Three great things about the new PMC twenty.26 - bass, mid and treble
New from PMC comes the twenty.26 loudspeaker, a three-way model full of trickle-down technology from the fact series and designed to bring even more of the dynamics, scale, resolution and musicality of the twenty series to music aficionados.
The floor-standing twenty.26 is the first three-way speaker to be introduced into the well established twenty series, which already includes the stand mount twenty.21 and twenty.22 and the floor-standing models, twenty.23 and twenty.24. Like the other models in the range it features the familiar sloping cabinet design which houses a refined version of the company’s Advanced Transmission Line (ATL™) bass loading technology.
The most obvious addition to the twenty.26, that sets it apart from its siblings, is PMC’s new 50mm (2”) soft dome midrange drive unit, nestled between the existing twenty series tweeter and a bespoke bass driver. Following the pioneering discoveries made during the collaboration with the NPL (National Physical Laboratory) to develop the fact.12 midrange, the new driver has been designed to exhibit an extremely natural and wide dispersion characteristic, to integrate seamlessly with the other two drivers. The addition of this high performance unit provides a truly tangible vocal performance and adds to PMC’s long history of designing and manufacturing soft dome midrange drivers, which have been the mainstay of the world’s leading studio monitors for many years.
The new 180mm (7”) bass driver has been developed specifically for use with the twenty.26 and the Advanced Transmission Line loading employed in the cabinet. A low mass, natural fibre cone was designed by PMC to produce very low colouration and excellent transient response. Mounted within a cast alloy chassis, the new drive unit is excursion controlled by the suspension design, which limits only at the maximum excursion. The ‘power bulge’ on the rear plate of the magnet assembly allows for greater linear travel of the voice coil, enabling optimum performance at higher SPLs.
As with all PMC’s passive speaker designs, the crossover is a statement of engineering excellence. Its military grade circuit board with ultra thick copper tracks and gold though plating ensures non-inhibited current flow and greater reliability. Careful component selection, precision matching and optimised positioning provide low component interaction and low colouration from the sophisticated 24dB per octave crossover. The steep filter slopes ensure each drive unit works within its optimum linear region and presents a superb off-axis response for a very large listening window.
86dB efficiency and a true 8ohm design enable the twenty.26 to be partnered with a vast array of amplifiers. The transparency of the speaker’s presentation enables the benefit of electronics upgrades to really shine through, making the twenty.26 a speaker that can help a system grow without detracting from the improvements in amplification and sources.
The cabinet features 18-25mm thick Medite™ walls and extensive bracing, particularly at the high-pressure areas on the top panel, to dramatically reduce cabinet induced colouration. The now familiar decoupled plinth, for better bass definition and HF focus, is carried over to the twenty.26, but with 30% increase in mass for improved stability. High quality British made tri-wire or tri-amp terminals are found on the rear panel of the 1062mm tall enclosure, which is available in Oak, Walnut, Amarone and high gloss Diamond Black.