The PMC Prophecy 5 speakers represent a refined evolution of transmission line designs, offering exceptional clarity, balanced sound, and improved room integration for audiophiles seeking high-fidelity audio without the typical compromises of larger floorstanding speakers.
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If someone were to ask me what things
you look for in the design of a speaker,
one of the first things would be,
especially in a floor standing speaker,
a transmission line design. It takes the
back energy from drivers and funnels it
down a tube folded into a labyrinth for
convenience and packed full of damping
material to prevent unwanted frequencies
exiting the line. If designed correctly,
you get a crisp leading edge notes that
rivals the best sealbox speakers and a
bass extension and clarity that most
ported designs can only dream about. The
internal heavy bracing that goes
handinhand with a transmission line
speaker also deals with the main issue I
have with floor standing speakers below £5,000.
£5,000.
They tend to give up too much clarity,
soundstaging, and imaging performance to
equivalent price stand mounts. Even when
they're well constructed, the larger
cabinet and resonances associated with
it are apparent.
Transmission line speakers are more
complex to design and build. Modeling
software these days makes the job a
little bit easier, but the final design
still has to be refined by ear. I can't
think of another manufacturer that's in
existence today and has a stronger
association with transmission line
speakers than PMC. Their new compact
floor standers have been designed to
work in smaller rooms, about the size of
The professional monitor company was
formed in 1990 when Peter Thomas left
his job at the BBC made avail studios
and joined forces with business partner
Adrien Loa.
Right from the beginning, the first
speaker they designed was a transmission
line. The BB5 provided a reference for
many top studios and artists for decades
due to its great power handling and accuracy.
accuracy.
At the end of 2024, PMC launched their
new Prophecy range of speakers, a stand
mount, a center channel, and three floor
standers, replacing the 25i range. The
Prophecy 5 is the most compact of the
three floor standers, smaller and also
cheaper than the 2523i
it replaces. PMC claimed that the
reduction in base extension is minimal,
but the new speakers work better in
small to mediumsiz rooms.
The Prophecy Fives are priced at £4575
mm or 35.4x
6.5x 10.2 in. Each speaker weighs 17.7
kg or 39 lb. Three engineered wood
finishes are available, black and
walnut, natural walnut, and the medium
oak seen here, tipping the cap to sustainability.
sustainability.
PMC have been refining their designs
with each generation and the prophecy is
no different. Although the labyrinth
dealing with the backwave energy from
the midwuffer is familiar. What PMC
referred to as advanced transmission
line or ATL.
However, the previous generation had a
grill at the exit of the line which has
now been replaced by a solid piece of
extruded aluminum forming the entire
base. Termed Laminer X. It lowers the
center of mass and improves air flow,
reducing turbulence and harmonic
distortion by up to 3dB. According to PMC,
PMC,
the drivers have been customized to work
with the new cabinet, but are variants
from those used in PMC's professional
line of studio monitors. There's a 27 mm
1.1 in soft dome tweeter sitting in a
wave guide and covered with a grill to
aid dispersion.
At 1600 hertz, the 125mm 5-in mineral
cone midwuffer takes over. The tweeter
is able to play lower than usual due to
its size and the wave guide acting as an
acoustic amplifier.
No doubt it's a deliberate design choice
by PMC to move the crossover frequency
away from the 2,00 to 3000 hertz range,
which is where our hearing is most
sensitive to changes and is the typical
crossover point for most two-way designs.
designs.
The crossover uses high order slopes and
good quality capacitors. There's an air
core inductor on the tweeter network and
an iron core one on the midwuffer. The
military grade circuit board with thick
copper tracks and gold plating inspires confidence.
confidence.
Not much to see on the rear other than
one set of heavyduty speaker binding
posts. So, let me point out some other
key specs. base extends down to 40 Hz at
the minus 3dB point and sensitivity is
The most remarkable thing about the PMC
Prophecy 5s is how little attention they
draw to themselves. Yeah, they're
good-looking speakers, very slim. In
fact, in this 14 by 12 ft room, they're
visually less doineering than large
stand mounts. But I'm talking about
sonics, not aesthetics. So, let me start
with base qualities.
The similarly sized and stunning looking
Scan Sonic MB 2.5BS
produce more base weight. There's an
additional driver dedicated to 500 Hz
and below in this 2 and 1/2 design
retailing for £3,750
a pair.
Not much to tell them apart in mid-range
resolution, but the Prophecy 5s have the
tighter bass. They also don't have that
slight dip in the upper mid-range. It
gives the Scan Sonics a polite
presentation. Overall, the PMC speakers
are more balanced sounding. The
mid-range is not as open as the
Quadrilla 2s, a virtue of the three-way
design. The Rella Twos at £3,499
a pair offer excellent value for money,
but ideally need a bigger room than mine
for the bass not to become too
prominent. Like the Scan Sonics, the
quads also have that slight recess in
the presence region, somewhere between
2,000 and 4,000 hertz. It's forgiving of
bright recordings, but not as accurate
as the PMC's. There's that studio
heritage for you. This lack of
coloration, whilst not sounding sterile,
is on display whilst playing Restless
Fugitive by Willie Mason. The Prophecy
Fives capture the clarity of his vocals
with excellent separation of the reverby
guitar and baselines delivered with
great rhythmic drive. For the sake of
completeness, there are a few other
comparisons that I think are useful, but
these are speakers I reviewed a while
ago in my old listening room, so I can
only comment about the most obvious
differences and similarities.
The Prophecy Fives are a step up in
clarity over the Prodigy Fives. Although
at just under two grand a pair, the
Junior Siblings remain probably the best
value floor standing speakers I've had
the pleasure of reviewing.
The Neat Elite Classics at £3,499
a pair fall into the category of best of
the rest in this market segment. They're
also very well balanced sounding
speakers with similar mid-range fidelity
to the Profs.
The PMC's have extra bass heft and
definition thanks to the transmission
line design whereas the NES have a touch
better treble insight via their ribbon
tweeter. Another big difference is the
distribution of sound. The Prophecy 5s
have a much wider central sweet spot
with even distribution around the room.
They are controlled directivity design,
whereas the Leites are a lot less
forgiving unless you're sat in the
middle. It's a lot trickier to integrate
a ribbon tweeter with a cone midwuffer.
The £5,000 outer audio lessers are still
the best sounding speakers I've heard in
this new listening room, even though it
was before acoustic treatment. The
transmission line stand mounts have
greater resolution across the entire
frequency range than the PMC's.
They use more expensive drivers, but do
bear in mind that the equivalent floor
standing out audio Alex speakers cost 9
grand, double the price of the PMC
Prophecy 5s. Pearl Acoustic Sellia
speakers have cleaner bass and crisper
mid-range transients than the PMC's.
Harley spent years tweaking the Vo pipe
enclosure to get the most out of the
customized Mark Audio driver. The Selius
is now called the model one. They're not
cheap. I think I recently looked on the
website and they were €8,250
plus shipping and taxes, but you are
getting a handbuilt product with premium
materials for that money. They're a
little rolled off in the high
frequencies. There's only so much a full
range driver can do. I love to put a
fine audio super tweeter on them, but I
think Harley probably shoot me for
messing with his design. Anyway, enough
about that. What do you need to know to
You can get away with placing the PMC
Prophecy 5s fairly close to the wall,
but if you want to hear their full
potential in terms of soundstaging,
imaging, and clarity, especially in the
base, pull them out. I wound up with
them 1 m 39 1/2 in from the wall behind
them. That's measuring from the center
line of the front baffle and with a
moderate amount of towing. They were
pointing wide of my shoulders.
If you're interested in the distance
between the speakers, it's a shade under
2 m, 6'6 in, but your room's going to be
different and your mileage is going to
vary. The Prophecy speakers have been
designed to be easier to drive than the
previous 25i range, but they didn't pair
well with the Brunico Terra 300B
amplifier. The bass was too woolly. I'd
steer clear of tube amps with close to
singledigit power ratings.
My Wilson R8 with upgraded PS veain and
tungstall tubes tighten things up
considerably, but to get the best out of
transmission line speakers, you want
tight control in the lower registers.
And that's not what the R8 is about. My
advice for a good starting point would
be a solid state amplifier with about 75
W per channel on tap backed up with a
decent power supply. If you have a
couple of grand to spend on
amplification, I doubt you could do
better than the Exposure 2510.
However, these speakers respond well to
power. The Hegel H190 with 150 W per
channel, high damping factor, and plenty
of current was my most successful
pairing. The extra grip and control
allowed the dynamics and clarity of the
PMC transmission line speakers to shine.
My vintage exposure prepp powers open up
the mids but also slightly softened the
bass compared to the Hegel. So my advice
would be to pair these speakers with
amplifiers that have refinement but
plenty of power. Okay, time to wrap
PMC have improved the value proposition
of their mid-tier transmission line
speakers by reducing the cabinet size
and offering engineered wood finishes.
In doing so, they've made the Prophecy
5s friendlier to the wallet, smaller
rooms, and the environment.
The new Laminer X aluminium diffuser
forming the base of the speaker improves
air flow and aids stability. PMC states
that the resulting up to 3dB reduction
in distortion is significant over the
previous 25i series.
I never reviewed the 2523i,
but I can confirm that the Prophecy 5s
are one of the most well balanced
sounding speakers you can buy below £5,000.
£5,000.
They're clean, dynamic, and uncolored,
only losing a little bit in fidelity
compared to the best stand mounts around
this price. They respond well to
amplifiers with plenty of power. And
even though they can be accommodated
aesthetically and sonically fairly
easily in small rooms, ideally they need
a bit of space to breathe. Follow those
guidelines and you'll be rewarded. The
PMC Prophecy 5s get very highly
recommended from this channel. Things
are very competitive out there and it's
nice to see a manufacturer working hard
to offer more for less money. And that
brings me on to the question for today.
If you could update one of your favorite
speakers, what would you change and why?
Please let me know in the comment
section. I'm sure you know what to do by
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