16th Nov 2018, I was cordially invited to the launching of PMC Fact series top of the line speaker, Fenestria at AV Design, the Malaysian distributor in downtown. My curiosity has got the better of me, I want to hear what Fenestria has in store and how its technologies have brought real improvement to the sound. If it's just an evolutionary refinement, I probably give it a pass.
From Fenestria design perspectives, they mark quite a departure from the conventional Fact series design. Not hard to see Fenestria was designed from the ground up, the attention to detail was unprecedented. Well, I'm not actually a new kid to audio, and neither an old dog. Arf-arf, you can't teach old dog new tricks. Likewise, I've certain expectations of what's to come. Paul Bayliss, PMC Business Development Manager revealed that the new creation has taken 5 years of research and development. Oliver Thomas, the son of PMC founder, Peter Thomas who has had a short stint at motorsport had his touch on the design, incorporated some techniques he learned from motorsport, particularly in the area of vibration control and aerodynamics. Audiophiles know resonance induces distortion too well and is unkind to music reproduction. New blood with new ideas, it's good for innovation. Drum roll, please... Fenestria is the fruition.
The physique of Fenestria is imposing, standing tall at 67-inch. The side concave phenolic panels on the speaker apart from visual effect making the speaker look wider or otherwise, a boring slim tall tower. For what it asked, it'll be a tough sell for the targeted consumers without the aesthetic appeal. Audiophiles who spend this much of money want a good look to exhibit individual taste and class. Killing two birds with one stone, the panels also fend off undesirable acoustic energies from getting to the speaker box. How cool is it that the speaker box breaths in an isolated space of its own. The side panels are detachable, they come in Tiger Ebony, Rich Walnut, White Silk and Graphite option to meet the interior decor requirement. PMC has got the wife acceptance factor covered.
Sonomex, the soft dome tweeters take over from 3.8kHz and upwards. Fenestria assigns the task to the midrange dome to handle 3.8kHz down to 380Hz, this solution accounts for a single driver like characteristic. No phasey midrange. It's a clever decision not to cross frequency in the 1-3kHz range, the most sensitive human hearing range based on Fletcher-Munson study. All highlights have led me to think PMC designs Fenestria around the midrange dome. Sweet.
Both tweeter and the midrange dome are enclosed in a metal enclosure, they're suspended in the air and decoupled from the boxes via silicone dampening. It's basically a baffle-less, a first in PMC history. Carbon fibre flat drivers were chosen for its stiffness, lightness and damping factor, most of all, store very little energy. Luminair assisted box houses two 6.5-inch drivers in the respective box, two individual boxes are arranged in mirror image of each other for bass production. Not missing out the massive crossover, hidden in a suspended plinth, another first in PMC too. Besides, the user could adjust tweeter and bass output to cater for different room requirement.
Phew! With all the groundbreaking technologies out of the way, we're interested to know if the sound measures up. But before that, let me quickly run through the system set up. The front end comprises of TAD D600 cd player and Bryston music streamer, TAD C2000 and M2500 amplification, connected via Wywire cables. (I hope I got the components right). The room is treated with GK Acoustics bass traps and all round vertical maple diffusers. The system synergy was good. Quite often you find a dealer succumbed to using the brands he carries to conduct a demo, well, a compromised synergy that couldn't pull off the demo convincingly sometimes. AV Design didn't make that mistake, they managed a successful showdown. Applause, gentlemen. It didn't go unnoticed that the system was meticulously set up by Joseph Ki. Paul told me that Joseph was using a laser guide to speaker positioning with an uncompromising tight tolerance. Image what you'll get with the tweeters precisely levelled, a phenomenon occurs. Good thing doesn't come easy. The guys behind the work deserve the credits.
Holy cow! The first thing that makes me go gaga was the mids when it breaks the silence. From a psychology view, my intuitive reaction in a way reflects my very own midrange deficiency. Pity me. Astonishingly, Fenestria mids blew me away with unprecedented openness, purity and cleanliness. Topping it all off with the right amount of meat to the bone, surprise, surprise. No nasality or cupping was audible. Remarkably free of box colouration even though technically speaking, it is housed in an enclosure. The sound is uncluttered to establish a class on its own. The vent on the enclosure is the key, it resolves the internal pressure build up. The reason is obvious as to why PMC uses the 6.5-inch driver and not any bigger driver as most audiophiles would want, its sound priority is to attain an impeccable coherency in the time domain. I weight coherency over wide-bandwidth, think the timeless Quad ESL-63 in that line of the speaker. What I heard was a sound with adequate warmth and a top to bottom seamless-ness, and with bass. Magnificent.
Upon up-close observation, I couldn't detect the driver aggressive excursion nor much air gushing out from Laminair during the playing. The bass was clean, taut and zippy to produce an overall dynamic presentation. On heavy orchestral pieces, the bass was well behaved and room-filled although I found slight standing waves and cloudiness at the front row seat, approximately 10 feet from the plane of the speakers. You get a bassy presentation seated too low. Anyway, the front row seat isn't great to my ears, too close to the speakers and too low in ear height. I lost a little of the highs intensity at off-axis listening too. OK, I'm being overly critical. Nevertheless, the bass punched above its weight in terms of power thanks to Advanced Transmission Line, one of the PMC proprietary technologies.
Peter, Paul and Mary's Puff the Magic Dragon and Shanondoah sang by don't know shone, the amount of low-level detail and ambience captured in the recording were well retrieved, not to mention the difficult Cantate Domino that Joseph had picked to play. The man must have done his homework. The cathedral ambience was vivid and surreal as if the priest asked me, "Do you like the sound?" "Without hesitation, I do." In turn, albeit with lesser fidelity material, James Tan played pop rock materials, the real man music with greater audience appeals. I couldn't find fault with them. How I wish that Fenestria could punch a little more and then again, didn't you know audiophiles know nothing about greed? Alas, I'm comparing them against speakers twice or thrice the price. In all fairness, Fenestria wasn't fully broken in. There's some hardness to sound that nothing a prolonged playing couldn't make them go away.
The above listening impression comes with a caveat, as I already mentioned, the seating position must be spot on. If these criteria are met, you'll be rewarded with a breathtaking sonic holographic, lateral and front to back layering if you get what I mean. Forget about big sweetspot, there's only one throne in the house. Moving forward, you kind of know a person sonic presentation signature if you heard long enough. Mine will be different, I've no doubts yours too. All of us are inclined to emphasize certain sonic features. Our set of priorities are different that makes audioing interesting.
To conclude, MRSP RM230K is not a small price. There're a number of competing speakers in a similar price range and it's an investment to think through and through. Nevertheless, Fenestria is high in my speaker wishlist if I have the money. It's a big IF, I'm a poor guy but James agreed to sell one speaker and the other when I save enough. What presents before me is a pair of speaker that's easy, almost too easy to get a decent sound out of the box, none like the frustrating four towers speaker system. What's more, Fenestria presents an easy load on the amplifier. I stick my neck out saying this, Fenestria has a midrange to die for. And now the dust had settled, I feel disheartened to return to my midrange.
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