PowerPlay MonitorsYou can't always predict in advance what will happen at a show or what will provide the most rewarding experiences.
We took our PowerPlay Monitors to the show just because we could. But I told my associates, in advance, that I would not interrupt the room to play them (since none of their equipment would be involved). I told them if someone wanted to hear them, I would invite them back after the show closed for the day for a private listening session.
This was a very large room, not one you would normally use to showcase a relatively small monitor. But we fired them up and they handled the room with ease and finesse.
When we developed this model, we were looking at providing a simple solution for individuals living in small apartment and currently using headphones, but wanting to set up a small system that performed admirably well without having to purchase a DAC, preamp and amplifier. Many of the people we had in mind simply don't have the room for floor standers and a rack of equipment. This solution would provide great performance for a very reasonable outlay.
The drivers we chose were Hiquphon tweeters like those that perform so well in our SongTowers and a solid but reasonably priced 6" driver from Seas. Like the W16 used in our Veracity ST's, this driver is mounted in the same size frame as their 5" drivers. So we could build a smaller cabinet and still get better bass extension than possible with a 5" woofer.
When I was creating the crossover, I calculated the driver offset to determine the delay I needed to apply to the tweeter in order to have the drivers align in the time domain. Then I set about to start creating the crossover with all the filters needed to smooth out the response. It was a quiet Saturday and I was alone in the shop with a friend who was in the back room cutting some panels for a pair of speakers he was building for himself.
I started applying filters to smooth out peaks and dips, listening to test tones and making minor adjustments. After about an hour, I noticed that the resulting FR plot looked unusually flat. I had never seen a frequency plot that was that flat before. So at one point, I uploaded the resulting crossovers into a pair of speakers and went back to get my friend. I told him I hadn't listened yet, so I didn't know how they would sound, but told him to take a look at the FR plot. He, too, had never seen anything like it. So we fired them up and I watched as he began to grin. After a very short while, we were both laughing.
I knew these little monitors were good. But I had only heard them in the shop so I had no idea what to expect when we finally exposed them to the world at AXPONA. Well, all I can say is that this was the highlight of the show for me personally.
At a show like this, speaker designers like to get around to one another's rooms just to chat about speaker design and to see what others are doing. I had printed a little poster for the monitors and I included an FR graph on it. When designing it, my wife Mary said it was too busy and I should remove the FR plot. I told her it had to stay and for a very good reason. When other speaker designers came into the room, I would take them over to the poster and show them the plot. Then I would sit them down for a listen. In almost every case, they would shake their head in amazement. It turns out these little monitors are FAR better than even I had appreciated. Without knowing it, I had set the price far too low.
People would come into the room, hear them, and then run out and grab their friends. In the end, even though none of the other vendor's equipment was used to demo the PowerPlay Monitors, my partners didn't mind because those little monitors brought a lot of people to our room.
At one point, a Seas engineer came into the room and immediately recognized the woofer. While it was playing, he scratched his head and had a very puzzled look on his face. He finally came over and asked how I got those woofers to play so deep...and with authority! I asked him how he got that driver to sound so good. We shook hands and laughed.
One listener approached me and told me he thought they were the single finest speakers in the building...period. I told him that was certainly not the case, but thanked him for his comments. Others told me to quit making every other model in our lineup and concentrate solely on marketing these.
I very much enjoy attending shows and there is always something memorable that takes place. For this show, although the PowerPlay monitors will likely never sell in large quantities, playing them for people was the most fun for me personally.
All in all, I think this was by far our most successful show ever. I came away with a raft of ideas for a range of new products. Unfortunately, being a small company with limited resources, I will have to pare that list down a bit to make it more reasonable. But I hope we can introduce some great new products next year as well.
Sorry to be so long-winded today, but I thought perhaps writing this up might provide some insight into what it is like doing a show from an exhibitor's perspective. We are a very small company with limited resources, so it takes a lot of planning and hard work to get everything together for a show like this. But we normally get a lot of very positive feedback and that makes it all worthwhile.
- Jim
