Hello, all!
I saw this thread and figured as I own two, soon to be three sets of Peter’s speakers and a center channel, and no one who has commented appears to have first hand experience with them that I may be able to offer some non-theoretical feedback on them. I own a pair of mini monitors, a pair of SPi’s, and soon a pair of M1!5’s, as well as an SPC-2 center. I’ve had several different speakers through my room, including Ascend Sierra’s, Magnepan 3.6R’s, and Quad 22L2’s... all were fine for music, with the 3.6R’s being the clear standout - ridiculously good for the price. Silly good, really. In fact, for whatever reason I preferred the Maggie’s sound ever so slightly with the MC7300. The Maggie’s offered a good race for the PBN’s until I paired the PBN’s with a Pass Labs XA30.8, and they pulled away pretty convincingly... and they should, as they’re a bit more expensive. PBN’s are the real deal... you kind of have to take it on faith given the lack of reviews until you hear them in person with a seriously high-quality back-end, but it’s worth it. My wife who sings even likes them, and that says it all for me... she‘s the one who convinced me to buy the M1!5’s, in fact.
The fit and finish are first rate and the cabinets are rock-solid; if you poke around YouTube long you’ll see videos of the pains PBN takes in the design and manufacture process. I am not lightly separated from my money and have dropped my fair share on PBN speakers because I work hard and at the end of the day - whether playing them loud or soft, with music or movies - they never fail to put a smile on my face and leave my guests utterly gobsmacked that audio can be this good.
When I bought my first set other owners congratulated me, then warned me I had started on what would be an endless path of upgrading my amps, preamps and turntables... and that couldn‘t have proven more true. I‘ve gone from entry-level to top-end Emotiva, to a McIntosh MC2155, Sonic Frontiers SFS 80, to an MC7300, to the Pass Amp, following a similar path of preamps, and a couple of turntable upgrades. Both the SPi’s and mini monitors have chewed up the upgrades and spit out VERY noticeable improvements in sound at each step. I will not go further up the ladder than the Pass XA30.8 for a good long while because I have a hard time believing further improvement would be supported by the cost required to make it, so I’m trying a new set of PBN’s in order to hear a different design style... chasing their limitations has literally become a hobby. I can offer no higher praise than that.