It's good - that's a Fact

Audiophiles listening to the PMC Fact8 speakers.

OdioSleuth from hifi-unlimited is in the middle.

James Tan adjusting the volume with the remote control

Good coffee goes well with good music - a lot of audiophiles have discovered that including
James Tan and C.W. Low of AV Designs.
These guys are smart marketing blokes - they invited some audiophile friends, bloggers and reviewers over to their outlet on Saturday (Nov 28) for the soft launch of PMC's new speakers and at the same time 'lubricated' their guests with excellent coffee - latte, cappuccino or espresso.
That's simply because they are also selling the Swiss-made Jura coffee maker retailing at RM6k plus.
So while we were sipping the great coffee and munching some finger food, we did what we were supposed to be there for - that is to admire and listen to the PMC Fact 8 floorstanders.
These are surprisingly slim speakers - the box is just slightly wider than a CD and looks strikingly good especially with the veneer wrapped around the box. They are the best looking speakers from PMC so far.



The slim speaker is only
 slightly wider than a CD.



Note the tiny switches above the
binding posts which control the
frequency response of the bass and treble.

In the PMC tradition these are transmission line designs and they measure 103cm tall, 15.5cm wide and 38cm deep. Since they are so slim, they come with outrigger feet made of metal with polished chrome finishing.

The PMC Fact 8 uses two mid-woofers and a soft dome tweeter crossed over at 2kHz. Due to the transmission line loading, the bass goes quite low to 28Hz considering the mid-woofers are modest 5.5-inch units.

What is really interesting about the Fact8 is that it has two switches at the back which can control the frequency response of the highs and lows on the fly. 
The tweeter control switch has three positions - +2dB, flat and -2dB while the bass switch offers flat response, -3dB and -6dB. It has been a long time since speakers' frequency response could be tuned and I recall using a pair of JBLs a long time ago that had tweeters that could be tuned.
The speaker also has silver-plated binding posts and spikes that can be reversed with ball tips on the other end. And its grille snaps into place when you hold it near the speaker thanks to hidden magnets. That was a nice touch.
James said the Fact products are from PMC's lifestyle range and a bookshelf speaker is being planned.
Low added that the Fact8 may be a lifestyle product, but sound quality is not compromised and it will still appeal to the audiophile.
For such slim speakers, they sound real big - looks really can be deceiving. They look rather slender and fragile, but the sound can be punchy when required. When slower-paced songs were played that evening like traditional Chinese music, light jazz and solo female singers, they sounded pretty refined.
Of course, the 'supporting cast' was good and came in the form of the Bryston BCD-1 CD player, BDA-1 DAC, BP-26 preamp, 4B SST (square) power amp and Wireworld cables and interconnects.
More coffee was brewed and the rich fragrance of the cappuccino, good company and soothing music made the evening quite a pleasant experience - it wasn't a typical hard-sell kind of event. Well, I did say James and Low are smart marketing fellas...