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pmb floats!

post #1 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:03pm
Thread Starter 
after waking up this morning i rushed to my mailbox, hoping that the day had finally come, when my endless work on the fields of the internet would bestow upon me, a humble peasant, the fruits of my labour.

what is this, dual drivers?


behold, the mysterious PMB 85! in all its foamy glory!

the drivers look a lot like the float 2 drivers, so perhaps this is just like a model 2 float only TWICE AS GOOD!!!

after resoldering a broken wire and replacing the foam (with the only foam i could find inside this "remote" fjord i currently study) they look as good as new


first of all i have to say that these things are tiny compared to the jecklin floats, perfect for trips downtown


after having only had them for a day, its still to early for any real impressions, but so far i like them a lot!
at first, there were little bass and highs were a bit painfull, but after refoaming them the bass came out of hiding and the highs were tamed.
as with all floats they have an enormous soundstage.

i will be posting more listening impressions (and pictures) as my brain adjust to them, but so far it´s looking good

anyone else know anything about the pmb 85s?
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post #2 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:09pm
Great restoration job there, they look very neat. Do they sound very different to the larger floats?
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post #3 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:13pm
Thread Starter 
the other floats i own are electrostatic so they sound quite different, but there are some similarities, among them the huge soundstage.
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post #4 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:17pm
Oooooooh, you got the rare Double Action version of the PMB-85!

Me and my PMB-100 and QP-85 are jealous!

interesting that one driver has a blocked back and the other just has some screen material over it's back, and you can essentially see right through it.
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post #5 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:18pm
Oh by the gods I want. WAnt. WANT. LD: etc.

Theres a huge resemblence to the Float 2 driver. The difference is in the damping on the back ring (the float 2 drivers use a donut ring magnet, so the centre is hollow). for both. You'll probably find that the lower, back driver is more bass oriented and the higher forward driver more mid centric with a lower efficiency rating. Are there any caps, resistors or coils anywhere?
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post #6 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duggeh View Post
Are there any caps, resistors or coils anywhere?
nope, only wires as you can see on the pictures.
but now i really want to try the ergo2, because these are awsome!
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post #7 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duggeh View Post
Are there any caps, resistors or coils anywhere?
You know, there's a 50pf ceramic cap in my QP85, and i'm not entirely certain what it does.

Yes, ceramic. there's nothing wrong with ceramics that small in audio circuits. Yes, i've considered replacing it with a film cap on principle.

edit: come to think of it, i may have a 50pf silver mica in the parts drawers . . .
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post #8 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:39pm
Wow, those things are sooooooo cool!

It's rare to get a good look at them close up and detailed. Thanks for the pics and great restoration job.
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post #9 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:40pm
Cheers!

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post #10 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:44pm
Hang on a minute. Those electrostatic floats look strangely familiar....
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post #11 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:49pm
Thread Starter 
WHAT! are you calling my floats a tramp!!!
it seems the float electrostats know their way around town
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post #12 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:55pm
Looking again the damping is clearly tougher in the top diaphragm and the bottom one at least is the same as th float 2 driver. Same core hole. That we can see thru it means that there's the tiniest damping, probably just a cloth to stop crap falling through into the membrane area.

When I took the damping off my Float 2 driver it went all bass, all muddle. confused mids and bad highs.

Cant tell what the top driver core damping is made off but it looks a damn site tighter. No mesh and foam, looks to be a dense cloth or paper/cardboard.
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post #13 of 21
4/15/08 at 8:59pm
Thread Starter 
its some kind of cardboard, so its completely sealed.
the other appears to just be a dust cover.
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post #14 of 21
4/15/08 at 9:07pm
Yeah, a complete seal vs a non-seal. One kills off the highs and the other kills off the lows, so you end up with a psudo-crossover based on damping. The danger that you face because of asymmetry then is that imaging gets thrown to all hell. It could be a bit like putting a speaker together with a sub in the bottom, a tweeter in the far center and not bothering with a midrange driver.
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post #15 of 21
4/15/08 at 10:16pm
Damn, I'm jealous. I'd love to get another float.
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