First of all,as I said""at 1/3 the cost they are a great speaker" and 3-4yrs ago I still had lots to learn about the inner industries manufacturing politics.I recently watched a gentleman order some IB2's and all said and done,they were the better part of $15,000 all in.I said that he should wait for a little bit but it was already done. 3 weeks later a used pair of one year old came available(20yr warranty) for $7500...But I personally have learned my lesson.
The grills were off of your USA distribution demos(1yr old) and were left in the box I guess and Maurice told me to buy them myself.I called PMC in England and they said it was going to be $199 pounds each + shipping+taxes for each grill.This grill was 2 pieces of 1/4" mdf glued together with grill cloth and a PMC logo...I sold those $20,000 MB2's for $8000.
A friend of mine went into a Toronto dealer and demoed the PB1i and OB1i and was looking at a cash deal on the OB1i.They said ""for CASH with taxes all in....$7700""He fell on the floor saying $7700 for a 6.5" Morel woofer was a joke and later found a used pair for $2800.
AGAIN,great sound if you can get them for 1/3 the cost.
I see they have a new pair of ""SE"" versions with stands...I wonder what they run a pair with the stands. |
Jim Salk even send a free replacement grill to a second owner. Many times, Jim offers free of charge sevice like speakers re-inspection, veneer buffed to a second owner if they are willing to pay for shipping. How is that for a service. This kind of stuff being mention by Salk owner all tge time on audiocircle/Salk thread. |
If the grills of my IB2i were to become warped (I assume that's what Mclsound meant by "wraped"), PMC will replace them free of charge for the next 18 years. That's how long I have remaining on the original 20-year warranty, which is transferable. I'd call that a company that prizes customer loyalty and satisfaction. |
Mclsound,
If that's true, then I can at least understand why you're upset. Charging $900 for basic replacement grilles is not what you'd expect from a company that took pride in its work, ownership of its products, and prioritized customer satisfaction & loyalty.
If you'd included this valuable context in the opening post, then this thread might have gone down so much better. |
02-08-10: Mclsound: My neighbour brought his PMC IB1's over this wknd for a true comparison of the MB2/IB1.... We both agreed that these speakers are some of the best we ever heard. Your words. Not mine. |
Well I have owned the PMC IB1 & MB2 and after doing my own research,said ""NO WAY"" to their $peakers.
IB1 is $9999 and uses a $30 tweeter,$70 mid and a car audio woofer.The MB2 at $18,999 got you a basic ATC design mid and a cool woofer worth $300.And R&D time I am sure settles in here but when they wanted $900 for new MB2 grills(mdf & grill cloth)to replace my wraped ones........ I sold it all and will never look back.
NOW
If you can buy a used pair for 1/3 the cost,then your good. |
The whole hifi industry -- where $200K speakers are the new 100K speaker, and the landscape is littered with 1m/2m cable runs that each cost as much as good cars -- and in selecting a product to bash as overpriced, you choose a nice looking $14K pair of tower speakers?? |
Well, at least you confessed to being a prick, so there's something honest about you. Good for you: now you're honestly a prick. |
OK. Good One. You fooled me. |
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. |
As to why I would choose the Salk's, a number of things come into play. As Rja mentioned, the customizability of components and finishes is one reason. The fact that I am getting a well thought-of high end speaker at direct sale without a middle man (dealer) makes it much more a ffordable than comparable speakers. The type of bass system employed favors deep but tight bass in my room (two 8-inch woofers and 12 inch passive radiators per speaker) rather than a sealed box or ported speaker. The fact that my amplifier is 250 watts per channel and the sensitivity of the Salk's is 87db/watt( no inability to drive them here!). The driver choices are also a factor as the tweeter is a very highly respected ribbon (RAAL) and the midrange is perhaps one of the best in audio (Accuton ceramic).And Dennis Murphy's crossover simplicity appeals to me rather than a much more complicated pathway. Add to these factors that I heard the Salk's at a show and the sound spoke to me, and there you have it. The PMC could be better, I dont know, but due to the factors listed and the sound I heard, the choice of speakers was clear to me. Whenever someone asks "is this one or that one better?", it brings up a sticky issue. There will always be a better speaker than the one you or I have, but can you afford it and just how much better is it? Is a $100,000.00 dollar speaker ten times better than a $10,000.00 one? We all hear differently, have different ancillary components and different rooms, so my idea of better maybe be your idea of crap. Without having the two speakers in question available to do a side by side comparo in your home, with your equipment,I feel the question is moot. |
Rja, very true. I just ordered a pair of Soundscape 8's from Jim, and was thinking of upgrading the capacitors in the tweeter position. Jim told me he thought it would be a waste of money to upgrade the other caps in the crossover (mids and woofers). And I had asked him to cost out Duelund VSF Copper vs. Mundorf Silver In Oil. We settled on the Mundorfs primarily due to cost as the Duelunds may be a little bit better in sound quality but not at three times the cost of the Mundorfs. Dennis Murphy is recognized as being an expert in crossover design and I believe his ethos is simpler is better(he designs the crossovers in the Salks). Having not heard any PMC's I can't comment on them vs. Salk. |
With regards to the original question you must hear them yourself - getting others opinions is only really of value getting ideas about what you should listen to and perhaps the best way to audition them.
But I am sitting here shaking my head at the quality of parts Vaopr1 said are used in PMC speakers - electrolytics - my god - in a $14k speaker. My new speakers cost $15k and they use Duelund Cast Copper capacitors - at $14k you would expect something a bit better. And yes you can tell the difference - I have heard comparisons of speakers where the only difference was Mundorf Silver In Oil and Duelund VSF Copper - The Duelund murdered the Mundorfs - but electrolytics - the mind boggles.
I have heard PMC's although not the model mentioned - they were average to my ears. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing Salk speakers but I know people whose ears I trust that have and they are fairly impressed.
However if you are considering $14k I would have a look at plenty of other speakers as well as the PMC. In that price bracket I like the Rockport Mira 2.
Thanks
Bill |
IMO: As far as quality of parts in Salk crossovers, he uses whatever it takes to satisfy his customers. If the customer desires different/better parts than his standard crossover he will accommodate them with anything they want, the sky's the limit. At some point he will tell them they're wasting their money though. |
Love my IB2i. They do everything extremely well, to my ears, and seamlessly. But I do think they're too pricey. That said, given how much I enjoy them, I don't regret the expense. |
Power Supplies? In a speaker?
Vapor is correct, the number of parts is meaningless, in fact many excellent speakers have only one or two parts in their crossovers; some have none. Lots of parts can mean the use of correction networks to "fix" defects in drivers. Also, the use of electrolytic caps is something I avoid religiously in the gear I build, even in amplifier power supplies if I can.
Printed circuit boards look neater, but in most cases that means you are connecting the parts with aluminum wires, not the copper or silver usually used in point-to-point wiring. Copper and silver are far better conductors than aluminum. |
Haha, no I'm not saying anything is snake oil or that anything isn't necessary. What I'm saying is that smart designers use as few parts as necessary to do the job perfectly, and no more. I was also saying that the majority of the parts on that PMC board are very inexpensive (and often frowned upon) parts.
Salk doesn't use high-end parts either (although better than what's on that PMC board), but with a Salk you know you're getting a flat frequency response and proper phase tracking ... all with a crossover that's only as complex as it needs to be. That may or may not be the case with PMC. I've seen some PMC's that measure relatively poorly, and how it measures is a testimony of how well the crossover is engineered. |
You can't judge the quality of a crossover by the quantity of its components. Many times, simpler is better, and that simplicity is most likely driven by the choice of drivers in the speaker. |
Audiozen,
Perhaps you are confused in regards to number of parts and sound quality. Some of the world's most highly-regarded speakers have very few parts. Take Fried speakers, for example. Their designer, Bud Fried, used anywhere from 6-10 parts p/crossover and achieved miraculous results. Or take a pair of Spendor SP1/2s. Derek Hughes used 12 parts p/board and created one of the all-time classics. Yes, there are designers who use more parts and also get superb results, but to say that there is always a positive parts/sound correlation is simply not accurate. |
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? |
Seriously, you're judging the quality of the crossovers based on the number of components? What does a "generous amount of parts" even mean? |
Audiozen - seriously? This is a stunning piece of work? http://www.avforums.com/forums/attachments/speakers/93494d1223327522-pmc-ob1i-crossover-ob1i-xo.jpgPlenty of electrolytics, iron core inductors, and $.25 sand cast resistors. Those are not high end parts, and just because there's a lot of parts doesn't mean it's any more engineered ... in fact the inverse is often true. More parts are often an indicator that proper engineering wasn't done in the early parts of the design phase. As a designer myself, there's no doubt in my mind the Salk is the better speaker ... and being less money is just icing on the cake. |
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. |
Exactly, how did you choose these two speakers as potential choices? I would love to hear an answer to that question.
My best advice, and truly the only advice is to do your research -- reviewers are pretty straight up, outside of Stereophile-- and then purchase what seems like your preference. This is America, so we have way too many choices. I could tell you that Zu Audio will satisfy your soul, but that is for you to decide. It did satisfy my soul and more.
Bottom line, ya gotta drop some money to find out for yourself |
Salks are good speakers; I've heard one of the recent flagships. I think my Thiel CS3.7's are better, though. The Thiel's are within your range used and I'd recommend them if you have a very good front end and amp. If not, the Salks are more forgiving. Haven't heard the PCM's. |
Jaxwired wrote: "Never heard salks but..."
With all due respect, why comment if you have never heard them? It's very hard to compare these two manufacturers (even assuming that you have heard units from both companies) because PMC is a large company, primarily focused on products for professional audio. Home audio speakers are a side line for them.
Jim Salk has a tiny company and manufactures very unique and beautiful speakers with an special emphasis on customized products and cabinet work. While I don't own a pair but I have heard them many times and they are very special. |
Never heard salks but I seriously doubt a boutique brand like that is going to give pmc any real competition. I've owned a lot of speakers and pmc is at the very top of my list. Their i series is superb and worth every penny IMO. |
