So long, my (?) irreplaceable speakers!

JTEX

JTEX

Well-known member
I've had these amazing PMC IB2 speakers on a long term loan (years!) from my employer. I now have to return them, as we want to put them to (better) use in a remodeled surround room at work. I would have never thought that I could develop an emotional attachment to a pair of speakers. I don't even listen to them very frequently. But when I do, and crank them way up, it really makes my day. They're that effin' good. There's no substitute! What am I going to do? I can't justify buying my own, I didn't spend that much on my car! I know I won't be satisfied by whatever other speakers I replace them with :cry:

RIP.

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JTEX said:
I've had these amazing PMC IB2 speakers on a long term loan (years!) from my employer. I now have to return them, as we want to put them to (better) use in a remodeled surround room at work. I would have never thought that I could develop an emotional attachment to a pair of speakers. I don't even listen to them very frequently. But when I do, and crank them way up, it really makes my day. They're that effin' good. There's no substitute! What am I going to do? I can't justify buying my own, I didn't spend that much on my car! I know I won't be satisfied by whatever other speakers I replace them with :cry:

RIP.

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Wanting them is justification enough. If you’re like me, you’re gonna obsess over them until you have your own. I hate that about me.
 
Yeah. You were spoiled. Good luck ;P
While not quite PMC quality, I've had a pair of MartinLogan towers for the last 10 years and really dig them. I'm a sucker for folded ribbon tweeters. You can sometimes find a pair on the used market in the few hundreds range. I got lucky and got mine from Newegg on closeout for 20% of their then retail price. I still wonder if that was a mistake by someone at Newegg.
 
I looked these up and was surprised to see they are roughly 100x the cost of the monitors I have. I’m thinking they must have sounded incredible.
 
That's why I can't justify buying them for my home use. But they're so fonkin' great! Of the very numerous high end studio-grade speakers I've dealt with over many years in the pro audio world, they're my favorite, and also a common favorite among our master and PhD-level sound recording students. One of our profs, who has about 14 or 15 Grammys last time I counted, doesn't like them so much because he finds them "too revealing". That's actually high praise in my book.
 
JTEX said:
I've had these amazing PMC IB2 speakers on a long term loan (years!) from my employer. I now have to return them, as we want to put them to (better) use in a remodeled surround room at work. I would have never thought that I could develop an emotional attachment to a pair of speakers. I don't even listen to them very frequently. But when I do, and crank them way up, it really makes my day. They're that effin' good. There's no substitute! What am I going to do? I can't justify buying my own, I didn't spend that much on my car! I know I won't be satisfied by whatever other speakers I replace them with :cry:

RIP.

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Man that break in was really bad news. Too bad they immediately recognised how expensive those speakers were and that was the only thing they took. I hope you guys are all fine.

Too bad your company will need to buy more and you'll need a few days off to get over the emotional trauma of a burglary. ;)
 
Actually, I'm the idiot who suggested using 5 PMCs in a room that we're converting to surround, knowing full well that it would require returning my loaners to make up the numbers. I put the good of the students above my own, and I'll never forgive myself for that! 😕😭
 
pingpongcomputer said:
I really like Troels Gravesen's designs and he has some speakers that have similarities with the PMC's but they all tend to be a bit higher efficiency.
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Something similar to the PMCs would be quite hard to DIY, due to the labyrinthine transmission line built into the cabinet which has a lot to do with their low end response and must be carefully tuned. If I went DIY, I think I'd look into a large, sealed cabinet design. Not very efficient, but I did keep the loaner Bryston amp that went with the PMC's. Wink wink 😜. That bad boy puts out 500w per channel without breaking a sweat.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
Man that break in was really bad news. Too bad they immediately recognised how expensive those speakers were and that was the only thing they took. I hope you guys are all fine.

Too bad your company will need to buy more and you'll need a few days off to get over the emotional trauma of a burglary. ;)
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"Hmm but what's under these table-cloths next to your bigscreen..."



I've never understood "owning" black-market art. So you "own" a Renoir, or whatever, you can never show it to anyone lest word leaks out and the authorities come knocking.
Yet there are people willing to pay ... so the stealing and selling, that part I understand.
 
JTEX said:
Something similar to the PMCs would be quite hard to DIY, due to the labyrinthine transmission line built into the cabinet which has a lot to do with their low end response and must be carefully tuned. If I went DIY, I think I'd look into a large, sealed cabinet design. Not very efficient, but I did keep the loaner Bryston amp that went with the PMC's. Wink wink 😜. That bad boy puts out 500w per channel without breaking a sweat.
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I should have read more about those PMCs, but there's TL modeling software to tune for driver specs/crossover/lf roll off targets and a whole dedicated group of folks on diyaudio with a ton of designs, but yeah, way more woodworking and planning.
 
pingpongcomputer said:
I should have read more about those PMCs, but there's TL modeling software to tune for driver specs/crossover/lf roll off targets and a whole dedicated group of folks on diyaudio with a ton of designs, but yeah, way more woodworking and planning.
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A nice set of TL towers is on my "someday" DIY list. I've built a few sets of bookshelf speakers, but nothing too complex. Just thinking about cutting and gluing all those little "curve" pieces is usually enough to put the idea out of my mind.
 
JTEX said:
It's not just the cabinet design though. They use some rather fancy drivers too. Check out the size of the magnet on that midrange dome. It's a massive, massive piece:
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All this makes me think about your post a while back about strategies for pricing a manufactured product - 5x parts cost etc.

Those look like very nice drivers, but I wonder if you could spec them and get them manufactured for a small percentage of the price of those speakers.

I imagine the price of very high end stuff has a lot to do with needing to cover all the overhead of a company from the income of a small number of sales.

Of course there are r&d costs to recoup too, but if they’re able to stay afloat selling those, I bet the profit on each set is significant relative to the materials.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, or that anyone’s getting a bad deal, it’s just interesting.

I also don't think there’s anything wrong with someone trying to make a living selling very expensive guitar pedals. The real cost of making a thing is the whole cost of “running the company”, or making a living divided by the number of things the company can sell.
 
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