PMC vs. Salk Sound Speakers. Which is better?

I checked out some photo's on the net of the crossover boards from Salk and PMC. The crossover board in the PMC PB1i is a stunning piece of work, very sophisticated with a generous amount of parts. Serious engineering. Looking at the crossover board in the Salk HT2-TL looks inferior to the PMC. Very skimpy with very little parts. Looks like a High School DIY project. Most speaker companies buy their drivers from Accuton, RAAL, ScanSpeak, Viva, Seas and SB Acoustics. The heart and engine in any damn good speaker is the crossover network.

Vapor1..your point is interesting...explain this..I have viewed many photo's over the years
on the net of crossover boards in many different speakers and one thing thats in common with the top speaker companies and models selling above $10K is that their boards are larger with a greater volume of parts and larger power supplies, and some have up to three large boards for the highs, mids and lows. Are you saying that these crossover designer/engineer's are designing larger boards that are not necessary and its nothing more than snake oil to convince the customer that spending a lot more money on high priced speakers is justified?

Okay...I'll come clean as to why I really started this thread. Too see how many fools would reply that would be stupid enough to blow $14K on a pair of PMC PB1i speakers that is currently the most over priced speaker on the market. A rip off. I respect Vapor1's input as a designer and I'm well aware of low, mid, and high grade conponents that go into a speaker's crossover network. Dennis Murphy, the brilliant engineer crossover designer for Salk, has written an article on the Salk Audio blog called "Crossovers 101". A great read. Salk speaker's are not only #1 in the U.S. as the best and highest quality speaker for their price but are #1 in the world as well. There is no way in hell there exists any other speaker company on the planet that can even come close to the quality of Salk for the money. The remarkable options and upgrades that Jim Salk offer's is over the top. You would have to spend well over $30K to get the woodwork and cabinet quality of the Salks. Peter Thomas of PMC is an Audio politician and attracts Audiophile customer's that live in the Audiophile Matrix. The type that picks a product based on all the Hype in the media and the mags. The PMC PB1i has a forty pound wood cabinet that is hollow due to the vertical transmission line tunnel inside with a large single folded piece of absorbing foam. It has one dinky crossover board with cheap parts for a three way speaker and four drivers which brings it up to 57 pounds. For $14,0000?. Fool's gold. Hell, if your going to spend that much, buy the top model from Salk or the Acoustic Zen Crescendo which you can pick up at a discount. The Salk and Zen will blow the PMC out the window. And good luck trying to connect a pair of standard 12mm locking banana connectors to the PMC. They won't fit. Too big. The PMC's will not accept banana plug's larger than 4mm. Their binding posts are crap.

The bottom line..when you buy a PMC your buying a Ford Focus with a nice paint job. Again, anyone who spends $14K on the PMC PB1i with a 40 pound wood cabinet, four low priced drivers and one crossover board with low priced parts should get a lobotomy. When you buy a Salk, your buying a Rolls Royce for the price of a Chevy. Salk gives you the option to customize the crossover network to your liking by upgrading the capacitors. Certain caps in crossovers can produce a warm, laid back speaker or a very neutral, forward sounding speaker, so you can contour the type of sound that fits your personal preference. Jim Salk and Dennis Murphy will consult with you and recommend the caps that fit your tastes. Thats as good as it gets. Their house crossovers are still damn good producing outstanding sound quality but you get the upgrade option to take it to the very limit.

Glassy?...Murky?...boy, theres nothing worse than a murky speaker. Just goes to show that Audio Shows are not the proper venue to listen to speakers due to set up challenges and poor room acoustics. I listened to the Salk HT2-TL with a Parasound Halo JC2 Preamp and the Halo A21 amp in January at a friends home. He bought the system in early December. He switched out the fuses in the amp with HiFi Tuning fuses. Sound is mind blowing. Also, the ongoing wave of dozens of Salk owners on Audiogon in all the threads are the happiest speaker owners you will ever come across, as well as many owners on other blogs and threads on the net all over the country. Salk has a cult following that is huge. Word of mouth is the most honest and accurate method to judge audio gear. Also, the RAAL
70-10 tweeter in the Salk costs $389.00. Thats nothing to sneeze at.

Beyond Salk's capabilities? Baloney!! Jim Salk is a recording engineer and Dennis Murphy is an electrical engineer designer of crossover networks for many years. Salk speakers are also transmission line designs fine tuned
to exact mathematical standards by long time transmission line experts Paul Kittinger and Martin King. Paul is in partnership with another speaker company, Philharmonic Audio. You were saying?...

You are correct..I just spoke to Jim Salk and he is using the 70-20 ribbon with a modified core. My eyes tricked me. Regarding Bose..are you kidding me? Bose speakers are not high end. Make good radios. Amar Bose filed a lawsuit in 1968 in a New York court against High Fidelity Magazine for a very bad review of the original 901 speaker which was a piece of crap. No copper voice coil over a coil form. Just a long hollow aluminum tube connected to each driver that acted as a capacitor for the driver. Now thats cheap!! Bose is not, and never has been a high end speaker in the Audiophile world. Not unless your stupid and gullible. Bose is for housewives. And your not aware of the major performance differences switching out fuses in amps and preamps? That is common knowledge among Audiophiles for years.

Bigkidz..the price of a component means nothing? What a stupid statement. I have a metal lunch box I converted into an integrated amplifier with a five inch speaker on the side and a internal transistor radio amp that I can sell you for $10K. Because it sounds great! Hell, when I buy a speaker, amp or preamp I make damn sure I look under the hood to know what I'm getting for the price. Not to just buy a product blindly at a high price because its a politically correct audio component. In the real world of costs, The PMC PB1i speaker should sell for $3K, not $14K. but since PMC has made a commercial name for itself in the Pro recording world, they want you to pay for the name first, and ignore the very low cost to make the PB1i speaker. Is their a better British speaker at a lower price that is superior to PMC? You betchum!! Proac!! Their killer stand mount monitor, The Response D, is only 26" high but weighs a very heavy 55 pounds, with better drivers
and crossover, and it will play all the way down to 25Hz. Cost is only $6K. Or the very large Proac floor model, the D40-R, that is 47" high, weighs 88 pounds, and will play down to 20Hz. No need for a subwoofer. Cost is $12K, $2K less than the PMC.