This is a review and detailed measurements of the IK Multimedia iLoud MTM Monitor (active speaker). I purchased it when it was on sale for US $299 on Amazon. Normal cost is US $350 (each) with the calibration/EQ microphone.
Despite being quite narrow and rather small, the iLoud MTM has a quality feel and weight to it:
From stand to the speaker enclosure, it looks and feels kind of like Genelec. Of course the configuration of dual mid-woofers and tweeter is unlike Genelec.
Back panel shows a unique feature:
There is a mic plug that once utilized with the included microphone, performs some kind of calibration. Sadly there is no software that came with the speaker to see what it is measuring and what it is correcting. They have such software on their site but I don't think you get to use them for free (I recall them costing something like $149).
Here is a close up shot of the controls:
There is a bass extension which I left in the default 50 Hz. All other settings were neutral during testing. As you see, I had to turn the gain way down to test the unit. So even though we have balanced input, sensitivity is quite high even in +4 dBu mode.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of 1 to 2%.
Temperature was 58 degrees F although the speaker was in much warmer environment prior to testing. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
All measurements were referenced to tweeter center. I tried to prop the unit up vertically but only succeeded in having it tilt back a couple of degrees.
iLoud MTM Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws: (note: actual SPL = 86 dB)
I must stay, I did not expect such a nice frequency response out of this speaker! The word "multimedia" makes me think of mostly junk consumer speakers for computers. The iLoud MTM firmly belongs in "pro" space with this kind of good on-axis response and reasonable directivity. The sharp drop off in bass indicates good use of DSP to flatten bass way better than these two little midwoofers could do by themselves I suspect. Sure, there are some resonances but their overall effect seems mild.
Measuring each radiating surface at close distance shows us potential source of those resonances:
Seems like both the port and woofer (s) have resonances around 2 to 4 kHz causing slight response errors.
Early window response shows more of a mid-range dip so avoid ceiling reflections if you can:
Predicted in-room response is for far field listening in a typical room so not as applicable to monitors on a desk:
Still, results are pretty good.
Depressing news was waiting for us though in the form of distortion and SPL testing:
86 dBSPL response on the left is fine and shows very low distortion from midrange to upper treble. 96 dBSPL though shows "conduct unbecoming a pro monitor!"
I could hear alien sounds as I ran the sweeps! Spec oddly says 101 dBSPL and I but not sure how they got that:
There is not a lot of directivity control but given the small woofers, the situation is not too bad:
There is more than usual freedom in vertical axis as well:
Given the short distance to such monitors though, it is easy to go over the thresholds listed so use the tilt mechanism built into the base to point the tweeter at you.
iLoud MTM Speaker Listening Tests
It took all of 5 seconds with the first female track to know that the tonality of this speaker was "right." Sound was neutral yet beautiful. Track after reference track worked just as well regardless of genre. There was decent amount of bass as well.
I wondered what the auto-EQ would do so I plugged in the mic and followed the instructions to start the calibration. Alas, it was a hurried process giving me just 5 seconds to run back from the back of the speaker to my listening chair. Anyway, calibration happened very quickly. The result was disappointing though. Bass was cut way back and treble seemingly increased. The resulting sound was light and bright. I suspect the measurement showed room modes but it was too aggressive in cutting them back seeing how with a small speaker some amount of room reinforcement should be left in there. Or at least a bass boost with a shelving filter. I am just guessing here though as we really need a graph or our own measurements to see what is going on. Better results may be possible if someone less lazy than me spent time on it.
I should note a serious deficiency here: there is just no dynamic range here. Turn up the volume a hair beyond average and the clipping indicator blinks red. Go up a bit more and you are greeted with awful distortion from the little woofers. And that gap is very small. While I can get just about enough volume out of any active speaker, here I could not. I had to run the volume down to avoid clipping. A pair of them may still be satisfying but I only bought one speaker so can't test that hypothesis.
Conclusions
The iLoud MTM sounds and kind of looks like a "multimedia" speaker but it clearly enjoys much better design. Tonality is neutral and sound is wonderful as a result. My only beef with it is that it just doesn't get loud even though its amplification specs are better than most budget monitors. I suspect fair amount of headroom is stolen internally to equalize the speaker and give it good bass. So if you expect to play it loud, these are not for you. And most definitely don't think of using them in far field listening.
I am going to recommend the IK Multimedia iLoud MTM Monitors. What they do within their capability is excellent. I personally would not buy them because they don't get loud enough but you may have different priorities.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Despite being quite narrow and rather small, the iLoud MTM has a quality feel and weight to it:
From stand to the speaker enclosure, it looks and feels kind of like Genelec. Of course the configuration of dual mid-woofers and tweeter is unlike Genelec.
Back panel shows a unique feature:
There is a mic plug that once utilized with the included microphone, performs some kind of calibration. Sadly there is no software that came with the speaker to see what it is measuring and what it is correcting. They have such software on their site but I don't think you get to use them for free (I recall them costing something like $149).
Here is a close up shot of the controls:
There is a bass extension which I left in the default 50 Hz. All other settings were neutral during testing. As you see, I had to turn the gain way down to test the unit. So even though we have balanced input, sensitivity is quite high even in +4 dBu mode.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of 1 to 2%.
Temperature was 58 degrees F although the speaker was in much warmer environment prior to testing. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
All measurements were referenced to tweeter center. I tried to prop the unit up vertically but only succeeded in having it tilt back a couple of degrees.
iLoud MTM Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws: (note: actual SPL = 86 dB)
I must stay, I did not expect such a nice frequency response out of this speaker! The word "multimedia" makes me think of mostly junk consumer speakers for computers. The iLoud MTM firmly belongs in "pro" space with this kind of good on-axis response and reasonable directivity. The sharp drop off in bass indicates good use of DSP to flatten bass way better than these two little midwoofers could do by themselves I suspect. Sure, there are some resonances but their overall effect seems mild.
Measuring each radiating surface at close distance shows us potential source of those resonances:
Seems like both the port and woofer (s) have resonances around 2 to 4 kHz causing slight response errors.
Early window response shows more of a mid-range dip so avoid ceiling reflections if you can:
Predicted in-room response is for far field listening in a typical room so not as applicable to monitors on a desk:
Still, results are pretty good.
Depressing news was waiting for us though in the form of distortion and SPL testing:
86 dBSPL response on the left is fine and shows very low distortion from midrange to upper treble. 96 dBSPL though shows "conduct unbecoming a pro monitor!"
I could hear alien sounds as I ran the sweeps! Spec oddly says 101 dBSPL and I but not sure how they got that:There is not a lot of directivity control but given the small woofers, the situation is not too bad:
There is more than usual freedom in vertical axis as well:
Given the short distance to such monitors though, it is easy to go over the thresholds listed so use the tilt mechanism built into the base to point the tweeter at you.
iLoud MTM Speaker Listening Tests
It took all of 5 seconds with the first female track to know that the tonality of this speaker was "right." Sound was neutral yet beautiful. Track after reference track worked just as well regardless of genre. There was decent amount of bass as well.
I wondered what the auto-EQ would do so I plugged in the mic and followed the instructions to start the calibration. Alas, it was a hurried process giving me just 5 seconds to run back from the back of the speaker to my listening chair. Anyway, calibration happened very quickly. The result was disappointing though. Bass was cut way back and treble seemingly increased. The resulting sound was light and bright. I suspect the measurement showed room modes but it was too aggressive in cutting them back seeing how with a small speaker some amount of room reinforcement should be left in there. Or at least a bass boost with a shelving filter. I am just guessing here though as we really need a graph or our own measurements to see what is going on. Better results may be possible if someone less lazy than me spent time on it.
I should note a serious deficiency here: there is just no dynamic range here. Turn up the volume a hair beyond average and the clipping indicator blinks red. Go up a bit more and you are greeted with awful distortion from the little woofers. And that gap is very small. While I can get just about enough volume out of any active speaker, here I could not. I had to run the volume down to avoid clipping. A pair of them may still be satisfying but I only bought one speaker so can't test that hypothesis.
Conclusions
The iLoud MTM sounds and kind of looks like a "multimedia" speaker but it clearly enjoys much better design. Tonality is neutral and sound is wonderful as a result. My only beef with it is that it just doesn't get loud even though its amplification specs are better than most budget monitors. I suspect fair amount of headroom is stolen internally to equalize the speaker and give it good bass. So if you expect to play it loud, these are not for you. And most definitely don't think of using them in far field listening.
I am going to recommend the IK Multimedia iLoud MTM Monitors. What they do within their capability is excellent. I personally would not buy them because they don't get loud enough but you may have different priorities.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
