[Duke]

I am in touch with a musician who has experience mastering very high quality recordings, and he has a requirement for a high resolution, wide bandwidth portable monitoring system to use on location.  So, I'm exploring several different concepts.

One of the most interesting approaches I'm looking at is a system that would be sort of like a portable active Jazz Module.  I think I can do a 70-pound active speaker that would be competitive with high quality prosound studio monitors that are heavier and/or more expensive.  I figure my competition is the ATC SCM 50; the PMC IB1S-A and IB2S-A; and the Klein + Hummel 0410.  Let me know who I'm leaving off this list, as this isn't an area I'm real familiar with.  I haven't figured out exactly what my specs would be, but ballpark 27 Hz to 20 kHz at around 112 dB max output.  I think I can do it for between 5 and 6 grand a pair.

Those of you in the prosound world (Russell Dawkins, for instance) - does this sound like a product that would be of interest in your world?  Is there a niche market for high quality wideband portable montioring speakers, and does what I'm describing here address those needs in your opinion?  The monitors mentioned above are all large stand-mount systems, and I'm thinking of doing a floorstander, as that would be more practical for transporation and setup on location.  Does that make sense to you?

Thanks,

Duke

[Russell Dawkins]

I will have to give this some of the thought it deserves but, in the meantime, my first response is that the market for such a speaker would be:
1/ extremely small in the first place
2/ dominated by brand names, because engineers typically take comfort in the fact that a large corporation with massive resources designed the thing. Clients do to a lesser extent as well, and engineers' choices can be influenced by what the client thinks of the brand in question. Another example would be Neumann microphones. They have become so thoroughly associated with the "big time" studios that many knock-offs look just like them.

Currently popular (and respected) brands for serious monitors are Genelec, Westlake, Tannoy, B&W, ATC, Harbeth (in England), PMC, Dynaudio, TAD and Lipinski (Sp?).
One rung down would be JBL, Mackie, KRK, Blue Sky and NHT.

[Duke]

Thank you, Russell!

I'll take a good look at some of the competition, and try to define a product that would compete in a broader range of categories than simply "wideband portable monitor". 

Best wishes,

Duke

[Greggo]

I probably know less than the average 5th grader about this stuff, but it would seem to me that this would  be a good place to start as Mr. Barefoot has apparently broken in to a very crowded field dominated by the big established names.  Here is the link:

http://www.barefootsound.com/products_mm27.html

Try a couple of different combinations of key words on Google and you will find lots of good discussion about the latest and greatest in the pro monitor world as well as various opinions on newcomers like Barefoot Sound.

I have thought about putting these on my future home audio wish list, as well as a few other "active" speakers, but there are a few things about active speakers I can't quite get over:

1) the assumption that none of them will image worth a damn, but I would be happy to be proven wrong...

2) My opinion regarding their aesthetics... much room for improvement from my point of view

3) I don't like anything electrical inside speaker cabinets other than the drivers and the wire needed to give them the proper signal... just like with subwoofers, it strikes me as very odd that one would want to place sensitive circuits in such a hostile environment.

I like the idea of an engineered system that includes dedicated stands that can be shot/sand loaded by the user, that contain room underneath them for a custom crossover/amp module, and that the amp module accepts a proprietary connector from the speaker wire "tails" that come out of the speaker and are directly sodered to the speaker driver terminals.  Speaker stands could be spiked, amp stand that sits inside the foot print of the stand would have it's own spikes and then maybe a sand box for amp module to "float" in and hopefully be subjected to far less vibration than it would otherwise, and then the nearly direct connection that the "tails" provide between amp module and speaker would all combine to form a superior framework for the flow of high end audio.  Just my two cents.

Regards,

Greg Jensen