Just done a demo. of PMC Twenty5.26 and Harbeth SHL5+ speakers

Set up and playing these PMC speakers now. The tweeter is above ear hight in my listening seat, the mid range unit is at about ear height. The S400 BMR is just about spot on ear height. To do a fair comparison, is this OK for the PMC ? The manual is not real clear on speaker hight recommendations IRT the tweeter. The tweeter appears to be very forgiving yet detailed enough for me so far in the test. Should I drop the height of the front screw spikes to move the front speaker angle or will this mess with the back rake time aligment of all three speaker units in the speaker design  ?

Also do PMC speakers benefit much from toe in ? I have got them toed in so they cross about a foot in front of my seat.

Sorry, one more point of interest. My NACA5 is soldered with the S400 speaker block plug in terminals so I cannot test each with the same speaker wire.

I had to borrow Chord Odyssey 2 speaker cable for the PMC's.

Not looking good for the PMC. Splashy treble on quite a few less than stellar recordings. Could be the Chord Odyssey 2 that I am using, moved the toe in and it has helped a bit. From firing right at me to any a few degrees of toe in now. 

Very explicit speaker in my room & my gear, much more than the S400. Vocals appear much better though.

Interesting following this thread.. I have experience with Harbeth C7es3 and PMC twenty5 speakers. In my listening environment and equipment the PMCs had a good tightish deep bass and good mid range, with reasonable dynamics. However to my ears the treble was poor, with apparent  grit or distortion on some albums, notably classical music and the most extreme with choral. On rock and pop this seemed to sometimes translate to added 'bite' or 'excitement' but at the loss of resolution and with added sibilance.

The Harbeths on the other hand were sublime in the treble and mids... choral music, strings, saxophone, voice all played wonderfully with no added grit or sibalence and with wonderful resolution, however the lower mids and bass was soft and lacked good definition, it was often hard to follow bass lines without concentrating.. dynamics also felt sat upon compared to what I like.

in the end I opted for neither speaker long term.

Simon

Could you take the Naim Ovator plugs apart so that you just use the pins? If you use different speaker cables you won't know what is going on, especially if they are little used. 

Yes remove the pins from the plug and use your existing cables. 

And don't over analyse things. Just listen to each item for a few days with any music you normally play without changing things around. 

I think the PMCs are deliberately designed to put the mid range at ear height. I think I read that from them or it might've been a conversation at a hifi show.

Not all companies design to the same set of 'ideals' I suppose.

Rookie mistake, I really thought they were soldered in and cannot be split.  Onto it...........

Right. Sorted the NACA5 out and it seems the PMC is drawing ahead now. More engaging than before, I'll give some examples while it's still fresh.

1. Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here. The start really did sound like a 1950's radio was locked inside the right speaker and playing. Not "somewhere over there" like in the S400. Vocals locked in much more centre stage as opposed to  "somewhere in the middle" like the S400.

2. Roy Orbison on Mystery Girl, you could clearly make out a legend in the twighlight of his career e.g. his voice sounded the like the age he was. But boy did he still have it...... emotion and the legendary vocal range was still very much there.

3. Johnny Cash with Joe Strummer in Redempition Song, again full of emotion & pain, for the first time I could clearly make out  2 acoustic guitars. Not a song that sounded like it had only 1 spread over the mix as in the S400.

4. AC/DC Who Made Who. Full of angry guitars and vocals. Almost scary real.

Again on Highway To Hell, angry and even more raw - in an appropriate way of course.

Still trying to catch out the Transmission Line bass, not done it yet. It's low, tight and certainly not "one note" like I have heard it sometimes described. Perhaps the S400 has a touch cleaner and defined lower bass / midrange bass punch. Not much in it though.

 I can crank the volume up and they remain composed and unfazed with this. A surprise as being ever so slightly on the explicit side I was half expecting them to fall apart a little bit with a bit of stick on the volume, not so.

Again with the toe in, I had way too much and it was unpleasant. 

At lower volume levels these are at least as good as the S400, perhaps even a touch better. The soundstage remains solid and does not collapse like in lesser speakers. 

Negatives ? Only one so far, a bit explicit or very accurate , which ever suits the "flavour" of them and how they were voiced by PMC.  I have not tried the magnetic grill yet, as they are still fresh sealed in factory plastic and I do not want to tear them open and possibly upset the store. So this may yet  tame the slightly explicitly nature I hear. Apart from some songs that I still have to play and if they really fall over, I think these are a winner.

edit: just read Simon in Suffolk post. Yes, I get the sibilance you are referring to. It goes away a bit with less toe in, I'll have to dig out some more crappy 80's recordings and see if it's still there after a few more days run in. Although they said they had about 100 hours on them already. The sibilance was quite obvious on Men at Work Downunder, Lou Gramm Midnight Blue.

Cheers, Peter

Just make sure that you take plenty of time before deciding. Some of the things you mention appear to be those initially impressive Hifi imaging artefacts that can ultimately become irritating. Is it a good thing that the radio appears to be locked in the speaker, rather than being something over there? I suspect it may not be. 

I really don't like testing speakers, though I've found that it's the sad songs that can tell them apart, rather than impressive stuff, if that makes sense. June Tabor's 'the band played waltzing matilda' from Airs and Graces, or Richard Thompson's 'the woods of Darney' from You? Me? Us? are two tracks I've used in the past.

After a hard day's work, when you sit down to listen with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, you don't want impressive, you want enjoyable. 

All that said, the PMCs may wipe the floor with the Ovators, which I've not heard, other than playing background music at the Hifi shop. I very much enjoyed my time with twenty.23s though. 

Hi, yes I have heard on a couple of  pairs of well run in dealer PMCs, I think it might just be a trait of the tweeter design... I guess some people just aren't sensitive to this... alas I am not one of those people.

Crackie, I've found that the 20.23's seem to work best firing straight ahead without any toe in. As well, I felt that the 20.23's needed longer than suggested 100 hours before they properly come on song. This might not translate to the 25.26's of course but it's something to bear in mind I suppose.

Of course, you're listening to a system so the tweeter may be revealling stuff generated elsewhere, may be running in or may be it will always be like that in that system.

I always run my 20.26s with the grilles on, but that's only because I don't like the look of them without. The grille doesn't seem to have any noticable downsides.

If you're using NACA5 don't underestimate what SL can do to make the treble much more detailed and open whist not bringing any nasty edges.

Called it a day, your can get "over" any system I suppose if you are concentrating too much and you end up just hearing radio quality music after a while, the brain just gets over it all. Will try a few of your tips. Thank you all for chiming in with ideas, as I never would have thought of taking the housing plug off the S400 end of the speaker cable in order to connect to the PMC. Always assumed it was hard soldered in place.

I will try again tomorrow, fresh.

Just to add my experience with the pmc twenty-26,not the same as the twenty-5 but similar. I've had my pair now for around 20 months. I first ran them with 272-xpsdr and now with 300dr.

I only notice a slight sibliance on one or two recordings when I was using a Witchhat interconnect but never spashy treble. Once I upgraded to a better interconnect ( ARsound Lunar eq) I lost any trace of sibliance. I also,found in my setup Tellurium black speaker cables worked better than nacA5.

I have my speakers firing from the long wall in my listening room the room is approx 4mx8m. I have found they need a fair it of room around the back to sound their best, mine are about  0.8m out from the rear wall. Ideally they sound better firing down the long wall as others have surgested but in my room that's not possible.  I also found they sound better when toed in to the point the meeting point of sound in approx 1m behind the listening position.

All this is room dependant of course and experimentation is essential. To me the 20-26 excell at imaging, heir mid range is superb, bass is punchy deep and tight but an easily over power a small room. Treble is smooth and detailed and we'll integrated but never harsh or splashy unless the source material is poor, or their are sub optimal components in the chain. When everything is well set up these speakers give a very capable and immersive and we'll controlled performance, in fact they dissappear and just alow the music to flow, what they won't do is make a poor recording sound amazing, they give an honest account of whats presented to them.

Enjoy.

Rob.

I noticed the sibilance with the  twenty-26 series on my dealer's NDS / Statement system using Superlumina cables. I tried on my 'lesser' system at home but the sibilance/grit was still there. I think you are either sensitive to this or not - luckily many other designs seem to resolve better for my sense of hearing and that is where I have gone - but each to their own - and does stress the importance of demoing

Simon

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I noticed the sibilance with the  twenty-26 series on my dealer's NDS / Statement system using Superlumina cables. I tried on my 'lesser' system at home but the sibilance/grit was still there. I think you are either sensitive to this or not - luckily many other designs seem to resolve better for my sense of hearing and that is where I have gone - but each to their own - and does stress the importance of demoing

Simon

 

I had a similar issue with my 20-26s when I recently had a set of SuperLumina speaker cables and interconnects to try at home for a two week period. The upshot was the SL cables seemed to give the upper frequencies a slight emphasis and caused sibliance on the odd recordings. I too seem to be sensitive to this particular trait when listening. 

After the two weeks I'm delighted to say my Tellurium Black Diamond speaker cables and AR-SOUND interconnects have no such issues.

As you rightly say Simon, each to their own and as always, home demo where possible.

I think I am about done and I have to decide. Just put the S400 back in the system, TBH it was a bit underwhelming. I clearly prefer the PMC, it is quite frankly just more involving, musical, detailed, much better soundstage and has a superior bass response (deeper and more detailed). 

Only the one caveat, occasional sibilance that I noticed can be slightly obvious on certain recordings. 

Its not a massive "the S400 now sounds broken" type of difference, I just now much prefer the PMC in comparison. I am sure I'll be placing an order on Tuesday, I know the slight sibilance might be an issue. Any tips on taming this ? I was thinking speaker cable change , perhaps TQ Ultra Black. 

No speaker is 100% perfect in every room/system , however this one is that close to perfect for me and the music that I like that I'll live with it. Don't forget that I am being ultra critical, perhaps concentrating too much on one slight issue. In actual use I am sure that I will just sit back and  enjoy the music.

I've read somewhere that the Twenty5 series is less forgiving in the treble which is perhaps what is lending itself to the sibilance you're experiencing. Have you considered trying the Twenty.26 instead of the Twenty5.26?

When I last auditioned speakers, which was in 2003, I found that in one day I had three visits to my dealer to swap what I was auditioning. First I took home some Dynaudio's (I can't remember the exact model - 220's maybe?) they lasted half an hour before I boxed them back up. Next I had Totem Hawks, nice but lacking in bass. They were boxed up and returned. Both had sounded great at my dealers dem room.

Next I took home Shahinian Arc's which stayed in situ for a week before I swapped them for Totem Mani-2 Signatures, which I still use. It was a tough choice between these two - the Arc's were very natural, the Mani's more precise and punchier, but as HH says the secret is not to A/B them. Sit and listen, let yourself be immersed in the music and maybe jot down your insights and make note of little things you've not heard before, or done better or worse. 

Speakers are the most personal part in your system, take your time to get it right.

regards,

Steve O.

Cracking,  I can say the Tellurium Ultra Black speaker cables are very smooth in the upper frequencies and are an increadaby good cable ,worth a demo with the pmc speakers as they seem a really good match from my experience.

Spending £7,000 on a speaker while knowing that sibilance might be an issue, and asking how to tame it. Good idea? Bad idea? Err....... Thinking about covering the defects with expensive cables. Good idea? Bad idea? Err.......

Mayor West posted:

I've read somewhere that the Twenty5 series is less forgiving in the treble which is perhaps what is lending itself to the sibilance you're experiencing. Have you considered trying the Twenty.26 instead of the Twenty5.26?

That sounds an excellent idea, as they will be very much of the same character, but possibly sipufficientky different to not sound sibilant in the system in question.

Going to draw a line through the Twenty5 .26. Enough tracks had the sssss / ccccccc sibilance to put me off. Shame, as I loved 90% of what they did well. The sibilance was driving me mad, no that it was there on some tracks, it was the same word in a chorus would seem to skip a sibilance and appear in the next chorus change. Incredibly frustrating.

Fact 8, or Twenty .26 or a left field choice Harbeth M40.2 next ones up when (or most likely if I get the chance to demo.). They just sold there last Twenty .26 demo. Speaker last week.

That's rather a rapid change of heart from 'I'm going to buy them'.