PMS ... Finished.

Finished the PMS ( Poor Mans Strads ) a few months ago now.

For my own use I may never replace them. The sound stage and tonal accuracy is nothing short of astonishing given the drivers I used. I'm sure with a better crossover and higher quality drivers they would sound even better. As Troels said about his set when he finished them, they may well be the only speakers one would ever need.

Apparently the Sonus Faber version of these ( which I haven't listened to ) are outstanding with a good set of mono blocks or a really good valve amp.
The Strads have had a Plinius 850 and a Sugden A21se running them and the control and detail is excellent. These have far exceeded my expectations.

Given that the woofer is an 8inch unit ( possibly a little small ), I modeled the enclosure with a tuning point of 34Hz, with roll off starting at about 50hz.
Measured performance & frequency response is 20Hz to 20000kHz. @ 107 Db peak and a minimum 91db. This was expected and is a very good result from the 8 inch driver. The speakers present a reasonably light load and at 91dB don't require a particularly large amp to drive them.
In fact bass performance is phenomenal, I haven't heard that depth of bass since my audio file days circa 1970's. Everything else I've owned has been in the 35 to 44 hz range with sub required ( designs are more HT orientated in low to mid order speakers such as my B&W DM 309's, which never really got low enough for my taste.)
I'm hearing bass notes in tracks that I had forgotten actually had notes that low.

Using the 6.5 inch Kevlar for the midrange with vented enclosure was an excellent choice. Vocal range and tonality is outstanding, voices have a clarity which makes the hair on the back of your neck standup ( you know what I mean :; ).

I went with a Titanium tweeter, which was risky as they can be quite harsh, but the accuracy of things like cymbals is a joy to hear. The down side, is that any poorly recorded harmonics are brutal, and sadly it appears I have quite a lot of poorly produced digital recordings and a few vinyl as well. The use of a silkdome would mitigate this a little and I am considering swapping then for a set of Dayton 28f silkies.

For those interested I did a build log on our local Hi-Fi forums. For anyone wanting a superb speaker and you have the room the effort to do a set of these will reward you for years to come.

PM or email me if you have any questions and I will endeavor to answer them.

Cheers
Ralph.