PMC Twenty.21 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[Robbo99999]

I don't know how companies can bother producing speakers like these, it must take some kind of extra effort to produce something like this! It's marketed as a pro speaker so I can't believe they wouldn't have measured it, I mean I can actually believe that because I can see how bad the measurements are.....but I can't fathom how they would decide to produce a pro speaker without measuring it....what they playing at hey!

 

[Sonny1]

Gee whiz. You sure do come to definitive conclusions is a hurry. Was that with or without actually hearing them make sound, which is what transducers do? Secondly, if every happy PMC owner learned you consider them to be "fools" they may have some choice adjectives for your good self. I agree that the measurements presented are indeed dismal. However, in today's Western capitalist marketplace any company regularly proposing poorly-designed products would neither survive nor gain legions of customers. I have personally heard the Twenty5 22 on my amplification and cables last week. I detected no major flaws or niggles that would dissuade me from acquiring them. I am neither for or against PMC just brutally subjective in determining what sounds good to me or not. I am not pleased with the measurements presented here of a 2-generation old PMC speaker but if in the end it outperforms, in my room, the ATC SCM19 then I will not have a problem with acquiring them.
Brgds.

Some people prefer bright sounding speakers with poor measurements. I’m not judging.

 

[617]

They sounded pretty good in my room but I have an unusually large amount of high frequency room treatment

 

[Frank Dernie]

It's marketed as a pro speaker

No it isn't, and this range never have been.
It is a domestic model from a series of domestic models marketed by a brand that also makes pro speakers.
Very different IMHO.

 

[BikeSmith60]

I don't know how companies can bother producing speakers like these, it must take some kind of extra effort to produce something like this! It's marketed as a pro speaker so I can't believe they wouldn't have measured it, I mean I can actually believe that because I can see how bad the measurements are.....but I can't fathom how they would decide to produce a pro speaker without measuring it....what they playing at hey!

It may be somewhat enlightening for you to learn that PMC has never marketed their Consumer series as "Pro" speakers. There are two distinct lines and the Twenty, Twenty5 and Twenty5i series are not, nor have they ever, been targeted to professional applications.
If you actually think they do not measure their products, then well, good luck with that. We all have the right to like or dislike them but accusing the company of artisanal amateurism is a bit of a stretch.

 

[Soniclife]

Yes, currently arranging this for the beasts in question. My current rear-ported Sonus fabers are very upset with my 4m x 8m room. Magnificent speakers but only sing when 120cm away from rear wall. So, WAF is in my disfavor. My room won't change but bass reflex SBIR at 45cm are causing problems at 42, 64, and 78 hz. Above that I'm delighted. Only surviving now through Roon convolution filters I made with REW. Pseudo-TL and infinite baffle technologies are my best hope now for attenuating the problem and ATC and PCM are known to be somewhat room-friendly and very compatible with my amplification. I wish myself lots of luck!
Brgds.

Will you measure them in room when you get them?
Their fact series sound good in my dealers dem room, but awful in my room.

 

[Soniclife]

If you actually think they do not measure their products, then well, good luck with that.

The video of their extremely pricey ones someone posted recently showed kippel software in use.

 

[Robbo99999]

No it isn't, and this range never have been.
It is a domestic model from a series of domestic models marketed by a brand that also makes pro speakers.
Very different IMHO.

Thanks, didn't realise.

It may be somewhat enlightening for you to learn that PMC has never marketed their Consumer series as "Pro" speakers. There are two distinct lines and the Twenty, Twenty5 and Twenty5i series are not, nor have they ever, been targeted to professional applications.
If you actually think they do not measure their products, then well, good luck with that. We all have the right to like or dislike them but accusing the company of artisanal amateurism is a bit of a stretch.

Well it's a still a sh*t speaker, heaven help them if they measured it or didn't.....both are full of equal folly (but for different reasons) given the result!

 

[BikeSmith60]

Will you measure them in room when you get them?
Their fact series sound good in my dealers dem room, but awful in my room.

I could do, but I've done so much REW/Dirac measuring that I'm frankly tired of it...The room dimensions and acoustic properties will not change and I've seen plenty of equipment come through this same room in the last 26 years. I'm experienced enough to hear the problems in my context and I think I will let my ears decide. I know precisely what to listen for and how it should sound (to me...).
I will gladly report back on the ATC vs PMC battle in my application, but that may not be of value to others as we all have different rooms and expectations. What irks me a bit is the gratuitous PMC-bashing based on the dismal measurements. I do not own PMC and perhaps I never will...but I also believe that excellent measurements do not guarantee excellent musicality and listening pleasure...and vice versa. There is a fine line between science/physics and subjective pyscho-acoustical appreciation.

 

[thewas]

I agree that the measurements presented are indeed dismal. However, in today's Western capitalist marketplace any company regularly proposing poorly-designed products would neither survive nor gain legions of customers.

Yeah sure, as if today's world there are no uninformed buyers and no successful snake oil products and companies...

 

[amirm]

However, in today's Western capitalist marketplace any company regularly proposing poorly-designed products would neither survive nor gain legions of customers. I

Unfortunately this exists at large scale in audio. Heck, we have people buying stuff left and right which have no impact on the sound of the gear! Yet people buy them because they believe they do, or perform improper listening tests where their brain says it does something it doesn't.

The upshot is that economic success in audio is no proof that the product has merit. The consumer simply doesn't have the fact to know if merit is there or not.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I could do, but I've done so much REW/Dirac measuring that I'm frankly tired of it...The room dimensions and acoustic properties will not change and I've seen plenty of equipment come through this same room in the last 26 years. I'm experienced enough to hear the problems in my context and I think I will let my ears decide. I know precisely what to listen for and how it should sound (to me...).
I will gladly report back on the ATC vs PMC battle in my application, but that may not be of value to others as we all have different rooms and expectations. What irks me a bit is the gratuitous PMC-bashing based on the dismal measurements. I do not own PMC and perhaps I never will...but I also believe that excellent measurements do not guarantee excellent musicality and listening pleasure...and vice versa. There is a fine line between science/physics and subjective pyscho-acoustical appreciation.

Why would excellent measurements not guarantee excellent musicality and listening pleasure? I don't understand the reasoning.

 

[amirm]

It may be somewhat enlightening for you to learn that PMC has never marketed their Consumer series as "Pro" speakers. There are two distinct lines and the Twenty, Twenty5 and Twenty5i series are not, nor have they ever, been targeted to professional applications.

This is true (passive speakers are generally not a good fit for pro applications anyway). Question is, why did they, with the same ears used to develop pro speakers, thought this is how said content should be consumed. They really think everything mixed and mastered should be re-EQed by the end user this way?

 

[sergeauckland]

When I lived in London in the 70s, I visited an audio dealer called Studio 99 (I think), at Centre Point, several times. They had all that gear and I remember being very impressed with the Amcron hybrid speakers driven by, of course, the Amcron amps. I think the source was TEAC reel-to-reel. This was before the whole Linn-Naim thing took off, so probably 1974-5. Thanks for reminding me.

Edit: Studio 99 was somewhere else. REW now rings a bell.

Studio 99 was in Swiss Cottage in the late 1960s. I borrowed Dad's car and drove up there as a schoolboy, to gawp at the Transcriptors Reference they just had in. They were very kind to me and a friend even though it was clear we weren't buyers. Subsequently bought the Transcriptors Fluid Arm as the nearest I could get to the turntable.

S

 

[BikeSmith60]

Why would excellent measurements not guarantee excellent musicality and listening pleasure? I don't understand the reasoning.

Room acoustics, source, amplification and cables, power supply and subjective expectations. It's less reasoning than it is experience.
I will readily concede that measurements can be objective, excluding intrinsic properties of the measurement instruments and amplification signal, but the listening experience remains subjective. Is classifying DACs by inaudible measurements of distortion and jitter a guarantee of muscality/enjoyment in each and every system, irrespective of room acoustics and the other elements in the system? It simply cannot.
The only other reasonable explanation for this can be the psychological satisfaction of knowing that a component measures perfectly, therefore causing the listener to assume musicality. This could be acceptable for some but we are all different in terms of listening pleasure, expectation bias and personal aural interpretation. Frankly, I do not believe individual subjectivity will ever be removed from the HiFi universe.

 

[BikeSmith60]

This is true (passive speakers are generally not a good fit for pro applications anyway). Question is, why did they, with the same ears used to develop pro speakers, thought this is how said content should be consumed. They really think everything mixed and mastered should be re-EQed by the end user this way?

Interesting point but these "pro monitor" companies also claim to offer neutral, uncolored transducers to reproduce music either without romantic distortion or as close "to the original recording as possible at home". ATC hints toward this for example. Again, some folks may enjoy them and other may not. BTW, hope you find the time to review the SCM19!
Brgds.

 

[Soniclife]

Question is, why did they, with the same ears used to develop pro speakers, thought this is how said content should be consumed.

I'd be interested in how their much older lines of home speakers compared, they struggled for a long time in the home market, then with the launch of the fact series really started getting heavy dealer representation. I wonder if they deliberately started to voice their speakers after years of aiming for flat, and they never looked back.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Room acoustics, source, amplification and cables, power supply and subjective expectations. It's less reasoning than it is experience.
I will readily concede that measurements can be objective, excluding intrinsic properties of the measurement instruments and amplification signal, but the listening experience remains subjective. Is classifying DACs by inaudible measurements of distortion and jitter a guarantee of muscality/enjoyment in each and every system, irrespective of room acoustics and the other elements in the system? It simply cannot.
The only other reasonable explanation for this can be the psychological satisfaction of knowing that a component measures perfectly, therefore causing the listener to assume musicality. This could be acceptable for some but we are all different in terms of listening pleasure, expectation bias and personal aural interpretation. Frankly, I do not believe individual subjectivity will ever be removed from the HiFi universe.

Oh of course, but the room is going to have to be dealt with no matter what. I don't see how a product that measures excellently isn't a fundamentally better starting point than one that measures poorly.

If I had $2000 to spend on a set of Bookshelf speakers I'd much prefer a set that has excellent measurements rather than one with poor measurements. Not like 2 grand is small potatoes...especially considering the years and years of research and testing that these various speaker measurements are based on. They aren't just random numbers. There's a lot of research into listener preference behind them.

 

[BikeSmith60]

Yeah sure, as if today's world there are no uninformed buyers and no successful snake oil products and companies...

OK but repeat customers and brand fidelity are never obtained by hawking garbage to an unsuspecting public. Secondly, the justifiable term of "snake oil" generally applies to cables, power cords, special rocks and crystals, isolation devices, magic fuses, green CD pens, etc. but rarely to speakers.

 

[peanuts]

However, in today's Western capitalist marketplace any company regularly proposing poorly-designed products would neither survive nor gain legions of customers.

not so in the audio-world, because people... ZU audio is a prime example of HORRID speakers selling like hotcakes. i dont believe good measuring products are selling more than others either.
listen to Steve Guttenberg with decades of listening experience: "i dont believe in measurements" yes that dilution can continue forever.