MOVIE PERFORMANCE With sensitivities in the mid to upper 80 dB range, the G-Designs are fairly simple and reasonably efficient loads, and I had no trouble powering them with either a 65-watt-per-channel Outlaw receiver or a hunkier 140-watt-per-channel Parasound multichannel amp. Maintaining a good timbral match among the five speakers is particularly important with movies, where sounds often pan and zoom between speakers, and here again the G-Designs - with their matching drivers and careful voicing - sounded impressively similar. Like many people, I usually prefer direct-radiating surrounds like these for music and dipoles for movie-watching, but the GB1s (repositioned about 2 feet higher than the placement I use for music) performed well and never called undue attention to themselves. The absence of midbass muddling I noted earlier also bore fruit here in the system's's dialogue clarity. This was one rig where I was never tempted to goose up the center channel just to hear what the actors were saying.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest contains astonishingly deep bass rumblings in some parts, and the SubSeries 6i was able to shake the floor effectively without a hint of distress. Overall, some setups may be able to pin your ears back with their explosive dynamics a tad more convincingly than this PSB G-Design home theater speaker system, but I found its somewhat more reserved nature made it easy and comfortable to listen to even when the volume was cranked way up.

BOTTOM LINE Rather than dazzling you through a juiced-up first impression, these slightly understated yet highly capable PSBs are the kind of speakers that tend to grow on you over the long haul. They are equally impressive with music and movies, and what minor weaknesses they have are primarily sins of omission that are pretty easy to live with. Come to think of it, that's a bit like the Canadians themselves, eh?

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