Utimate Studio Monitor?

To avoid additional disruption to the original "Why is 4 Way design dead?" thread I have copied several off topic posts and created this new thread.

I am not sure about the relative health of the 4-Way, but last week I was able to spend some quality time with an augmented 12” 2-way. This system is quite costly, especially compared to vintage 4-Ways, but it totally kicks their butts in every way! Finesse, accuracy, SPL... this system was simply amazing. If I could afford them financially and real estate wise, I’d be waiting for delivery!

https://www.whathifi.com/us/features...luehorn-system


Widget

Hey, Widget!

Looks like a purposed three-way to me. Even the Berkeley install has all three drivers in L-C-R. Did you hear just the two drivers in the top cabinet, or were you listening to all three drivers in two cabinets per channel?

I drive those Widget-delivered K2 S9900s actively with subs using BSS electronics with curves provided by Greg, so I consider them 3.5-way units. The SDA-4600 amps here driving the M2s also incorporate 18” subs into the channels, so the M2 is a functional three-way.

The blue horn looks cool, and I assume the $80k price includes the subs and optimization electronics but not amplification? I’ve got maybe $12k into K2s, subs, electronics, and amplification, and it’s conceivable that the Meyer gear is more than six times the product that the K2 system is. I doubt it, but, still, I’d love to hear it. (I guess at full retail, it would be 4x as costly.)

Yet, continuing the thesis of this thread I’ve yet to hear a two-way that did not benefit from augmentation either at the top or bottom (or both), so my subjective opinion is that a three-way properly constructed and equalized will be better than a two-way, and a four-way with advanced drivers, cabinetry, wave guide, and electronic optimization could be the best of all.

Now, if someone would just make it...

Augmented 12" two-way: GT's diy.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Widget

I am not sure about the relative health of the 4-Way, but last week I was able to spend some quality time with an augmented 12” 2-way. This system is quite costly, especially compared to vintage 4-Ways, but it totally kicks their butts in every way! Finesse, accuracy, SPL... this system was simply amazing. If I could afford them financially and real estate wise, I’d be waiting for delivery!

https://www.whathifi.com/us/features...luehorn-system


Widget

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Beautiful,is it a hi-end system?but it is too expensive:crying:

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Originally Posted by speakerdave

Augmented 12" two-way: GT's diy.

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And, come to think of it, Widget's Grand Master Ones, which may have been precedent.

GT's diy: 1500AL sub, 1200fe, horn plus supertweeter.
Widget's GMO's: sub1500, TAD 1102, horn plus supertweeter

The point being a long midrange.

My take on all this is that the JBL big 4-way monitor has been done. Great as it was, and still is, GT strongly advised us against the 10" at 300-1200 during the Project May affair. "That won't work," he said.

It's a retrograde step, unless, as Ari suggests, your ten can cross lower.

The hyper-engineered 14-15 from 30 to mid-high hundreds, from the 2235 and the TADs to the 2216 are terrific, but as the above two systems and Widget's link all show, there may be a next step.

The complicating factor is the specialist driver that can go sealed from <100 to >800 (1200fe?) is AWOL; the ones I'm aware of need a port or dedicated equalizing electronics.

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

Looks like a purposed three-way to me. Even the Berkeley install has all three drivers in L-C-R. Did you hear just the two drivers in the top cabinet, or were you listening to all three drivers in two cabinets per channel?

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The 12" two-way is not sold or meant to be used separately. That said, there is a lesser variant that I will describe in a bit.

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

The blue horn looks cool, and I assume the $80k price includes the subs and optimization electronics but not amplification? I’ve got maybe $12k into K2s, subs, electronics, and amplification, and it’s conceivable that the Meyer gear is more than six times the product that the K2 system is. I doubt it, but, still, I’d love to hear it. (I guess at full retail, it would be 4x as costly.)

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The $80K price includes everything but the cables and the factory tech visit to perform in-room calibration which is a mandatory addition. These speakers are all actively self powered and multi-amped. There is a purpose built outboard processor that handles room correction and dials in the speaker's phase, frequency response, etc.


Widget

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Originally Posted by speakerdave

Augmented 12" two-way: GT's diy.

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Yes, in many ways it is similar. GT used a 12" below the 4" compression driver and then added a sub. GT did have the benefit of a Be compression driver. The Meyer system is using aluminum, but with electronic help it is flat to above 22KHz and the distortion is exceptionally low. (Not sure how they are doing that.)


Widget

I heard the Blue Horn system at the Meyer Sound "Bear's Lab" demo room. It is a working mixing room for music and film. We listened to both 2 channel and surround mixes with and without video. There are two more Blue Horn systems at the rear of the room behind the mixing desk.

The system including room and room integration is so stunning, you just don't want to leave. The specifications are virtually text book perfect in both frequency response and phase response for the 20s up to beyond 20KHz. SPL capabilities are essentially limitless with no dynamic compression etc. etc....

Here is a picture of the room... it is not a large room, but it is much larger than this image makes it seem.


Widget
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Circling back on Dome's question of listening to the Blue Horn speakers without the subs. Meyer Sound does sell the Acheron Designer system which is very similar to the top end of the Blue Horn. It is not quite as refined, but I have heard it and it is also quite amazing and at $10K a pop a bit more approachable. It is intended for screen channels in mix down rooms and smaller screening rooms. We use them in home theaters and they are stunningly good. Without a sub, they are rated into the upper 30s.

Widget
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My last post on this... tying the thread back to Lansing Heritage.

When John Meyer started he was using Altec drivers and then later some JBLs. In both cases he would cull through pallets to get the units that met his particular requirements, but over the years they started building their own compression drivers first and then their cone drivers too.

My visit last week to their facility was my first in about a decade. I was amazed to see they are now building the vast majority of their drivers in house. Compression drivers, dome tweeters, cone woofers, their own custom electronics, the works.

And, they really are building them from the ground up. In the building where they were building cone drivers, I watched a woman pull a cup full of paper pulp from a vat of liquid and place it into a mold where the paper was pressed into a speaker cone before our eyes... near by was a fellow taking resin impregnated linen discs and stamping out accordion suspensions, at another station they were making domes, spiders, coils, etc... all so that they have complete control of the quality and consistency in the finished product. I bet James Lansing himself would have felt at home in this factory that is much more of a laboratory than a factory!

Widget

Sounds like a cool visit! No photos?

I recall seeing some of those functions at Balboa St in Northridge many years ago, before the real atrocities began. There were many proud American craftspeople with years of service who had the knowledge and the skill set to make great products, perhaps the best of their kind.

With globalization, it’s possible for workers around the world to learn and practice those skills, and it’s easier for corporations to exploit them.

it’s amazing to read about Meyer’s efforts to maintain a standard of excellence. Sadly, the price of that excellence exceeds the capacity of my wallet, and my general lack of enthusiasm for lackluster audio engineering in music and movies leaves me little motivation to overspend on equipment to listen to mediocre-sounding content.

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

Sounds like a cool visit! No photos?


With globalization, it’s possible for workers around the world to learn and practice those skills, and it’s easier for corporations to exploit them.

it’s amazing to read about Meyer’s efforts to maintain a standard of excellence. Sadly, the price of that excellence exceeds the capacity of my wallet, and my general lack of enthusiasm for lackluster audio engineering in music and movies leaves me little motivation to overspend on equipment to listen to mediocre-sounding content.

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Unfortunately they do not allow any photos.

As a private company, the founder’s vision and feeling of responsibility to their employees is not clouded by corporate greed or need for greater profits quarter on quarter.

True, this level of perfection is quite costly, but Meyer Sound primarily sells to businesses. Touring companies, movie studios, individual artists who demand the best tools for their art... the benefits of consistency and extreme reliability make up for the cost.

Regarding the cost of the Blue Horn system, while $80K is a heck of a lot of money, in the high-end audiophile world there are many speakers in this price range, and more still when you add in some of the super expensive audiophile amplifiers and speaker wires. With these self powered speakers all you need is a pair of pro audio balanced cables and your preamp.

That said, there are no exotic veneers, high gloss paints, or billet aluminum. Just some big utility cabinets.


Widget

Meyer Sound is aiming for: “powerful, full-bandwidth monitoring with zero phase shift… to offer completely flat amplitude and phase response across the entire audible frequency spectrum”.:applaud:
It’s absolutely unique in the world. I’ve spent the last 40 years working in studios for music and film, and I’ve never heard anything like it. And I never liked horn speakers before, and I never liked big speakers before.” :eek: