I had to look for half a year to find a used pair of pmc-aml1's. I found a pair on ebay for 3.5k, they had scratches, the grill on the bottom had a ding, but I did not care. They came from a studio, as they should have, and had studio wear. The aml1 has perfected transmission line bass, so those fat bass notes you heard on your platinum audio duo are now seen for what they are: alternating bass notes phased quickly to give you that phat effect, which was never discernable till you had the aml1. I tried listening to music with the dsp off (the aml1 does have tone controls), but transmission line bass does not have the 'presence' we have all grown up with, so I listen to them with the dsp set at -0 lf rolloff, you really don't need a sub with these unless you want hearing damage, lf set to +3 db and hf set to -5 db. With active speakers, most recordings are going to sound like what they are: poop. Mp3's will become annoying, being able to hear the smear perfectly and distortion clear as day. Most of your cd's made before '95 will have a noticable layer of hiss, and all your hip hop cd's will show every pop and tick from their samples, and you can tell immediately when they layer another sample on top, and exactly how much hiss each sample adds to the final product. Most people will call this sound 'bright', 'fatiguing' etc. I call it accurate, if you don't want to be in the mixing studio hearing all 24 tracks layered and to what degree, then you need to admit it and invest in some mullards. But after I lost $600 in mullards and an amp as well to a power outage, I had to reconsider my preferences. I also have the aml1's hooked up to a benchmark dac-1, it's like freebasing music, they are in your room, in your lap, in your head, it is intense. Some of your bootlegs will become less enjoyable unless you lucked out and it's a well preserved lossless source, but some of my old cassettes that I burned with my trusty hhb 800 are painful to listen to now, so be prepared to be a 'who mastered this' addict as seen in previous posts. OK so let's do the math for active vs. passive costs.
Cost of aml1's (you will need to look hard to match the 3.5k I paid) plus benchmark dac1 bought on audiogon plus verastarr silver signiature xlr's bought on audiogon: $4,900. The digital source for the benchmark is moot, so any cheapo source and digital cable will do. I still need stands for the aml1's which cost $700 from ron whitmore.
Items sold to pay for the aml1's: Sherwood Newcastle r-965: $600, platinum audio solo's w/stands: $850. Platinum audio duo's: $900. Verastarr jumpers and 10 ft. speaker cables: $700. Odds and sodds sitting in the closet leftover from audiophilitis: $1,000. Total: $5,000. It's a wash as far as cost. I'm sure with perseverance and a little ingenuity you can join the few of us in the recovery ward from audiophilitis. The reason the aml1 doesn't sell well outside of studios is because audiophiles don't want to be happy and content with what they have, unlike music engineers who do (I'm going to catch hell for that one).
P.S. My ears are super happy with me for stumbling into transmission line bass, there are no pressure bombs to ring my ears anymore.
