Take lots of pictures please. 
james
Your wish is my command James
I took over 500 pictures over the 2 days, I have wrote the below summary for the new Fact.12's for anyone who is interested, I should also point out that the Fact.12's where being powered by Bryston 28B SST2's, an SP3 and a BDP/BDA combo, so no wonder they sounded so amazing
I will post some pics of the more weird and wonderful later.
PMC Launch The Stunning New Fact.12 Speaker!Hi Everyone,
Well I’ve just got back from Munich for the launch of the new Fact.12 speakers from PMC, it has certainly been an interesting couple of days, the Munich High End show really is something quite special and has been a real eye opener into the world of the what a weird and whacky world HiFi can be, the pinnacle being an amp twice the size of me that opens up like a transformer to display all the connections and inner workings, I’ll post some pics later, quite amazing though. One thing that struck home though was that although there is some really crazy kit out there that costs an absolute fortune it doesn’t make it good, I lost count of the amount of times I walked into a room worth many 10’s of thousands of pounds only to leave uninspired by the cold, clinical, lifeless sound, just goes to show how good Britain is at making hifi that actually makes music, every time I went back into the PMC room it was like the comfy slipper syndrome, it sound sounded so right and musical, helped by the fact that they weren't playing flute or classical music I guess. So I Just want to say a massive thanks to PMC for giving me the opportunity to join them at the show, as being new to this trade it was a real eye opener and very educational.
Anyway onto the main event, the FACT.12, I spent many an hour listening to these over the last 2 days and to be honest I don’t know where to start, obviously being a FACT.8 fan I had high hopes and unless PMC had made a horrible mistake they were going to be good, but in all honesty I never thought they could be this good, especially considering the cabinet size, only slightly taller and deeper than the FACT.8 but producing a sound that is quite spectacular, they really have defied the laws of physics and somehow created a tardis speaker in my opinion, you almost expected a far larger speaker to be hidden behind the graphics behind the speakers, in fact the most common question Tom had to face was ‘So where is the sub hidden?’
Like many others I thought when they were announced at £11,995 it was going to be a tough sell, I was hoping for under £10k really, but I know that once people have experienced these speakers they will agree with me that they are worth every penny, if not more to be honest. I guess it is expected for me to say they are great but I met a guy in the PMC room who had been into HiFi Lounge to demo the MB2 SE’s a month or so ago, he had spent 2 days at the show and declared that the PMC room was amongst the 2 best sounding rooms at the show, the other room was ‘Living Voice’ which are rather large and expensive horn speakers, so for the relatively small FACT.12’s to get an accolade as that from someone, shall we say, more impartial than me, just shows how good the FACT.12’s are.
The FACT.12’s are a total new design compared to the FACT.8’s, only the tweeter remains, now being a big fan of the PMC 75 mid and very accustomed to it I was really keen to hear how the new 2” mid range would compare, in all honesty I really couldn’t hear much, if any difference, obviously it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion until I have the FACT.12’s in here to listen to in a room I know but there was that familiar richness to vocals that the PMC 75 is so well known for and considered by many to be the best mid range cone available, it may be smaller but you wouldn't know it.
More of a shock to me was the bass performance, the new bass drivers really are quite amazing, many times I would be chatting at the back of the room and this low bass note would come in and everyone would stop in their tracks and look at the speakers in disbelief that those small speakers at the front of the room just produced such a low, rich bass note, but the real star is the speaker as a whole, everything about the sound is so natural, full, rich and effortless with great imaging, separation and great integration across all the drivers, I can only imagine how much work went into getting the crossover so right.
How does it compare to the bigger IB/MB PMC speakers? it is hard to compare directly as the FACT has always been able to do things that the bigger PMC’s couldn’t do, like the clarity and speed, but what PMC have created in my view is a speaker that has all the key attributes of the FACT.8 but really fleshed it out giving a fuller, richer sound, more organic whilst retaining that insight and clarity.
I think PMC really do need to be applauded here, as far as I’m concerned they have developed the perfect domestic loudspeaker as it gives big performance like the IB2i, although not the same, but in a cabinet that most people could get away with in their living room. Personally when I’m in a position to build a hifi at home again I always imagined a pair of MB2i’s but I know now that it would be the FACT.12’s for me as they are such a pretty speaker with an amazing full sound that will just vanish into the room compared to any other speaker I know that can perform at this level.
I hope this hasn’t come across as overly keen and people thinking that I just want to sell a few pairs and PMC took me out to the show so I owe them a good reveiw, OK, so I am a little biased to all things PMC, but as an enthusiast I really never thought that the FACT.12 could perform at the level it does, they really are very impressive.
Walking round a show like the High End show in Munich you see many kinds of speaker designs of all shapes and sizes but there really is nothing like the FACT range of speakers, some rooms had huge speakers in that could really only disappoint in reality, where the FACT.12’s won was that it was a very simple display with just the speakers up front and no whacky electronics and there was no mistaking what you were in the room listening to which really helped add to the disbelief that such a huge, full sound was coming from those quite un-assuming speakers in front of the display, great idea
In the end, although I liked the white finish I decided to go with the Walnut for demo, so as soon as my demo pair arrive I will be holding a FACT.12 open day as I will be really interested to hear what other people think, but everyone that left the PMC room at Munich all seemed to agree that the FACT.12 was very good indeed as many of them commented.
PMC are hoping to start production by the end of June, so all being well I will have my pair by mid July, although being that this is a brand new speaker made up from many parts PMC are keen to stress that this date could possibly change, fingers crossed it doesn’t though as I really can’t wait to get them in here to really put them through their paces against the MB2 SE’s
Here are a a few pictures of the Fact.12’s, I will also be blogging some other news stories from the show over the weekend, along with some pictures of the weird and wonderful from Munich, I’ve also just added the promotional video PMC have done for the Fact.12 -
http://youtu.be/aKrsE4Sh8qs
I will go through the rest of my pictures later from Munich and post on here, some very bizarre kit but also some very sexy kit
