B&w Vs PMC
- Thread starter Martin 52
- Start date
gez
pfm Member
Listen to the PMC in your room and your amp. It's the only way to know for sure. Or second best option (as has been suggested) is to take your amp to your friends house and listen to his speakers. Given that you know the acoustics of his listening environment are very different to yours, I would not favour the second approach. Rooms make all the difference in the world to how any speaker sounds. Don't believe me: listen to the difference to how just adding a carpet and a few peices of furniture impact the sound in this video:
No need to watch the whole thing, just the voice demo at the very beggining and the one at 22min will be sufficient to hear the difference, even through your laptop. The difference between your friends relatively open and bare room and yours, which I presume is well furnished?, will be
qualitatively simlilar, if not the same quantitative difference.
No need to watch the whole thing, just the voice demo at the very beggining and the one at 22min will be sufficient to hear the difference, even through your laptop. The difference between your friends relatively open and bare room and yours, which I presume is well furnished?, will be
qualitatively simlilar, if not the same quantitative difference.
Darren L
Egalitarian
I always found them harsh too @Martin 52 , regardless of what model and in what decade, the PMCS I quite liked, I only owned one pair of the baby standmount but heard quite a few others at the dealers.
Yes I agree the room can make all the difference. I did take my amp to his before but he ended up buying the PMC cor amp . Mine did change the sound compared to his musical fidelity M6i at the time . Main problem I have is if I change I will need a new center as well which In PMC is not a cheap option. I was very lucky when I brought my speakers at a great price. I may start with a different cartridge and phono stage
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Twenty.26 floorstanders here and the finish is about the best I've ever come across in 55 years !!!! Amazing subjective difference of opinion.
I'd agree that a bit of amp welly is useful, esp. for the smaller ones, I'd've thought. Certainly with mine, they need space; behind, certainly and a little to the side. Free space ideal. They really image superbly, are dynamic but never fatiguing, though I use EAR 100 W valved mono's. The transmission line bass is very good and more extended that the cabinet size would suggest.
Have only heard B & Ws at dealers and shows; not to my taste and the dem. of (then) top Naim amplification with the Nautilus type biggies at Doug Brady's was terrible; simply no synergy at all. Long time ago, though.
Tigerjones
Bagpuss
I have, for a while, had the same two thoughts about PMC speakers. Firstly they have ridiculous names and secondly they have the most boring design team. For these reasons I would never contemplate a pair, regardless of performance.
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
Just for balance imo PMC make some of the worst speakers going , I’d take B&W any day of the week. In your situation I’d be looking at a better record player first and then a better amplifier before looking at changes to the speakers.
I can't imagine I would change from my p8 TT for a fair few yrs . Perhaps a better cartridge
Mike Hanson
Trying to understand...
I wouldn't worry too much about matching the tonal quality of the center with your front left and right. If you're watching movies, the stuff coming out of the center channel is distinctly different from the other speakers. However, if you are using your entire surround sound system to listen to music, then an argument could be made that the center channel needs to match. I don't use my home theater system to listen to music.
Darren L
Egalitarian
A good centre is worthwhile in an Av set up, quite alot of information locking the dialogue to the screen and whilst it's nice to have a matching set I'm not convinced they need to be the same brand.
Mike Hanson
Trying to understand...
Just because you've always had it that way doesn't necessarily mean that you need it that way. Sure, it's nice to have, but I don't really think it helps much for home theatre. As Darren L commented, what's most important is that your center channel be good. In my system, my center was the best speaker of the bunch for most of the life of the system, until recently. I'm running the Royd AV77 in the center, and only recently upgraded to the Royd RR3 for the front left and right. It's been a great system the whole time.
PMC’s definitely benefit from decent power, as do a lot of speakers.
As an example, I had a pair of PMC IB1’s years ago and initially ran them off an Arcam integrated with 100 or 120watts per channel. It seemed to drive the speakers no problem, but upgrading to a Krell FPB200 was a massive upgrade. I now had live gig levels and gut punching bass.
Active is the easiest way of ensuring proper control of the speakers, so look at the new PMC amp packs.
As an example, I had a pair of PMC IB1’s years ago and initially ran them off an Arcam integrated with 100 or 120watts per channel. It seemed to drive the speakers no problem, but upgrading to a Krell FPB200 was a massive upgrade. I now had live gig levels and gut punching bass.
Active is the easiest way of ensuring proper control of the speakers, so look at the new PMC amp packs.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Sth would be strange if it hadn't been; chalk 'n' cheese (class B to class A as well may have had some influence).
It was the sheer power and control, probably down to the Krell being able for 2ohm loads. The IB1’s are 4ohm, so the Arcam struggled at higher spl’s and would trigger its safety circuit.