Never heard salks but I seriously doubt a boutique brand like that is going to give pmc any real competition. I've owned a lot of speakers and pmc is at the very top of my list. Their i series is superb and worth every penny IMO.
PMC vs. Salk Sound Speakers. Which is better?
PMC speakers out of England have come on like a freight train in recent years including being awarded an Emmy for outstanding performance as speakers in mixing sound tracks for top motion pictures. Their high end home line of speakers always get good reviews but their prices seem very high compared to other speakers. Salk appears to make great speakers at much lower prices. For example, the Salk Veracity HT3 costs $6K and the PMC PB1i cost $14K. Has anyone compared these brands and which do you think is better?
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Jaxwired wrote: "Never heard salks but..." With all due respect, why comment if you have never heard them? It's very hard to compare these two manufacturers (even assuming that you have heard units from both companies) because PMC is a large company, primarily focused on products for professional audio. Home audio speakers are a side line for them. Jim Salk has a tiny company and manufactures very unique and beautiful speakers with an special emphasis on customized products and cabinet work. While I don't own a pair but I have heard them many times and they are very special. |
I checked out some photo's on the net of the crossover boards from Salk and PMC. The crossover board in the PMC PB1i is a stunning piece of work, very sophisticated with a generous amount of parts. Serious engineering. Looking at the crossover board in the Salk HT2-TL looks inferior to the PMC. Very skimpy with very little parts. Looks like a High School DIY project. Most speaker companies buy their drivers from Accuton, RAAL, ScanSpeak, Viva, Seas and SB Acoustics. The heart and engine in any damn good speaker is the crossover network. |
Audiozen - seriously? This is a stunning piece of work? http://www.avforums.com/forums/attachments/speakers/93494d1223327522-pmc-ob1i-crossover-ob1i-xo.jpg Plenty of electrolytics, iron core inductors, and $.25 sand cast resistors. Those are not high end parts, and just because there's a lot of parts doesn't mean it's any more engineered ... in fact the inverse is often true. More parts are often an indicator that proper engineering wasn't done in the early parts of the design phase. As a designer myself, there's no doubt in my mind the Salk is the better speaker ... and being less money is just icing on the cake. |
Vapor1..your point is interesting...explain this..I have viewed many photo's over the years on the net of crossover boards in many different speakers and one thing thats in common with the top speaker companies and models selling above $10K is that their boards are larger with a greater volume of parts and larger power supplies, and some have up to three large boards for the highs, mids and lows. Are you saying that these crossover designer/engineer's are designing larger boards that are not necessary and its nothing more than snake oil to convince the customer that spending a lot more money on high priced speakers is justified? |
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