Last June we had the brief opportunity of hearing the PMC MB2se, which are now happily residing with our customer as his speaker of choice. Since then we’ve been wanting to spend some more time with a speaker of this type to give it a proper evaluation.

Fast forward to the end of February this year and we took delivery of a pair of PMC IB2se, these are said to be more of a domestic version of the MB2se. Although they are still a very substantial speaker they are slightly more conventional in styling and driver layout, but before doing any evaluation we set about running them in, as we felt they needed a few more hours to get them to sing.

The main differences here are that these are passive speakers, using a smaller flat sectioned bass driver, slightly smaller in size all around, slightly lighter in weight with small differences in transmission line length, sensitivity, impedance and frequency response but still using the same stunning mid range and treble units which result in its ability to give the music its clarity.

In the short time we had the MB2se we were completely blown away by them, so we were looking forward to hearing what these would do considering the smaller size and cost. We hooked them up to our reference system here in the shop; a full Naim system comprising of a Linn Klimax LP12 for vinyl playback, a Naim ND555 network player for streaming our ripped cds from a Naim Uniti Core hard disc player into a Naim NAC252 pre amp, Naim Supercap DR pre amp power supply and Naim NAP300 DR power amp.

Differences? yes, but these speakers are most definitely cut from the same cloth, the level of detail and musicality is incredible, the bass is full but in no way over blown, the mid range is full of delicate subtlety and the treble is insightful and full of sparkle without being relentless or hard, these really are a speaker that bring all of the accuracy that is required by a studio engineer for mastering music but with the added bonus of being a speaker to come home to after a long day at work, put on some of your favourite music and spend the evening in musical bliss.

Whilst listening a customer, who was in the shop at the time, said with a big grin on his face “WOW! I’ve not heard that level of insight in to the music being played since I was in a studio and feel I could just spend hour and hours trawling though my music collection with these”

Unfortunately these speakers will not be with us forever, so if you get a chance pop in and give them a listen, you’ll not be disappointed, Julian, Paul and John will be happy to play them for you…..it gives us a good excuse, as if we needed one!

PMC Loudspeakers are available at the following branches of Audio T:

Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Portsmouth, Southampton, Swindon