Hi all 
I was so impressed with the pairing of the parasound and the concept 40's that I was in no hurry to unpack the PMC twenty 26's for the first few days. I found it difficult to imagine that a change of speaker could further improve the sound quality i was getting from this combination. So finally with a lot of excitment, I unpacked the PMC's and placed them on the inside of the concept 40's.
And once I started playing, I was left scratching my head. The sound was muddy and distorted, and there was no resemblance of any sound staging to speak of. I thought that probably speakers at this level, demand a different level of electronics and recordings, as they are too transparent. And the PMC's were showing up the poor quality of my low bit rate mp3's. And once I switched back to the concept 40's they sounded miles better. Excellent clarity and sound staging again. I sat there sinking in my chair. Counting all my lost money.
Then i again plugged back the PMC's and the sound was almost emanating only from the right speaker, skewing the entire sound stage. I was used to this in my listening position. As the right speaker gets more boundary re-enforcement. I tried using the balance control on the amp to center the sound stage again. And found that I had to load the left speaker heavily to get the vocals in the center.
It was at this point, that I realised that there was something wrong with the left speaker. I peeled off the grill, and found the left mid-bass dome heavily dented inwards. Could'nt figure out how this could happen during transportation as the outer wave guide / driver gaurd was still intact. Sent off a email to the dealer regarding the same. However, could'nt say much, as one of my friends tested the speakers before their packing. The dealer promised to contact the distributor for PMC in india to arrange new mid range domes. Since I was anyways going to get new domes, I decided to do something about the dented driver. After a little reading and watching you tube videos, I decided to use a vacuum cleaner gently to pull out the dented dome. Since the dome had a gaurd, I kept the vacumm hose on top of the gaurd, and gently closed the surrounding area with a cloth in stages to adjust the suction pressure being exerted on the dome. Bingo, the dome was out in no time, and after a few more suctions from different sides / angles, the dome was perfectly round again. Checked with a torch again and felt satisfied. Just to be sure that there was no distortion between the left and right mid range domes, I disconnected the brass bar connecting the three driver terminals from the tweeter, just to keep the mid range and bass driver in circuit. Now plugged in the amp directly into the mid bass driver on both speakers, and played some vocal centric numbers at low volume. As the music played, I alternated the balance control on the amp from full left to full right. I repeated this continously on several tracks, and absolutely could'nt hear any difference between the left and the right speaker mid range domes. I was now delighted. And plugged in the brass bars again to connect all the three drivers, and started playing music again. This time it was miles better, now the vocals centered in the middle, with the balance control just slightly loaded towards the left.
But, on continous listening, felt something was amiss again somewhere. Now I decided to check each driver indipendently, and played music at very low volume, with my ear pressed to each driver. And alas the left tweeter was dead too. Absolutely no sound coming out of it what so ever. Now I was really frustrated, and realised that I had bought a lemon. Realised my friend didnt pay enough attention to the tweeter ( Might not be his fault, as the cross over is a high 3400 hz, even I took sometime to guess that there was something wrong ). Again sent another mail to the dealer complaining that I was sold a lemon, and would need a replacement of tweeters also.
At this point, I didnt give a damn about the speakers anymore. A sense of betrayal and vengence took over, and I was desperate to either salvage the situation, or drop the speakers from my 9th floor balcony, and forget that I ever bought them. So, went on google again and saw some vids on testing tweeters. Went out and bought myslef a multimeter and allenkey set. I opened the screws holding the cross over plate in the back of the speakers, and dismantled both the tweeters. And upon testing the right tweeter, it was found okay with a impedence of 5.1 ohms in the night, and even connecting a 9 V DC battery gave a satisfactory click everytime. However, the left tweeter was not showing any continuity, and neither was it clicking on connecting the battery.
In order to make sure that the issue with the PMC's was only with the tweeters now. I rigged speaker cable wire from the left PMC tweeter connecting links ( these links were feeding the PMC tweeter, before i removed the tweeter ) to the high frequency inputs on the concept 40's ( This was safe as concept 40's cross over is 2.4K , and PMC's is 3.4K ). Now with the brass bar of the PMC's fully engaged with all drivers, I fed a full signal to the PMC's. And for the first time , I got a full sound output. The mids and lows coming from the PMC, and high frequency from the concept 40's. So, my hunt for new tweeters started. Though PMC claim that a special tweeter was made by Seas, after reading the specs of various of their 27mm sonolex dome tweeters, I felt that the closest a dome tweeter could come to the one used in the Twenty 26's was the 'SEAS Prestige 27TFFC (H0881) Textile Dome Tweeter . Though I could'nt locate any SEAS dealers in India, I managed to find alternate tweeters of similar specs from 'Peerless' and 'Dayton audio'. And ordered a pair each.
And as I was feeling restless, I started looking online for speaker repairers in my locality, and to my good fortune, I found one. He checked the tweeter, and confirmed that the voice coil had melted. He rewinded the voice coil again, and compared the impedence of same with the right tweeter. Both were now bang on 5.5 ohms in the afternoon. He even carried out the battery test on the left tweeter, and it clicked into place. My joy knew no bounds. I raced home and plonked the tweeters back into the cabinets and restored the tweeter connections back. Now I offered my prayers to the powers that may be, and nervously clicked 'play'. Finally it all sounded like it was coming out of some decent speakers.
The PMC's had more detail, punch and better bass than the concept 40's, but the concept 40's still had the better clarity. And the concept 40's also were slightly forward with vocals, which i liked. Changing to the PMC's shifted the voice further back in the music. Now considering that both the left and right speakers were sounding exactly alike driver to driver, I was still wondering why it was sounding muddy in comparison with the concept 40's. Muddy with a slight background hiss. Suspected that the PMC's transperency was showing up my poor quality tracks.
Thus, bought my first HDtracks downloads today. Bought some DSD 2.6 audiophile test tracks and 24/192 tracks of Weeknd & daft punk RAM. Once loaded on my NAS, they sounded wonderful on the PMC's. For the first time since unpacking them, I felt joy at listening to the PMC's. The pitch black backgrounds i was used to, was back now. Instruments sounded very different from the concept 40's, I still have to get used to this different presentation. The bass has depth and variation. There is better seperation that i can sense between instruments. And the best part is that in my small room, the PMC's dont boom at all, unlike the rear ported Concept 40's. So, finally I have managed to recover the PMC's from the brink of my balcony. Iam still waiting for the dealer to give me a qoute for new pairs of mid dome bass and tweeters. If the price is not exorbitant, will buy these for peace of mind.
Total damages in the salvage were 5 pounds for multimeter & allenkey set + 5 pounds for re-winding the voice coil. 10 pounds all in all saved my speakers. And am I glad
I was so impressed with the pairing of the parasound and the concept 40's that I was in no hurry to unpack the PMC twenty 26's for the first few days. I found it difficult to imagine that a change of speaker could further improve the sound quality i was getting from this combination. So finally with a lot of excitment, I unpacked the PMC's and placed them on the inside of the concept 40's.
And once I started playing, I was left scratching my head. The sound was muddy and distorted, and there was no resemblance of any sound staging to speak of. I thought that probably speakers at this level, demand a different level of electronics and recordings, as they are too transparent. And the PMC's were showing up the poor quality of my low bit rate mp3's. And once I switched back to the concept 40's they sounded miles better. Excellent clarity and sound staging again. I sat there sinking in my chair. Counting all my lost money.
Then i again plugged back the PMC's and the sound was almost emanating only from the right speaker, skewing the entire sound stage. I was used to this in my listening position. As the right speaker gets more boundary re-enforcement. I tried using the balance control on the amp to center the sound stage again. And found that I had to load the left speaker heavily to get the vocals in the center.
It was at this point, that I realised that there was something wrong with the left speaker. I peeled off the grill, and found the left mid-bass dome heavily dented inwards. Could'nt figure out how this could happen during transportation as the outer wave guide / driver gaurd was still intact. Sent off a email to the dealer regarding the same. However, could'nt say much, as one of my friends tested the speakers before their packing. The dealer promised to contact the distributor for PMC in india to arrange new mid range domes. Since I was anyways going to get new domes, I decided to do something about the dented driver. After a little reading and watching you tube videos, I decided to use a vacuum cleaner gently to pull out the dented dome. Since the dome had a gaurd, I kept the vacumm hose on top of the gaurd, and gently closed the surrounding area with a cloth in stages to adjust the suction pressure being exerted on the dome. Bingo, the dome was out in no time, and after a few more suctions from different sides / angles, the dome was perfectly round again. Checked with a torch again and felt satisfied. Just to be sure that there was no distortion between the left and right mid range domes, I disconnected the brass bar connecting the three driver terminals from the tweeter, just to keep the mid range and bass driver in circuit. Now plugged in the amp directly into the mid bass driver on both speakers, and played some vocal centric numbers at low volume. As the music played, I alternated the balance control on the amp from full left to full right. I repeated this continously on several tracks, and absolutely could'nt hear any difference between the left and the right speaker mid range domes. I was now delighted. And plugged in the brass bars again to connect all the three drivers, and started playing music again. This time it was miles better, now the vocals centered in the middle, with the balance control just slightly loaded towards the left.
But, on continous listening, felt something was amiss again somewhere. Now I decided to check each driver indipendently, and played music at very low volume, with my ear pressed to each driver. And alas the left tweeter was dead too. Absolutely no sound coming out of it what so ever. Now I was really frustrated, and realised that I had bought a lemon. Realised my friend didnt pay enough attention to the tweeter ( Might not be his fault, as the cross over is a high 3400 hz, even I took sometime to guess that there was something wrong ). Again sent another mail to the dealer complaining that I was sold a lemon, and would need a replacement of tweeters also.
At this point, I didnt give a damn about the speakers anymore. A sense of betrayal and vengence took over, and I was desperate to either salvage the situation, or drop the speakers from my 9th floor balcony, and forget that I ever bought them. So, went on google again and saw some vids on testing tweeters. Went out and bought myslef a multimeter and allenkey set. I opened the screws holding the cross over plate in the back of the speakers, and dismantled both the tweeters. And upon testing the right tweeter, it was found okay with a impedence of 5.1 ohms in the night, and even connecting a 9 V DC battery gave a satisfactory click everytime. However, the left tweeter was not showing any continuity, and neither was it clicking on connecting the battery.
In order to make sure that the issue with the PMC's was only with the tweeters now. I rigged speaker cable wire from the left PMC tweeter connecting links ( these links were feeding the PMC tweeter, before i removed the tweeter ) to the high frequency inputs on the concept 40's ( This was safe as concept 40's cross over is 2.4K , and PMC's is 3.4K ). Now with the brass bar of the PMC's fully engaged with all drivers, I fed a full signal to the PMC's. And for the first time , I got a full sound output. The mids and lows coming from the PMC, and high frequency from the concept 40's. So, my hunt for new tweeters started. Though PMC claim that a special tweeter was made by Seas, after reading the specs of various of their 27mm sonolex dome tweeters, I felt that the closest a dome tweeter could come to the one used in the Twenty 26's was the 'SEAS Prestige 27TFFC (H0881) Textile Dome Tweeter . Though I could'nt locate any SEAS dealers in India, I managed to find alternate tweeters of similar specs from 'Peerless' and 'Dayton audio'. And ordered a pair each.
And as I was feeling restless, I started looking online for speaker repairers in my locality, and to my good fortune, I found one. He checked the tweeter, and confirmed that the voice coil had melted. He rewinded the voice coil again, and compared the impedence of same with the right tweeter. Both were now bang on 5.5 ohms in the afternoon. He even carried out the battery test on the left tweeter, and it clicked into place. My joy knew no bounds. I raced home and plonked the tweeters back into the cabinets and restored the tweeter connections back. Now I offered my prayers to the powers that may be, and nervously clicked 'play'. Finally it all sounded like it was coming out of some decent speakers.
The PMC's had more detail, punch and better bass than the concept 40's, but the concept 40's still had the better clarity. And the concept 40's also were slightly forward with vocals, which i liked. Changing to the PMC's shifted the voice further back in the music. Now considering that both the left and right speakers were sounding exactly alike driver to driver, I was still wondering why it was sounding muddy in comparison with the concept 40's. Muddy with a slight background hiss. Suspected that the PMC's transperency was showing up my poor quality tracks.
Thus, bought my first HDtracks downloads today. Bought some DSD 2.6 audiophile test tracks and 24/192 tracks of Weeknd & daft punk RAM. Once loaded on my NAS, they sounded wonderful on the PMC's. For the first time since unpacking them, I felt joy at listening to the PMC's. The pitch black backgrounds i was used to, was back now. Instruments sounded very different from the concept 40's, I still have to get used to this different presentation. The bass has depth and variation. There is better seperation that i can sense between instruments. And the best part is that in my small room, the PMC's dont boom at all, unlike the rear ported Concept 40's. So, finally I have managed to recover the PMC's from the brink of my balcony. Iam still waiting for the dealer to give me a qoute for new pairs of mid dome bass and tweeters. If the price is not exorbitant, will buy these for peace of mind.
Total damages in the salvage were 5 pounds for multimeter & allenkey set + 5 pounds for re-winding the voice coil. 10 pounds all in all saved my speakers. And am I glad
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