Pmc ib1s

[bob katz]

Has anyone any experience with these speakers and their sound quality? I'm wondering how they compare to my Lipinski 707's (plus a subwoofer). Price?

[DanDan]

Hi Bob. I have not heard any of the high end speakers typically used in the US for Mastering so I can't make those comparisons. However I did audition quite a few monitors here before I settled. I had Meyer, Genelec, Klein and Hummel, three other PMC's and ADAM S3A. I very luckily had a pair of IB1s here for an extended trial. I can say with certainty they are the best speakers I have ever heard. Quite a few engineer friends visited and all agree on that.
The Bass is extended, no sub needed, and is very very fast.
The mids are uncannily natural, voices have a almost eery reality about them. The top is surgically flat and extended revealing every little detail.
Therein lay the problem. I am old school in the sense that I like to work with a falling HF. The old B and K curve of about +3 at 100Hz falling to -3 around 10K works perfectly for me. Mixes translate first time. The PMC's are the opposite to this, flat flat flat. I communicated with PMC and was advised that typical installations had these speakers high up firing over the head, and not angled in. The idea was to create a wide sweet spot with equal response. I noticed that the IB1 is also sold for HiFi partnered with extremely expensive but very low stands. Now, I can't reconcile those two scenarios. Furthermore I am told many IB1s are sold with the Cinema Filter, another very expensive add- on which simply diminishes top. The rep also told me that many of their customers used a high end Sony speaker controller and used various curves for various purposes. This made sense. However, I did not have the resources to go for such a controller, multiple amps, the horrendously expensive stands and so on. For a time I ran the speakers with a resistor between the tri amp terminals to drop the top. This was good, but I didn't fancy the sudden drop around the tweeter crossover point. My knowledge of the technical incorrectness was in the way, in reality this sounded great.
Strangely it never occurred to me and no-one thought to mention that I could bi-amp without any extra crossover. This would almost certainly have tipped me in favour of a buy.
I didn't buy, which I very much regret, and some day I expect I will return to PMC.
I am very happy with my final choice, ADAM S3A's, vertical with the tweeter rotated. They are compact enough to bring to other studios, they have a balanced and extended frequency response, which I tailor to my taste. The translation of the mixes or masters to the outside world is uncanny. First time, every time.
So there you have it Bob, I strongly recommend the 1B1, even over other PMC's I have heard. You will probably need a facility to adjust the response, even two amps will do this. Put on Peter Gabriel's UP. There are things on there which I have not heard on any other speaker.
Best Regards, DD
Sound Sound - Homepage

[IIIrd]

Hi Bob,
i have PMC TB1's as my nearfields...not the same model i know, but i have tried their larger MB2's as well. they're a very honest speaker with no flattering colouration...the great thing with PMC's is that when somethings wrong they bark at you. great speakers and bullet proof. i power mine with a small bryston amp...can remember the model number.
hope this helps,

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by DanDan

Hi Bob. I have not heard any of the high end speakers typically used in the US for Mastering so I can't make those comparisons. However I did audition quite a few monitors here before I settled. I had Meyer, Genelec, Klein and Hummel, three other PMC's and ADAM S3A. I very luckily had a pair of IB1s here for an extended trial. I can say with certainty they are the best speakers I have ever heard. Quite a few engineer friends visited and all agree on that.
The Bass is extended, no sub needed, and is very very fast.
The mids are uncannily natural, voices have a almost eery reality about them. The top is surgically flat and extended revealing every little detail.
Therein lay the problem.

Dear Dan Dan: Thanks for the revealing review. I am very attracted to these PMCs at least by their specs. I am very familiar with the "flat high end" issue as I encounter it with the Lipinskis, but after much work in choosing associated electronics they sound great with great material and "tolerable" with awful material. Putting an attenuator in front of the tweeter amplifier in a biamplified situation does not help, in fact it hurts because you are affecting the level just above the crossover point and ruining the frequency response at that point. Instead you want to make some form of modified X curve, in as transparent a manner as possible. I have not had to do that with my Lipinskis after making absolutely sure that the bass and lower midrange response in the room is absolutely flat and extended. I have to audition these PMCs in a good environment.

Also, their extended response would make me have to rethink my entire subwoofer approach. I'd have to build a custom bass manager with two different low pass filters so I could feed "below 80 Hz" for the LFE channel to the subs and "below 40 Hz (or whatever)" to the subs for the last tickle of bass extension.

BK

[DanDan]

Hi Bob, the resistor was actually at the speaker, although same result. I fully take your point and agree about messing about with the designers intentions. Even the biamping would have the same issue unless the amps were intrinsically calibrated. This is one of the bigger reasons why I didn't go there. I couldn't afford, the proper stands, the multiple amps, some high end speaker controller and so on. It would be interesting to see how PMC do their X curve mod. I also hear your point about flattening the room in the lower end. Since the PMC visit I have extensively treated my White Room. It is small and mostly concrete so it suffers badly from destructive modes.
Even with the new treatment I doubt that I could work with the PMC flat respone.
I turned down the tweeters when possible in all of the monitors that I auditioned.
Not my hearing either. Above 14K is something I would ask kids to check for me! lol.
I do mostly mixing, with simple Mastering when needed. I have repeatedly found clarity to be no friend when mixing. It seems to work well to be forced to squeeze the mix through a cloudy window. This is a big question for me. All my text books describe HF roll offs in studio monitoring. There is that old B and K vinyl test record. There must be or have been very good reasons and research behind all that old school wisdom. What has changed? Why is Flat suddenly good? I think there is a problem here. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
I am used to Full range speakers. I used Celestion Ditton 66's for decades. 18Hz-40KHz! Even my Spendors go down into the 30's. I can't imagine using a sub with the PMC's. I believe they way they have done the bass is so much better than typical sub design that it would be a negative addition. I did also hear other a few other PMC's , all Transmission Line. That flat speaker on the IB1 and the similar one in the AML1 have something really special going on.
Surround and all of that is a whole other ball game. I have experimented and come to the conclusion that my strong preference is 5.0 all full range, with a sub or two for the LFE.

Best Regards, DD

[OnlineMastering]

Originally Posted by DanDan

I didn't buy, which I very much regret, and some day I expect I will return to PMC.
I am very happy with my final choice, ADAM S3A's, vertical with the tweeter rotated. They are compact enough to bring to other studios, they have a balanced and extended frequency response, which I tailor to my taste. The translation of the mixes or masters to the outside world is uncanny. First time, every time.

Hm, when testing I could never get the S3A´s to sound right at all, felt like lots of phasing errors to me...

Haven´t tried PMC, love my B&W 802D´s these days. Recommended!

[philip]

I've listened a lot to IB2 but haven't worked with them, nice speakers what I recall. If you get the chance listen to Swedish brand Guru and their QM60 please do, they will outperform PMC in every aspect. The QM60 | Guru Loudspeakers

[Greg Reierson]

Originally Posted by bob katz

Has anyone any experience with these speakers and their sound quality? I'm wondering how they compare to my Lipinski 707's (plus a subwoofer). Price?

PMC MB1 XBD here. I fell completely in love with PMC the first time I heard them at an AES event in the late '90s. They are extremely musical, image like nothing else I've heard, are brutally honest yet disappear completely in a good room.

If you do get to audition them in your room, contact Maurice Patist at the PMC LA office for proper instruction. They have specific placement recommendations that are important to getting the most out of them.

Let us know what you find out.


GR

[mosrite]

Hi Bob,

My first impressions of the IB1S's has not changed and I have owned a pair for 2-3years now. I have not heard a more natural sounding speaker. As has been mentioned already they have an amazing 'shut your eyes and you're there' capability.

When used for mastering it has become a journey of discovery that has ended in the solid realisation that any problems are NOT the fault of the speaker. With some room working and re-positioning I now have a much better setup for critical work. I will re-itirate what the previous poster mentioned about the top end though. Without thought to this the IB1's can give the impression of being bright. I dont believe that they are bright but simply a bit more pernickity in terms of setup than some monitors to get the top end sounding correct.

When auditioning amps I found an old Mark Levinson amp (no.331) that literally blew away the new Bryston 4bb with these speakers. Highly recommended. A friend has the 333 and I imagine bi-amping with a pair of these would be sublime.

Something else that must be mentioned is that they are totally non-fatigueing to work with for long hours and are always a pleasure to listen to music on.

Something that might also be relevent to you is that they co-exist very nicely with the Sennheiser HD600's when referencing to cans and back. Always nice to have some continuity

[gregor z]

When I was deciding which speakers I will buy my first choice were PMCs IB1s.....

I listened to them in a mastering studio in Milano and at my friend studio.....
and I was fascinated......it is really a very precise, revealing speaker with very good bass definition....I liked it a lot....

Then I heard ATC 100 ASL in another studio and their sound seemed even more precise, punchier with a more revealing bass, maybe it was just a different environment......or a different mood.....

The biggest difference that I noticed was ATCs "musicality", the music was much more "alive", sound filled the room and at the same time the precision was there.... so I bought 50s first and two years later 150 ASL.....when I will move to my new studio I will probably add two subs......

If you are considering new speakers , you should give ATCs a try......

[euphonic]

Stereophile did a review of the IB1S a decade ago:
Stereophile: PMC IB-1S loudspeaker


for comparison...they also did a review of the Lipinski L-707:
Stereophile: PMC IB-1S loudspeaker

The IB1 is one of PMC models that hasn't got an "I"-line upgrade yet. Don't know what to think about that.

What about Klein&Hummel O410? Just to throw another brand into the ring.

[DBarbarulo]

Hi Bob,
I worked with IB1s extensively (for over 3 years) and LB1s in my studio but never had the opportunity to try the Lipinsky. I moved from IB1 in my main room to Nautilus 802 one year ago after many many hours of listening tests and a couple of months of difficoult double mains in the room. The IB1 is for sure a great "monitor" speaker suitable for mixing and mastering. I powered mines with Bryston 4B, in bi-amping with the 4B and a 3B and with a Pass X150. The speaker has great extention, but for a very very extendend low-end I coupled them to a pair of Velodyne subs (that I still use with 802s). My personal feeling about the IB1 is that we are talking about a true "monitor" sound but compared to the 802s they have some weak points. 2 main observations. The transmission line used to extend the bass response affects the clearness and articulation on very low notes. That issue is a limitation of smaller boxes with smaller woofers. On top of the line models a bigger woofer is capable to handle all the usefull band and the transmission line operates in a safe area. In IB1 there's like a decay time a little bit longer than a taditional reflex speaker on the low end. The other issue is I think the traditional box design that affects the sound in hi-mids and hi band with some minor reflections from the cabinet itself. In the 802s the sound is "boxless" since no flat surfaces are surrounding mids and tweeters. The overall sensation is the IB1's sound is more "in your face" and the B&W is more "elegant and clear".
I hope it helps.

DB

[kjg]

whenever I heard IB1s with Bryston I was very impressed by the imaging and articulation. they are very detailed, dry, transparent. not flattering, just dry. speaking extension, they don't *need* a sub, for anything but mastering maybe. I recently listened to PSI 25/3's and they had a similar quality in mid range detail, although they seemed to roll off slightly higher than IB1s.

anyone heard the PB1is yet? on paper they look like an interesting (somewhat cheaper) alternative to the IB1. same LF extension, same mid driver, dual smaller woofers, new tweeter, floor standers. seems like a good alternative for mastering unless you need very high SPLs. I'd be very curious to hear how they compare.

btw Bob, what is it about your Lipinskis that makes you consider PMC now?

[fenderbender.]

PMC IB1's... Very accurate to the source, though very directional (tweeters). IMHO, either you're in the league of PMC's, et. al., or you're lost at sea... Once you've heard speakers of PMC's quality, there's no subsitutition shy of voodoo 'magik'!

[Ben F]

The is a review of the PMC IB2S in the latest audio technology- I'd really like to hear them compared to the ATC SCM50s. Are all PMCs passive?

[euphonic]

PMC offers so calles "activated" versions with either flying mole (the smaller monitors) or bryston amplification (the bigger ones).

Therefor, IB2S-A (with Bryston Powerpac 300) is what you are looking for.
The IB2S might sound very similar to older ATC monitors due to a very similar middriver and Vifa softdome tweeter (ATC did use the same tweeter until they changed to the Seas Excel).

[DRC]

Well Bob if you are going to try them out all I can say is they aren't light and the components might surprise you.

I have them tri-amped and they sound very, very good. I auditioned them tri-amped with McIntoshes in a well tuned room and I was blown away. I have them in a not so well tuned room tri-amped with Brystons. The imaging isn't as mind blowing here but again, the room and the amps are different. In this setting they are pretty much how kjg described them: dry. I'm sure with a different set of amps the qualities might be different.

I will say that I am sure I would get a better mix out of my Bryston/IB1 rig than I would trying to mix on a set of Quads or Sonus Fabers powered by Naim amps. I love going to the Audiophile shop here in town and listening to vinyl on the latter but I doubt I could get any serious work done on them to translate.

[DanDan]

Dag- with the ADAM's you need to set the phasers to stun......lol
Joshing. There is an off axis issue. Vertical with the tweeter rotated things are very different. Strange but true.
In any case I shouldn't have mentioned them. Best to stick to the question here I reckon, not alternatives or distractions.

Anything I have read about Transmission Lines indicates an extended but fast bass response with much less time smear than ported cabs. Only a sealed box will be faster.
The woofers on the IB1 and AML1 are stiff and light. IMHO they are very special, as in excellent. I have heard PMCs with bigger regular woofers and was not impressed.
This is an interesting review.
Audio Ideas Guide Hi-Fi and Home Theater Equipment Reviews: PMC IB1 S Loudspeaker
Read between the lines and look a the graph and you will see that the HF could be said to be rising above 4K. They suggest an alteration of around 3-4dB at 10K would be helpful. As it happens, my resistor kludge co- incidentally dropped the tweeter level by 3-4dB. This was chosen by ear. I have noted across the board we read things like:- don't angle them in, set them wide apart, they are fussy about placement and amp choice etc. etc.
This is all code for don't get your ears in a direct line with those damn tweeters!
I did measure the on axis response in my room. At mid and high it was a stunning flat line. In that sense this is a remarkable design achievement. My problem is that is is very much at odds with my preference and the once ubiquitous practice of HF roll off in monitoring. The fact that this cannot be easily and properly tweaked to a normal working practice meant a no sale in my case.
In a bigger room, without such destructive nulls, with height and distance to soften the top, I can easily imagine these working fine without tweaks.
With all this talk we might forget the core answer. Myself over months, and several engineer friends on visits, all found these to be the best speakers we have ever heard.

DD

[mastertone]

Originally Posted by philip

If you get the chance listen to Swedish brand Guru and their QM60 please do, they will outperform PMC in every aspect. The QM60 | Guru Loudspeakers

+1
The guru´s or Ino Audio pi60´s (like the ones Phillip has).
I would put anyone of those 2 up against anything.

[Greg Reierson]

Originally Posted by Ben F

The is a review of the PMC IB2S in the latest audio technology- I'd really like to hear them compared to the ATC SCM50s. Are all PMCs passive?

The IB2 is a significantly upgraded speaker from the IB1.


GR

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by DanDan

There must be or have been very good reasons and research behind all that old school wisdom. What has changed? Why is Flat suddenly good? I think there is a problem here. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

I think it is simply that there is a lot of acceptable variance for high end on "high end" loudspeakers. None of them measure flat in room anyway. My Lipinskis are down at least 10 dB at 16 kHz at the listening position. So it has to do a lot with room treatment, dispersion, etc.

I think the main reason the Lipinskis are so revealing and unforgiving of bad material is their diffraction is so low that there are no time domain artifacts to mask problems in source material. Witness how on some models of horn-loaded loudspeakers "everything sounds the same." Speakers which don't reveal differences in material are most likely also inaccurate.

BK

[DanDan]

Some food for thought there Bob. I read the Lipinski review and their specs. Great review and the specs are astounding, almost unbelievable. I would like to see lab tests. I took a look at digido also. I am wondering how can your Lipinskis be down 10dB at 16K when their stated spec is 56Hz-20kHz ±1dB (31Hz-40kHz ±3dB). I acknowledge your points about how rooms alter things but in a reasonable RFZ at short distance, on axis, I normally get mid and upward curves that are very close to the anechoic ones from the manufacturer. Did you measure with one or both speakers driven? They will fight when trying to combine at a single point measurement mic.
I have mislaid the PMC measurements in my room but I can clearly remember they were astonishingly flat, but remained so up to the measurement limit. No roll off.

I note your speaker stands are firmly tied to the concrete slab. Are the speakers then resiliently mounted on the stands, sitting there, or bolted on? ( Speaker stand theory is another one of my hobby horse puzzles. )

I do hope you get the PMC's in for a trial, and if so, please do let us know how you get on. I reckon it will be a difficult shoot out. Fwiw my old reference speakers, the Ditton 66 have a soft dome mid, a bit like the PMC's. Klein and Hummel do this also, and I like all of them. Could be familiarity but for me there is something uncannily real and different from all other speakers when listening to human voice coming from these domes.
DD

[Sunbreak Music]

Not Lipinskis, but I had the same question when my monitors were spec'd at flat to 20k, but my measurements showed a rolloff at 16k and down probably 8dB by 20k (confirming what my ears told me). Called the manufacturer thinking there was a problem, which prompted them to retest in the chamber....and their tests confirmed what I saw (heard). Don't think they changed the published specs, though. ;-)

Interesting your point on the Adams--I hear the same thing in the P33As. Is vertical better, or is it the combination of vertical plus the tweeter rotated that yields the improvement?

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Bob,

Good speakers + a good room should = good sound.

But sometimes it does not.

Sometimes people have different things they are listening for. Some of my clients like a big bass end over anything else. Some of them are very concerned with the vocal and instrument fundamentals and could care less about the extreme ends of the spectrum. Some of them get off on distorted guitars or the purity of a solo flute. We all know that speakers need to be very neutral sounding along with a good sounding room so that you can master and not have the speakers influencing your decisions. You should hear through the speakers but you should not be hearing the speakers themselves. There are speakers on the market that make everything you put through them sound GREAT there are others that are almost too surgical and after listening to them for a while you get fatigued which again is not something that you want to have when you are doing an 8 hour mastering session. They may sound incredible but it is like putting your ears though a day long calisthenics workout and at the end of the day you want to rest your ears for the next round of calisthenics the next day.

You are in all the different meanings of the word " the master" so I am sure whatever you pick will suit your needs and style of mastering.

If possible you should audition the speakers you are interested in the same room at the same time so you can switch back and forth between them but of course you already know that.

Best of luck!

I hope you find what you want.

[mosrite]

call me a purist Bob but I also wonder if the PMC IB1's are a more elegant solution for you than your Lipsinki's + dual sub setup.

[DanDan]

Sunbreak, mix rooms typically have a Reflection Free Zone and a short listening distance. This is close enough to the anechoic situation for high and mid frequencies.
There is frequently a roll off by 16K and one rarely sees much action at 20. Remember though, my PMC test showed a flat line to 20!
When I measure a single speaker I get factory flat info, pretty much. When I drive two speakers the two signals arrive a the single point at slightly different times due to different distances from tweeters to mic, they comb filter, badly. At high HF this is so dense it is just a roll off. Even a slight air movement will do this. I believe that is the main reason for the strong roll off Bob is seeing. If the distance is a bit larger, and the floor not carpeted , there could also be a bounce off the floor. Overall I get the impression that many Mastering rooms make a nod towards listening in the real world. i.e. not strongly damped. Mix rooms can be like that, but many of us end up in a highly damped room, so that we can tell our Rev from the room's.
I have seen tests on the ADAMs. I could show them here but I would have to kill you all.......Vertical is radically better, even though they are clearly designed to look best horizontal. The tweeter rotation restores the correct orientation when they are used vertically. This sweetens the imaging an extra bit.
That review I linked to actually echoes a lot of what happened to me. They reckoned you could spend another 6K or more on amps, crossover, and so on to get an incredible setup, mainly to be able to tailor the spectrum to taste. I believe many PMC users do exactly that. In this context the Lipinski's are incredibly good value. I hope to get to hear them sometime.
DD

[Sunbreak Music]

Originally Posted by DanDan

Sunbreak, mix rooms typically have a Reflection Free Zone and a short listening distance. This is close enough to the anechoic situation for high and mid frequencies.
There is frequently a roll off by 16K and one rarely sees much action at 20. Remember though, my PMC test showed a flat line to 20!
When I measure a single speaker I get factory flat info, pretty much. When I drive two speakers the two signals arrive a the single point at slightly different times due to different distances from tweeters to mic, they comb filter, badly. At high HF this is so dense it is just a roll off. Even a slight air movement will do this. I believe that is the main reason for the strong roll off Bob is seeing. If the distance is a bit larger, and the floor not carpeted , there could also be a bounce off the floor. Overall I get the impression that many Mastering rooms make a nod towards listening in the real world. i.e. not strongly damped. Mix rooms can be like that, but many of us end up in a highly damped room, so that we can tell our Rev from the room's.
I have seen tests on the ADAMs. I could show them here but I would have to kill you all.......Vertical is radically better, even though they are clearly designed to look best horizontal. The tweeter rotation restores the correct orientation when they are used vertically. This sweetens the imaging an extra bit.
That review I linked to actually echoes a lot of what happened to me. They reckoned you could spend another 6K or more on amps, crossover, and so on to get an incredible setup, mainly to be able to tailor the spectrum to taste. I believe many PMC users do exactly that. In this context the Lipinski's are incredibly good value. I hope to get to hear them sometime.
DD

Thanks, DanDan. So for the S3A/P33A, I'm assuming (and we all know how that goes) that the midrange woofer is to be on top of the tweeter?

[DanDan]

Hi Cass. I don't have an answer to that one. I reckon it would be a balancing act and would depend on how high the tweeter is. Also one might want to have the LF woofer at or avoiding a particular height regarding a vertical mode. Good question though. I have mine L and R according to the manufacturers suggestion, which of course relates to horizontal, and is questionable. Something for me to check out today.
DD

[Greg Reierson]

Out of curiosity I dug out the ETF RPlusD plots of my room (one channel at a time - of course) made just a few months ago. The MB1s are flat to about 13k, down about 3dB at 16k and down about 8dB at 20k. Since the IB2 has the same mid and tweeter I would assume it to perform similarly. Not sure about the IB1.


GR

[Llitsor]

Originally Posted by euphonic

PMC offers so calles "activated" versions with either flying mole (the smaller monitors) or bryston amplification (the bigger ones).

No Flying Mole option any more unfortunately. As Flying Mole no longer exist. The new TB2S-AII's for example, are using the same, if not a similar Class D amp that was designed with Digidesign for the RM range of powered monitors. Twice the power of the old Flying Moles though, yet in a similar sized 'backpack'

Anyway, as much as I would have liked a pair of IB1's.. I made do with a pair of TB2's and a Hypex based amp that I threw together myself.
Its a surprisingly capable combination though! thumbsup