Hello All Fishies!
THE DISCLAIMER...
So I am the mystery guest,
@Mike Hanson has been referring to. Be advised I have never ventured onto this forum before because I am strictly a listening enthusiast, not an SME - and so being fully evolved to live on land - any gills I might have had are entirely vestigial at this point. With that I will offer the disclaimer that my experiences shared will be entirely macro, so kid gloves in responding to the innocent newb is appreciated.
THE BACKSTORY...
Will spare you the long backstory except where it is relevant. The long and short of it is that I have been groping for nearly a quarter century now try to realize the sonic ideal that resides in my head. Not being eccentrically wealthy it has compelled me to try and make it there by buying things that punch above their weight. Unfortunately after making no end up minor incremental moves upwards I realized I would never reach the promised land that way and finally had to bite the bullet. Having a chain that I was very happy with it was time to pony up for great speakers and pay the piper for them.
My friend Mike was great to provide a second set of ears in my auditioning this past December. And after going to two shops I finally found the sound signature in a speaker that I was starting to think was perhaps pure psychosis...or myth. That was PMC. It did everything my particular aesthetic called for. The model that provided the eureka was the Fact 8s. (It's important to point out that we had brought the amp that Mike had built for me - AA SE 200, dual mono, 100Wx2 - and that match was excellent.) The only shortfall in the Fact 8s were that they were
very anemic on the bottom end; this in a room almost the exact same dimensions as mine. The dealer who I've known for decades and who I trust was willing to make me a killer deal on the 8s and a sub coming in at my budget. This would have been a good solve, but my gutcheck was that I wanted a system where any potential added subwoofer would
augment the bass frequencies, not be solely responsible for their delivery.
That had me looking at the Fact 12s - new and used. New was waaaay beyond my budget and used were nowhere to be found but across the pond in the UK. My looking continued and then I came across this pair of MB2 SEs in California for a price well under what new Fact12s would be. Now I am loathe to not audition before buying...let alone auditioning with one's own gear...let alone audition with one's own gear in one's own home. As such this was a pure foolish leap of faith - I own that. I made the gamble that the house sound of PMC would carry upwards into the MB2s and that it would be everything I appreciated exponentialized. And so I went for it.
It's worth pointing out that the dealer/friend warned me in advance that the AA would not likely capable of driving the MB2s satisfactorily and that I would almost certainly need a much beefier amp. Unfortunately the deal was well in motion at that point, flights booked, etc. and so I was already committed. It bares pointing out that said dealer
LOVED the AA amp with the Fact 8s - he was incredibly impressed - and asked Mike if higher powered models were available. After I got them and returned back home said dealer said that I would soon realize why he warned me (he talked having sufficient damping factor among other things - so don't pounce on just that). He ended with that in his opinion the MB2s were some of the finest speakers he had ever heard...if properly driven and other customers who had purchased them in the past &
had paired with sufficient power had fully borne that out.
THE PAYOFF...
I finally had a second set of hands to hoist these awkward 120 lb behemoths onto their stands a week ago. It was very quickly apparent that they were too high (that has already been discussed above and is in the process of being addressed). These are the optional 21" stands not the usual 14" and they put ear level at the woofer, not the acoustic centre of the mid as confirmed by PMC directly. But no matter for our purposes here.
So these speakers are indeed absolutely sumptuous. So effortless in their delivery of sonic information, so techically exacting, so musical, so real. They are entirely
splendid in so many ways. BUT at normal listening levels...they sound choked off...starved. There's no boogie factor/toe tapping, no visceral engagement, no excitement, no dynamic fireworks - everything is button down'ed. Very WAF, very dinner party, very background music-esque.
I did no end of fiddling with the other components to try and coax them out of their shell, but it was not forthcoming. The only solve at present is to take them well beyond normal listening levels. Only when I have them pumping out at 85-90 dbs (level recorded) did they seem to really wake up. When I did that they were incredibly impressive. The only remaining deficiency with that is that even at those levels the grip on the rhythm still isn't there either yet. Playing songs well known to me to be cracking, get down on the dance floor, white man overbite, funk face extravaganzas - were simply pleasant to senses and not much more. Now right away, listening at 85-90 dbs is completely auditorily untenable for other than short periods of time, so I surely cannot reside here - nor is any sound system of any utility, that only can do that.
And that's where we are. For further reinforcing, recall that I said the SE200s and Fact8s were a tremendous match & remember that the dealer wanted to know what the heck this piece of kit was. Also note that my current system with the SE200 & my old speakers (Vandersteen 2CE Sig IIIs) completely satisfied the shortfalls directly cited above (albeit with too many of their own shortcomings which prompted the mandatory need to upgrade).
With that I am quickly coming to the realization that I am going to have little choice but to upgrade the amp with something that has significantly bigger power reserves / ability to adequately deliver at all listening levels / etc. / etc. And here's where you see the macro in the end user showing as I don't know what I am going to have chase in a replacement...absolute wattage / damping factor / sufficient power at low ohm levels / et al.
For a high level refresher...I haven't found any testing data that I can provide here other than what I gleaned in a review ("The MB2 is a claimed 90 dB/Wm efficient and presents a very fair eight Ohm load, dipping only to5.9 Ohms at 110 Hz.")
Impedance: 8 Ohm nominal
Sensitivity: 90dB
Recommended Amp Power: 10 - 500W
I welcome people's thoughts on the matter. Thanks for reading.