Intro
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A pair of active speakers with bluetooth, USB and even a phono input for 500 Euros? That just can’t be right right? Well… at PSB you do get a lot in return! We are testing the PSB AM3. The “little brother” of the previously tested PSB Alpha IQ that also has bluesound streamer built in.
Not every music lover has the money, or the motivation to buy a (very) pricey hifi system. For many people, a few hundred euros is the maximum budget. In these expensive times, this is quite understandable; we as humanity are now stuck with countless subscriptions and monthly fixed charges: mortgage, rent, internet, telephony, insurance, taxes, sports, software, streaming services, travel expenses, and so on; it’s actually insane… but yes: it’s how life is now.
Ready in a second!
But with that in mind, it’s nice when something doesn’t cost you a fortune. PSB has a lot of products for people who don’t want to blow a month’s salary on a music system. The PSB AM3 active monitor costs 500 Euros per pair. And if you simply place them on a shelf or cabinet, or know how to place them to the left and right of the TV, you literally do not need anything else; with Bluetooth from the phone you can simply play music. Or you connect an optical cable from the TV and play from there.
Simplicity prevails
The PSB AM3 is very well put together. The workmanship is remarkably good. We can obviously see that PSB has looked carefully at a balance between cost and quality; don’t expect shiny gold trim and massive spikes or anything like that. But things like that don’t usually contribute to playback quality anyway. A solid cabinet with very few resonances does. And that’s what we see here.
In terms of connectivity, we see everything needed to play nicely: bluetooth (AptX), optical (no specifications, but we learned that up to 24/48 KHz is supported), analog input via 3.5mm jack and even phono (MM) via rca jacks. As a bonus, USB (micro-usb!) and a subwoofer output!