aptX Adaptive. Perhaps that might be possible in the future with a firmware update.
As well as wireless streaming, the Alpha IQs can accept a variety of input analog and digital sources. There’s an HDMI input on the primary speaker, which means you can hitch up the speakers to any TV with an HDMI ARC output, enabling the volume to be adjusted with the TV’s remote.
Alongside the HDMI input, there is also a 3.5mm TRS input and RCA Phono, including support for a Moving Magnet phono cartridge so you can play vinyl records with a proper turntable. Additionally, PSB has included a TOSLink optical digital input for connecting an older TV or a CD player. There are most of the inputs you could want, but this is definitively a streaming pair of speakers offering high-resolution audio over wireless with the BluOS app.
The Bluesound BluOS eco-system is a self-contained streaming platform allowing up to 64 other Bluesound-compatible devices to create a whole home audio system. You can group various devices in groups or they can each function independently. The choice is yours. The system also supports Apple’s AirPlay 2, which means you can connect any AirPlay-compatible device to the home audio network.
The biggest surprise with the PSB Alpha IQ comes when you press play on your favorite music streaming service. The sound that those two tiny speakers pump out is positively jaw-dropping. There’s a muscular bass that can be felt as well as heard. The midrange is forward, while the treble provides the focus for a superb soundstage that sounds almost spatial. Along with the much more expensive Sonus faber Duetto, I reviewed recently, the PSB Alpha IQ are possibly the best speakers at this price point I’ve listened to in a long time.
That bass is down to superb drivers, a ported and well-designed cabinet, plus some very clever processing of the digital signal. The sound is very analog and projects most genres of music with enthusiasm and accuracy. These aren’t overly clinical-sounding speakers; they sound very good with a much bigger and fatter soundstage than I expected. The amplifier in these speakers pushes 60W out through the woofer and 30W via the tweeter. That’s 90W per channel, which is impressive given their size.
The warmth of the sound that the PSB Alpha IQ produces is beguiling, but it also has an astonishingly open sound that enables the music to breathe. You could be forgiven for imagining that such small speakers would produce a squashed and boxy sound, but not a bit of it. These speakers are superb performers, given their size. If you really must have more bottom end, you can always add a subwoofer, which would come into its own when used for watching movies on a TV.
Verdict: The great thing about the BluOS system is you can expand the system to suit your needs, but for most people, especially those with smaller living spaces, the PSB Alpha IQ could be the only speakers you ever need. They are complete audio system in two compact packages. The sound is stunning for the size, with real solid bass and a wonderfully wide soundstage that almost comes close to surround sound. For the money, you are getting a premium compact sound system that can provide you with all the music sources you’re likely to need. If you’re tight on space but don’t want to compromise on sound, the Alpha IQ speakers are well worth a listen.
Pricing & Availability: The PSB Alpha IQ powered bookshelf speakers are available now and cost $1,299 / £1,099 / €1,399 / CDN$1,699.
More info: www.psbspeakers.com
Tech Specs:
- Frequency response: 64 – 20,000Hz.
- LF Cutoff: -10dB 35Hz.
- Amplifier power (per speaker): Tweeter – 30W, Woofer – 60W.
- Tweeter: ¾-inch / 19mm black anodized aluminum dome with
- ferrofluid and neodymium magnet.
- Woofer: 4-inch / 100mm cone with rubber surround and steel basket.
- Crossover: 3,000Hz, L4.
- Cabinet design: Bass reflex.
- Inputs: 3.5mm, Phono MM, HDMI eARC, Optical.
- Wireless: BluOS, aptX HD Bluetooth.
- Streaming services: CALM Radio, Sirius XM< iHeart Radio, LiveXLive, Radio Paradise, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Bugs, Deezer, KKBOX, Napster, Pandora, Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal, Tunify. Roon Ready.
- Dimensions: 145 x 246 x 192mm.
- Weight: 7.36kg.
- Finishes: White, Black, Dutch Orange, Midnight Blue or Tangerine Yellow.
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