[JoshK]

First off I will lay out some qualification to my impressions. 

• I've almost given up on audiophilia as a hobby.  I've grown increasingly disillusioned with what most of this niche hobby cares about vs what I care about (e.g. this cable, that tweak, this tube.  who cares? In room response and appropriate dealing of acoustics.  I care).  I have spent more of my time not caring about the reproduction of sound as I do with just listening to music through whatever will play it.  I also don't listen to "audiophile approved" music.   That being said, I still highly appreciate great sound and enjoy my system very much.  This probably explains why I don't hang out on these forums as much anymore.
• Following my serious accident where I cracked my head and spent weeks in the hospital, I have had permanent damage to the hearing in my right ear.  I have a constant ringing in my right ear and the upper frequency response >12khz is pretty much gone.  I read that humans tend to process music with their left ear more and speech intelligibility with their right.  I think this seems true with me, as tonal balance of music still seems as apt as ever, but I have a hard time understanding women in a crowded/noisy bar.  Bummer for me as a bachelor.   This means, I care less than I already did before about imaging/soundstage versus tonal balance, rythym, dynamics and detail. 
• The audition space was far from ideal.  It was a multi-million dollar apartment in a high rise which was still in the midsts of being remodeled. The setup was far from ideal, the speakers weren't even equidistant from the seating position.  The source was a denon player and the amp a NAD integrated as his CAL mega amp was in being serviced.

Ok, pheww, with that off my chest, I can give some big picture impressions.   I recently just sold my Tannoy Arundel 15" Coincident speakers (with famed K3838 drivers) to make way for setting up my horn system.   I had a good long listening session with a local audiophile. We were discussing the virtues of this style of speaker compared to his Proac mini-monitors (for the record, I'm not a fan of 2 way mini monitors for a host of reasons) and his former Maggies (which I've owned a pair of as well).    This was recent framing of perspective.

Ok, onto my general observations of the PMC IB2S:

They have the depth of bass, authority and spaciousness of the Tannoys, but they have much more micro detail and resolution of a mini monitor without sounding sterile or compressed.  First time I've really heard the marriage of the two done well, watt puppies need not apply. 

You could hear when the NAD amp was straining as the monitors are very revealing.   You could easily tell which recordings were great, which were mediocre and which were piss-poor.   We listened to Dire Straights - Brother in Arms and all the virtues of this stellar recording shown through.  Attack was there, detail was there, separation was there.   We listened to a couple tracks from Tool - 10,000 Days as both he and I are huge fans and I am intimately familiar with this album.   The album is quite mid-bass heavy in the balance of the music (super heavy percussive and bass sections) and the amp was struggling to keep up.   However the layering of the pieces which this album is quite good at rendering was stellar.

My only complaint is that they really need a lot of juice.  However, being pro monitors, they are very conducive of multi-amping, so I would look to amp the woofer separately with an appropriate arch welder and then the upper mid/tweet could be run on a more gentile class A amp.   We plan to meet up again soon and experiment with biamping these monitors with a host of different amps, including a pair of 300B welbourne monoblocks on top that I have. 

All in all, I have to say I was really impressed, much more so than I really thought I'd be given my veering in a very different direction over the years from more traditional 1" dome tweeter speakers.   I give huge credit to the midrange driver and pushing the tweeter's xo up to 3.8khz.  This takes all the normal straining 1" dome artifacts which I am very adverse to away. 

I may write more on this thread in the future if we play around with setup and comparisons as we have planned.   He lives a few blocks from me and we hit it off (we both work in finance, are single, love good scotch and have very similar tastes in music). 

[Quiet Earth]

Hey Josh,

Sorry to hear about your accident. Bummer man.....  .  I think that you can have diminished hearing and still enjoy high end audio. You can still appreciate what matters most, and you can tell the difference between good and excellent gear because you are still a good listener. My own hearing is not as good as it used to be, and yet I can appreciate an excellent sounding system vs. just a good one. I'll bet that goes for a lot of us here, as many of us are not as young as we used to be. If you have tinnitus, you can manage it with diet and exercise. Your particular case may be different because of injury, but don't give up. Anyway, I am sorry to hear about your accident.

As you get older your taste and priorities will change anyway. You learn to ignore a lot of the silly audiophile nonsense and focus on the things that matter most to you. I think that is just part of getting older and growing up. (Well,,, I'm getting older anyway.  ) I focus mostly on the things that you mentioned. I think a lot of us older guys do.

That was an nteresting review of the PMCs. I'm surprised your friend didn't go for the home series. I heard the new Fact 12s at CES and they were phenomenal. I asked the gentleman doing the demo how small of a tube amp I could get away with for the 12s. He said 40 watts of push pull would probably do it. Maybe the home series speakers are less needy in terms of power requirement? Perhaps some of our PMC users can chime in on this. I'm a died in the wool SET guy now, but I could see myself going with a simple push pull or maybe parallel single ended (or bi amp SET) to get a pair of the Fact series. They had a killer sound.

Take care and keep us posted. The PMC stuff is intriguing.

[Diamond Dog]

That was an nteresting review of the PMCs. I'm surprised your friend didn't go for the home series. I heard the new Fact 12s at CES and they were phenomenal. I asked the gentleman doing the demo how small of a tube amp I could get away with for the 12s. He said 40 watts of push pull would probably do it. Maybe the home series speakers are less needy in terms of power requirement? Perhaps some of our PMC users can chime in on this. I'm a died in the wool SET guy now, but I could see myself going with a simple push pull or maybe parallel single ended (or bi amp SET) to get a pair of the Fact series. They had a killer sound.

Take care and keep us posted. The PMC stuff is intriguing.

IB2S vs. IB2i ( domesticated ) - I believe the only difference other than price is veneer vs. the matte black "studio " finish. They are really nice speakers. Most PMC's aren't nasty to drive in that they are decently efficient and don't drop down to really low impedances. That being said, I think those IB2S's would be a whole different experience with some serious wattage / current behind them. I know someone ( perhaps he'll chime in ) who ran IB2i's w/ 1000 watt Bryston mono's and they were fully righteous. He is currently in possession of the IB2S-A 's ( active ) and reports that they are even better. And that would be very, very good...

I think you could drive a pair of fact.12's with 40 watts of tubes but I'm not sure you'd get the best out of them. They are rated at 84 db but I've seen reviewers call that "optimistic". I've seen the difference here first-hand in terms of how much juice fact.12's wanted vs. fact.8's and that was with 660 watt SS mono's. PMC get that extra bottom end out of the fact.12's the old fashioned way...
 I'd be thinking fact.8's might be a better match and there's no shame in their game, either. Only one way to know for sure, though...

D.D.

[JoshK]

For me, from an intellectual perspective, I'm very intrigued to understand why a NAD integrated was struggling to have authority.  They aren't terribly low sensitivity.  I'd like to know what the ATL does to the phase/impedance in the bass section.  Maybe I'll bring some measurement gear next time I visit. 

My guess is that the mid/tweet should be easy enough to run with a lower watt class A amp (such as the 300B monos I have) at sane apartment listen levels (~low 80s db average) if the bass section was taken care of by something stout.  Experimentation is in order. 

[jackman]

Hey Josh,

Interesting observations.  I always enjoy your comments, and it's great to see that you have fully recovered from your accident (except for the hearing issue). I look forward to your comments on these speakers with different amplication/front end, and your comments on your new horn system.  Post pictures, if you have a chance. 

Lastly, keep us posted (in the off road section) on your new mountain bike and those beautiful hills around Toronto, but be careful!  Oh, and stay away from that Rob Ford fellow! 

Jack