High End 2017 • Hot Product

Why, you might well ask yourself, would a loudspeaker manufacturer want to, or feel qualified to, build an integrated amplifier? Well, in PMC’s case, the answer to the second point is simple: they’ve been building the active crossovers and amplifier modules used in their active models for years. As to the first, one suspects that it has more than a little to do with the rupturing of the company’s previously close cooperation with Bryston, leavened no doubt by more than a little sheer curiosity.

The new Cor integrated (£4995) is an all-analog unit, designed and built in the UK and based around a fully differential circuit. It offers four sets of single-ended and one set of balanced inputs and is conservatively rated at 95Wpc into 8 ohms and 140 in 4 ohms. Internal components were exhaustively blind-tested, including the PCBs themselves, and the construction features such niceties as mu-metal shielding for the power transformer.

But perhaps the most unusual feature is the defeatable tone and balance controls, based on motorized precision sliders more often used in mixing desks. PMC are only too aware of how studio mixes actually sound, as well as the compromises and challenges all too often encountered in domestic settings. Their carefully crafted tone controls are a considered response to exactly that situation. It will be fascinating to see how dealers and customers take to them.