“I need a favor,” I said to Rob as we sipped our Black Russians while listening to the excellent Sphinx Audio Element 3 speakers (review forthcoming).
“How can I help?” he responded.
“You know how our whole house got clobbered by the flu over Christmas? That put me a solid month behind schedule; someone was always sick. I’ve got a pair of speakers incoming—the PMC MB2 SEs—but I still have to finish up the review of these Element 3s. Would you mind receiving the shipment and breaking them in for me?”
“Certainly,” said Rob. “What kind of speakers are they?”
“They’re large-ish standmounted monitors.” I didn’t meet his eye; I just kept looking straight ahead.
“Sure thing. Let me know when they’re coming, and I’ll handle it.”
Well, the PMC MB2 SEs are standmounted monitors. But I’m not sure “large-ish” is a fair description. Anyway, the delivery was set for Friday morning, and I called Rob the night before. He happened to be off work, which was fortuitous. “The truck will be there midmorning tomorrow. The truck driver will help you get the pallet into your garage.”
“Pallet?” he queried. “How big are these things?”
“Gotta go—another call coming in!”
The next day, I grabbed a pair of beers and ambled down to check out the situation, dragging the dolly. Rob was in his garage gazing at this big-ass pallet. He wasn’t angry—more like perplexed. “I looked these things up on PMC’s website,” he said. “They’re 128 pounds each. That’s not large-ish. They’re huge. Anyway, they’re here now, so let’s get started.”
These speakers aren’t just huge, they’re pricey—US$49,999, CA$59,999, £34,095, or €28,629 per pair.
There’s a certain level of trust involved in being the lower guy in a two-person schlep up a flight of stairs. Rob pulled the dolly, loaded with one boxed-up MB2, up from his basement one step at a time. I pushed and lifted the bottom of the dolly to help clear each step. Ron had come over to observe the proceedings, and he placed one hand in the small of my back, which served more for reassurance than assistance. If Rob lost his grip, we’d both be flattened. We got our cargo up without drama, needing only a small rest between each box.
Please be walnut, I thought as we opened the first box. Speakers this size, in black, would be visually intimidating. A huge expanse of walnut would be much more palatable.
They were walnut.
The unpacking process was everything you’d imagine when dealing with 128-pound speakers. Lots of lifting and looking for good handholds. The MB2s have several good gripping points, so it wasn’t too bad. The stands came fully assembled, and we had the speakers unboxed and hooked up to the Kinki Studio EX‑M1+ in short order.
Once we had the speakers placed, we didn’t immediately fire up the system. Instead we stood back with our hands on our hips and took in the picture—these two extremely large, imposing speakers against the room’s white backdrop. “They actually look kinda cool,” Rob said, shaking his head as he said it. “Brutalist. Industrial. Imposing. I get the feeling they’re gonna play loud. Good thing Werner’s away for two weeks.” It was true: Rob’s only adjoining neighbor was out of the country, so we could pull the trigger on these monsters.
With its 12″ woofer backed up by a 46″ transmission line, the MB2 is rated down to 20Hz, and factoring in an 8‑ohm impedance and 90dB efficiency, I was of the mind that a pair of these speakers would pound bass. I mean, I’ve seen PMC get room-filling bass out of a 5″ woofer, so it would be surprising if the MB2s didn’t slam.
And slam they did. Colin Stetson was calling to me, so I cued up “Awake on Foreign Shores,” from New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges. There’s deep, deep bass on this track, and it’s terrifying to hear it played loud on speakers with reach. The three of us sat there in stunned silence listening to Stetson’s fearsome bass saxophone, as the MB2s transformed the room into an alien landscape, with low-frequency pressure waves coming from all directions, overtones wrapping around us.
It was at this moment—listening to that first track after unboxing these speakers—that I knew I’d done the right thing. My first experience with large-scale PMC speakers came at High End 2024 in Munich, Germany. I’d been quite literally blown away by their huge Dolby Atmos demo, especially the Atmos surround mix of “Baba O’Riley.” Then and there, I approached Oliver Thomas, PMC’s commercial director, about reviewing their huge BB6‑XBD‑A pro-audio speaker, or, ideally, a smaller home-audio version with a similar configuration.
I followed up about my request at High End 2025, and once Thomas realized that I was actually serious, we began the process of setting up the review. In the fall of 2025, Tyler Nelson from Playback Distribution, PMC’s North American representative, contacted me to get the ball rolling. It took until January for me to clear my schedule so that I could fit these speakers into my reviewing lineup—and into my room.
So there we were, the three of us audiophile neighbors, with a pair of huge, imposing speakers staring us down. Rob had hosted large speakers before—the DALI Epikore 9 is near enough the same weight as the MB2, but the Danish speaker is taller and thinner, and altogether less intimidating in its appearance. Rob had gone gaga over the DALIs, and up to this point, they were his favorite speakers that had cycled through either his or my house.
But here we had a contender. Ron headed home, but I stuck around to run a few more tracks through the PMCs. There’s a sense of weight and power to the sound of the MB2s. Limitless bass, for sure, but up through the entire audio spectrum the PMCs deliver a feeling of directness, speed, uncompromising honesty, and realism.
These are exciting speakers, and the sound somewhat matches the appearance. Rob was really jazzed up about them. “They work in here. I love the sound, and they’re so dramatic-looking. This is gonna be fun.”
I shot Rob a text the next day. I was curious about how Jing, Rob’s partner, had responded to the appearance of these two huge bridge trolls in her living room. Apparently she took it well, which is a bonus. And Rob doesn’t hold my snippet of deception against me, which is also for the best.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
