PMC celebrates 30 years of loudspeaker production

Founded in 1991, PMC is celebrating its 30th anniversary of the design and manufacture of both audiophile and professional loudspeakers. At the time of launch, founder and CEO Peter Thomas (pictured above) was an engineer at the BBC, the organization which also at the time needed a monitor which could handle the “…high sound levels required for pop and rock monitoring, but with ultra-high resolution.”

The resulting speaker produced by Thomas and colleague Adrian Loader was the ‘Big Box’, renamed the BB5 shortly thereafter, and subsequently installed at BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in London. The company’s first domestic loudspeaker was the LB1 targeted at audiophiles. Peter Thomas stated, “In terms of music reproduction, there shouldn’t be a distinction between a loudspeaker designed for studio use and one for domestic use – the speaker is either reproducing the music correctly or it isn’t.”

The idea here was to make sure that development work on high-resolution speakers for professional environments should be interchangeable with home products, and vice-versa. The company’s QB1 monitors can be found at Capitol in Los Angeles, for example, and perhaps most relevant for home theater enthusiasts, PMC has partnered with Dolby to install multiple Atmos immersive audio mixing rooms around the globe for both movies and music. Among other accolades, PMC speakers were also chosen by the Rolling Stones for the Atmos presentation at the band’s ‘Unzipped’ exhibition.

PMC now has 60 employees and, although still based in the UK, also has offices in Los Angeles, Nashville and New York, while manufacturing takes place at two facilities in the home country. As well as extending thanks to his company’s staff and customers for 30 years of partnership, Peter Thomas recently added that he’s looking forward “…to the next chapter in the PMC story.”