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tuffgong

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  1. There is a pair of pmc aml1's for sale on audiogon, perhaps consider haggling with them and spending a little extra to do it right the first time. I'm positive the pmc is a better speaker, the focal has a very tight, accurate rolloff at 40 hz, by it's design, which is great, but won't satisfy in the long run, not like the gradual rolloff at 33 hz with the pmc design. You might think those extra 7-8 hz. aren't worth it, which is valid as well. Good luck.
  2. If you find any other small box speakers worth looking at, post away. The focals appear to use a passive radiator system to vent out the front bottom, perhaps it improves on the rear port issues. The focals are a nice choice, since you give these nearfields more room than normal they should extend below 40 somewhat for you. My fear is that 40hz won't be enough for you, since my aml1's are rated down to 32 and I notice notes being rolled off that I would prefer to hear. That being said, you can't get much below 30 hz with a tiny box under any circumstances. Whereas with the paradigms you could sell them for what you bought it for if you don't like them, that might be tougher with the focals. Always keep that in mind in wonderful economies like this. Maybe you could find those focals used, that would be a score, and less risky. In response to your questions about characteristics of actives, they are forward, in your face, and I do adjust the treble down and the bass up to compensate for size/presentation. When the band gets crazy, it gets crazy in your room. It is the absolute pinnacle of solid state sound. If you don't want your speakers to growl, the tube sound will melt in your ears. Cheers, Mark.
  3. The focals would be first in the running then for your needs. Are they vented in the front on the bottom? I find no literature on how they are ported. I found posts saying they are credible mixing speakers for production, which is good to see.
  4. I would not offer more than 800$ for the speakers, even though those appear to be in good shape. You can find 40's for 1.5k, but you'd have to be patient. The only caveat with the 20's are people claim it clips at 95 db. So the question becomes, how often do you listen to music over 90db? I listen to music between 70-80, rarely over, and even that is loud for me. Of course I have grey hair, and i'm not throwing a dorm party this weekend, so keep it in mind.
  5. I forgot to add you can sell the pre if you go this route. Another layer of hiss gone.
  6. Hello again, well I checked out the dynaudio, it appears to be a true active speaker, with separate amps for both drivers. The problem is, it goes down only to 55 hz, which is crap. The focal's are in a separate world as far as reponse, 40-40 vs. 55-20. They appear to be around the $2k point. After trolling active monitor articles for years, I would actually advise something completely different. What you really need to do is look at these speakers on audiogon. They are paradigm reference active 20's, which were truly works of art when they came out 6-8 yrs ago. They sold for almost 3k for the 20's and 5k for the 40's. With the finish listed on audiogon it was probably even higher. their response is 35-22, and frankly at 35 hz, you won't be missing much for a sub. You can find some old reviews of the paradigm with google, they all said they blew everyone away, and no one is going to buy them, becuase you can't fiddle/obsess with your audiophile addiction anymore. Here's the link to audiogon http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrmoni&1229194061&/Paradigm-Reference-Active-20-p If you like those, search far and wide for the 40's, they are much harder to find, it is hard to upgrade from those so they don't sell much. They will also be over your present budget. Frankly you'd have to spend close to 5k to upgrade from the paradigm, the only reason they are cheap is because they were too ahead of their time. Spend it on killer xlr cables and iec cords instead. I love verastarr.com cables myself, although I think Gordon who posted earlier can help you upgrade those other paths as well. I know nothing of your dac, but the benchmark is something to behold, no hype whatsoever. Gordon modifies them so he agrees on some level as well.
  7. Hey there, before I go looking at some of the speakers, how low do you want them to go? Do you want a sub? How big of a room? How far away are you going to be? My personal focus was to avoid a sub, so we should start there.
  8. Hi there, I am running the setup presently that you are considering upgrading to. First off tho, as J Gordon would know, the benchmark dac1 is brilliant, and unless you need more options, I see no need to improve on a masterpiece. The pmc aml-1 will -NOT- accept your unbalanced volume out from the the dac-1, it will only adjust the volume at the speakers themselves, you have to use the line out's, so the volume pot on any dac is a moot point. I have the trim pots at around 11 on the back of the dac-1. I adjust the volume maybe twice a day worst case scenario, if getting off the couch to do that is an issue, don't go the aml-1 route. The aml1 would and does do better volume attenuation than almost any dac under 10k, besides you will need at least 5k for the speakers, keep the dac-1 and save your money for the speakers. I thought I had zero distortion with the dac1 but the speakers take it to a whole nother level. The aml1 is a true powered speaker and the crossovers are before the amp, so neither amp in the speaker gets any extraneous frequencies. Pmc also sells for a crapload of money some 'actives' that use flying mole amps, these are imposters and you are wasting your money unless the crossovers are before the amp. The aml1 uses a bryston 3b st to drive each tweeter and a bryston 2b st to drive each woofer, and the crossovers are made in england (pmc is owned but not told what to do by bryston), each speaker is matched extremely well, people always freak out in our house because the sound literally is coming from the center of the room between the speakers, there are zero phase errors with true active speakers for a true stereo image. If anyone out there is looking for active speakers, please always make sure the crossovers are before the amps, otherwise you might as well go with separates. Do your reasearch. Make sure you buy your aml1's for under 5k, I purchased mine used on ebay for 3.5k for the pair, but I looked dilligently for months to find a pair. Audiogon has them for sale occaisionally, but only buy a matched pair, never a single, or you have not solved any phase issues. You should be able to resell them on audiogon for under 5k for no problem, but certainly don't buy them new for 6-9k. The aml1 has bass and treble pots that do eq better than any program I have ever run, they are transparent in the way they adjust. I have the bass on +3 db (max) and the treble at -5 db (max), and the bass rolloff at 0 since you will never need a subwoofer with these. The tweeters on the aml1 will be the best you have ever heard, and most likely bright at close range, you can never have enough bass tho, especially with a bookshelf, so max works well. Pmc is an extremely ingenious company, they have perfected 'folded transmission line' woofers, which is essentially a 5 ft. long tunnel that twists and turns within the aml1 before coming out the bottom. The bass will make you never look back, there is no refraction from bass being stuck in the cabinet, ported out the back, or any of that crap. Ported speakers really make for boomy noise, which is great for a party, not for close range audiophile listening. Your bass fatigue problems will be gone for life with folded transmission line bass. The rolloff is gradual for the bass, since it can just escape out the tunnel with no compression, which is why people die for the aml1 sound since it gives you 30hz flat with no thump out of a 2 ft. by 8 inch box. I crank them to full volume all the time if i'm outside the house, and they have zero distortion thanks to the crossovers before the amp, amp perfectly matched to speakers watts wise, I have yet to have these speakers ever pout on me once. The fins on the back of the aml1 vent the heat nicely, I've left these speakers on for weeks at a time sometimes since I always forget they are on, they make no hiss or hum that i've ever heard, and the fins have never been too hot to the touch ever. Good luck on your search. A dac-1 to the aml-1 is like freebasing music. Period.
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