A few months ago PMC launched their brand new Studio Range of active reference near and midfield monitors and accompanying subwoofers. This range was the culmination of 5 years of development. Production Expert writer Paul Maunder recently bought a pair - here’s what he thinks of them so far…

I recently made the decision to replace the monitors in my home studio. For a long time I’ve been using the Mackie HR824 MK1’s. They’ve served me well and worked continuously without fault for 20 years. However, I decided that it was perhaps time to start looking at more up to date speakers and also to move up the ladder a bit in terms of quality. And so the research began.

Like many of us who work in audio, I always like to spend time looking in detail at the available options for any prospective purchase. After considering a variety of different speakers from numerous manufacturers, I eventually decided that PMC would be a good fit for my needs. This was in part influenced by my previous experience of using PMC monitors at a facility where I freelance. I’ve heard the very impressive (but very large) PMC MB2S and the near field twotwo6. Having worked with the twotwo6 monitors quite extensively, I’ve found that mixes I do on them translate well into other rooms. It seemed logical therefore that I should choose the successor to the twotwo6, the simply named PMC6. This was a costly purchase for me but I hope to use them for a number of years so I see it as a worthwhile investment.

Unboxing

The PMC6 monitors are individually packed and each one is double boxed. Inside each box there are also 3 power cords for different countries, documentation including a 5 year warranty registration card, quick start guides in English and Chinese and a brochure which gives details of the whole Studio Range. The full user guide has to be downloaded. There’s a QR code on the quick start guide for this. The tweeters of each speaker have some additional protection from a piece of foam which covers them during transit.

Advanced Transmission Line (ATL) Bass Loading

The PMC6 is a two way active nearfield monitor which, as is the hallmark of PMC speakers, uses their Advanced Transmission Line technology to enhance the low end. Transmission line is a form of bass loading which uses a folded acoustic labyrinth inside the speaker cabinet which starts behind the bass driver and is heavily damped with absorbent material. The length of the transmission line is such that by the time the sound exits the cabinet, it’s in perfect phase alignment with the drive units and fills in the low end below the frequency at which the main bass driver starts tailing off. In the PMC6, this transmission line ends with an opening at the top front of the cabinet and is finished off with a honeycomb effect grill. The honeycomb is PMC’s Laminair vent, that controls airflow, making the loudspeaker more efficient, with lower distortion and greater dynamics. A similar honeycomb pattern continues the theme just below this around the tweeter and PMC logo.

Setup

The PMC6 monitors are designed to be used in either portrait or landscape orientation. The speaker is able to detect which orientation it has been placed in and adapt its crossover accordingly. This can be manually over-ridden in the settings. More on this later. I chose to use mine in portrait as it gets the tweeters closest to ear level on my desk.

There’s a single XLR input on each speaker which can accept either an analog or AES3 digital input. In my setup I’m using the analog input. This is the default out of the box operating mode. Switching to a digital input can be done through the rotary encoders and LCD display at the rear. A host of other options can also be selected here, including level trim, phase and delay time. The LCD is clear and easy to read and settings can be navigated using the two rotary encoders, labelled Parameter and Value. Each encoder is also a button for confirming settings.

SoundAlign

As you can see in the photo above, each speaker can display IP address. There’s an ethernet port at the bottom of the rear panel. When connected to a LAN network, settings can be accessed through a web browser using PMC’s SoundAlign web interface. I connected mine through a switch and then into my router and was able to access their settings immediately from the Safari browser on my Mac. You could also access this through a tablet or smart phone. Whilst the rear panel LCD and encoders on each speaker are easy enough to use, the SoundAlign interface just makes adjusting settings even easier and you can see all of the settings laid out in front of you. The illuminated PMC logo on each speaker changes colour when certain settings are accessed, indicating which speaker is being adjusted.

Each speaker has a 5 band parametric EQ so you can tweak the frequency response to give a flat measurement at your listening position. Of course, this would require additional hardware including a measurement microphone to determine what settings to adjust, unless you want to try and do it by ear! If you have the speakers located on a desk, there’s the option to engage a Desk Filter setting to compensate for the narrow-band peak typically caused by unwanted reflections from the surface of a desk or mixing console. Switching this on introduces a -3.5dB cut at 150Hz with a Q of 3. I’m still running my speakers in so I’ve chosen not to enable this or to tweak any EQ settings just yet. PMC recommend a running in period of 50 hours for this range of monitors. I’m now nearing the end of those 50 hours so I will measure the in-room response soon.

As you can see in the screen shot below, there’s also a Position setting for each speaker. This tailors the low frequency response and can be switched between Free Space, Wall and Corner. The recommendation is to use Free Space if the speakers are more than 0.5m away from walls, ceiling or floor. Mine are so I chose this setting. The Wall and Corner settings cut the bass output below 45Hz by -4dB and -8dB respectively.

The Orientation setting defaults to Auto but can be manually set to either landscape or portrait if required. As mentioned earlier, this setting affects the crossover frequency. One benefit to adjusting this, along with other settings, from the SoundAlign interface is that both speakers can be adjusted together if required, rather than having to scroll through settings on the back panel of each speaker in turn.

Signal Flow

The PMC Studio Range, including the PMC6 reviewed here, use DSP processing for the EQ and other settings. All analog inputs are converted to 24 bit 96kHz digital via a high performance ADC. The digital input accepts 16 or 24 bit AES3 signals at sample rates up to 192kHz. Everything gets processed with a 32-bit DSP engine before being converted back to analog via a 24bit, 96kHz converter. In the PMC6 there are two 200 watt Class D amplifiers, one for the 1” dome tweeter and one for the 6” bass-mid driver. Being class D, they’re quite power efficient and should run less hot than a class A/B amp.

Sound

After connecting the PMC6 monitors and checking the various available settings in SoundAlign, I was keen to hear them! Although I work predominantly in post, I chose to play some of my favourite music through them first. It’s hard to write about the sound of a pair of speakers without sounding like a hifi magazine but I was very impressed with both the clarity and soundstage immediately. The ATL technology which PMC employ makes for a nicely extended and very uncoloured low end.

Having moved from my previous set of monitors with 8 inch drivers to the 6 inch PMC6, I was slightly concerned that the bass might be a bit lacking. Fortunately, my fears were allayed, as the low frequencies extend lower than the cabinet size would suggest and reach a -3dB point at 39Hz.

The integration of the two drive units and the transmission line bass loading is seamless and I felt as though I was listening to the recording itself rather than the speakers. As such, sub standard recordings are revealed for what they truly are. I was able to hear deficiencies in music I’m very familiar with, which I haven’t previously been aware of. I feel that the PMC6 tells it like it is and gives a true and accurate rendition of what’s on the recording.

Following on from the initial period of sitting listening to music though the PMC6s, I did then have to actually get back to doing some work! I’m in the middle of a dialogue edit on a feature film at the moment and I found it simple to identify noise issues in the location recordings with these speakers. Making EQ decisions with the PMC6 monitors feels easy and I’ve actually taken some work to a larger studio since working on it at home on these speakers and I was reassured to find that the work I’d done sounded right, giving me confidence that the PMC6 is a trustworthy studio monitor. I was initially slightly wary of getting a pair of speakers which used DSP as it seems like that might add some kind of colouration to the sound. I certainly couldn’t hear it in the PMC6 though, and I listened really hard!

Future Expansion

The speakers in the PMC Studio Range include an expansion card slot on the back. No specific details about exactly what these future expansions may be are given in the manual. It simply mentions that the slot provides a capability to support alternative input format interfaces in the future.

XBD Mode

The PMC6, along with the other speakers in the range, can be enhanced with the addition of a pair of subwoofers. The subs are designed to be placed directly under the main speakers, forming an integrated ‘XBD’ system. In this configuration, the PMC6 rolls off its bass at a higher frequency and this, along with even lower frequencies, is then dealt with by the sub. For the PMC6 this would be the PMC8 Sub. The subwoofer and main speaker essentially act as one unit, with a frequency response extending down to 25Hz. I’ll consider this upgrade in the future when funds allow! For now though, I’m more than happy with the bass capabilities of the PMC6 by itself. In an XBD configuration, the subwoofer input would be fed by the Digital Out XLR connector on the PMC6.

Summary

Having used the PMC6 monitors for just over a week now, I have found them to give an accurate and unflattering presentation of anything you choose to play through them. If there are problems in the recording, they’ll be revealed. If the recording is great, it will sound that way!

The bass is very responsive and certainly sounds a lot more punchy than my previous speakers which used a passive radiator design rather than the transmission line used here. When playing well recorded pop music through the PMC6, kick drums have a lot of power behind them but it always feels extremely clean and controlled. Playing dialogue or vocals, the midrange is very revealing and once again gives a natural rendition of what’s there. I found that the clarity in the mid to upper mid frequencies allowed me to pick up on problems in the recording more easily and take corrective steps to fixit with EQ.

I tend to sit centrally most of the time when working in my home studio setup. If you should move slightly off axis though, the sweet spot is fortunately quite wide with the PMC6 and so you don’t necessarily need to be dead central between the monitors to get the optimum sound.

I don’t really have any gripes with the PMC6. Maybe they could have included a printed user manual instead of a brochure, but that’s obviously a very minor point! They’re not cheap, but if I’m going to be using them every day, I want something which gives me an accurate representation of the audio I’m working with, and I feel the PMC6 monitors do just that. If you’re in the market for a very high-quality pair of nearfield monitors, the PMC6 should definitely be on your shortlist.

For further information on technical specifications and pricing, please contact your local PMC distributor.