Meyer Sound Amie Monitor Review

[MZKM]

Reserved.

 

[ocinn]

You can see them as LCR in the last photo here:

Interesting. Makes sense in a tonality matching context like you mentioned however personally I dislike working with small monitors like these, since they simply cannot offer the output and tactile sensation in the midbass range even with subwoofers. Seems like a compromise.

They would be perfectly suited for broadcast engineer use for live events however, who work for a production firm that carries a Meyer inventory.

Their Panther system focuses on not being too heavy to decrease shipping expenses and safety when hanging the speakers really high, so they definitely don't go for audiophile inert with their touring systems.

The benefit of Panther and their other active line arrays is not weight, as most acts do not tour with PA anymore (esp internationally), and rigging safety factors are so extreme that reasonable variations in box weight 99% of the time still comply easily with limits, but truck VOLUME (elimination of amp racks) for rental houses and production firms who locally deliver and strike systems.

FWIW Panther weighs a bit more than L’A K2, and D&B KSL, which are it’s competitors. Weight is not the advantage, it’s volume.

While Meyer Sound is ubiquitous in the live sound area, I never saw any of them in any studio. The build and connectors suggest more like a mobile broadcast or installation type usage, however the drivers aren't covered so it wouldn't be ideal, but the matching sub have a cover for some reason? There's still a big gap between Amie 6,5" and Bluehorns 12" or Acherons 15" drivers. 8" or even 10" Amie would be perfect, as it could be used without a sub

Spot on take. However the issue in my experience is midbass output capability. Any legitimate implementation of these would use subwoofer(s) but physically a 6.5” cannot move as much air to play a mid-bass focused “tactile chest slam” as a larger driver, subwoofer or not, especially not at reference levels.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think the narrow directivity which created the poor spatial effects that Amir mentioned would be a kill-off for me - ie it resulting that Amir felt like the music was only coming directly from the point source of the speaker rather than being more diffuse. I've got some good/wide directivity JBL 308p speakers and one of the most enjoyable aspects is that the speakers just disappear and you get a soundstage that extends smoothly between both speakers and even beyond the sides of the speakers - if instead it sounded like the music was coming directly from the speakers then this would be an immediate "no go" for me, so these narrow directivity "point source" Meyer Sound speakers being reviewed here would be an instant "no go". I marked them down for cost and also this lack of soundstage.

EDIT: after reading some of the other comments then it seems like this speaker's narrow directivity could be useful in pro applications in studios to avoid desk bounce, so perhaps in this very specific use case then it's better than I made out, but I don't think I'll change my vote.

 

[Robbo99999]

Not competitive with the Genelec/Neumann level at all.

Good point!!

 

[Geert]

While Meyer Sound is ubiquitous in the live sound area, I never saw any of them in any studio besides post production

30 years ago they already had a pretty popular (active) studio monitor, the HD-1. Very recognisable thanks to the green tweeter. It's still being used in some recording studio's. (Initially it was actually designed as a reference speaker to check their measurement microphones).



More details and discussion: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/meyer-sound-studio-reference-monitor.27008/

 

[holdingpants01]

30 years ago they already had a pretty popular (active) studio monitor, the HD-1. Very recognisable thanks to the green tweeter. It's still being used in some recording studio's. (Initially it was actually designed as a reference speaker to check their measurement microphones).

View attachment 315835

More details and discussion: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/meyer-sound-studio-reference-monitor.27008/

I remember it but never saw it in use, mostly on second hand market websites, though 8" was a good choice for 2 way speaker that could get away as a full range system

 

[Michael Fidler]

Quite pricey but aside from the port resonance and narrowing around 12kHz they look pretty good so voted fine...

I would agree that 0dBu is a bit too sensitive for such a loud level bearing in mind many balanced outputs are capable for 20V RMS, so adding the option to reduce the gain by 14dB to around 4V RMS for maximum output would suit a lot of systems better. I'm not sure what kind of balanced front end they're using but depending on the topology there could be audible hiss with the sensitivity so high...

 

[Adi777]

importance of bass response which research shows is responsible for 30% of listener preference.

Thanks for review. Could you please post some links about such research?
Best regards
Adrian

 

[Geert]

I would agree that 0dBu is a bit too sensitive

In Meyers papers you can find 2 different specifications:

1. "Nominal Input Level: +4 dBu or –10 dBV, switchable". (Note +4dBu is 1.228V, the American pro audio standard. -10dBV used to be the consumer standard)
2. "Nominal Input Sensitivity: 6dBV (2.0 V rms)". (Note that this is less sensitive than the European Pro audio standard, being +6dBu or 1.55Vrms)

Mixing desk outputs can provide a higher voltage, that's supposed to be kept as headroom.

 

[ocinn]

Quite pricey but aside from the port resonance and narrowing around 12kHz they look pretty good so voted fine...

I don’t think I will get into trouble for saying this but for companies like meyer, selling low volumes of products to consumer/individuals is extremely inconvenient and that is reflected in the publicly advertised cost. In fact Meyer is the only company in the “big3” that has any sort of publicly available purchasing and pricing info, which has always surprised me.

The majority of customers for these will be companies and firms which have an existing relationship with Meyer and have/are making $100k+ large volume orders, in which case the Amie’s will be heavily discounted down to dealer cost or lower.

Awhile ago an acquaintance of mine made a large purchase with a comparable company and they were given an equivalent product to these, for broadcast engineering use, at a 100% discount….

Not excusing any of their performance detriments, just giving perspective on pricing/value. Companies already in the Meyer ecosystem will be financially and ecosystem incentivized to grab these over possibly higher performing competitors.

 

[Chrise36]

While not exactly what you are asking for, the panthers should be an indicator of width and height.

Was thinking more next to a laptop or pc screen if possible.

 

[heraldo_jones]

They had an old model called 'HD-1' which was an allmighty product revered by critics and users. Would love to see it measured.

 

[thewas]

They had an old model called 'HD-1' which was an allmighty product revered by critics and users. Would love to see it measured.

The HD-1 was discussed in this thread, unfortunately the link with their measurements is not online anymore.

 

[Nicolas]

Driving the speaker at 0 dbu on the first test, I nearly jumped out of my chain in how loud the speaker played!

Chained to the Klippel are you ?
I knew ASR was a lot of work, but still...

 

[ocinn]

The HD-1 was discussed in this thread, unfortunately the link with their measurements is not online anymore.

https://www.docdroid.net/file/download/c5aqiS4/frequency-response-measurements-and-the-meyer-sound-hd-1-high-definition-audio-monitor-pdf.pdf

Found the pdf, apologies if the random hosting service I found doesn’t work, PM me for the direct file if it fails, just didn’t want to dox my identity with a google drive host publicly.

 

[Toni Mas]

8.000 $ for a pair of 6" 2 ways monitors?
Total waste...

 

[AudioSceptic]

This is a review, listening test and detailed measurements of the Meyer Sound Amie Studio (active) monitor speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $4,080 each (sold in pairs?).
View attachment 315757
The deep, horn like waveguide sets the speaker apart from its competitors. The large throat of the port and larger than normal enclosure (relative to its woofer) imparts similar feeling. Speaker is not that heavy despite having a large heatsink on the back:
View attachment 315758
As you see, or rather don't, there is only a balanced input and speakon type connector for power. There are no controls for gain, bass, treble, etc. I am fine and actually happy with the latter two but did wish to have a gain setting. Driving the speaker at 0 dbu on the first test, I nearly jumped out of my chain in how loud the speaker played!

Speaker is designed and built in Berkeley California. In other words, some of the highest labor costs possible.

Speaker was measured using Klippel Near-field Scanner. I could not find anything in the manual regarding acoustic reference so went for the tweeter. Measurement temperature was 67 degrees F.

Meyer Sound Amie Speaker Measurement
As usual, we start with our suite of anechoic frequency response measurements:
View attachment 315759
At macro level, response is flat and extends quite deep (F10 of 43 Hz). Focusing in, there are a lot of minor disturbances which we will diagnose shortly. The other big thing that stands out is the sudden drop in high frequency response as soon as the tweeter takes over around 1100 Hz. Company documentation states this is intention as to avoid console bounce and such.

Near-field response quickly shows that the front port is letting loose resonances that mix with on-axis response:
View attachment 315760

The woofer also has a couple of bumps but it has very controlled behavior above its pass band with resonances at very low levels.

The narrow tweeter response naturally impacts our early window reflections (assuming far field listening):
View attachment 315761

We see that all responses other than on-axis (represented as "Front Wall") are attenuated which is what they aimed. Once blended with on-axis response, the step is not as pronounced but is still there:
View attachment 315762

Again, this is for far field listening. Impact for near/mid-field listening would be less.

We already know the story on directivity but let's dig into directly:
View attachment 315763
View attachment 315764

Vertical directivity is specially tight:
View attachment 315765

Distortion is impressively low for such a small speaker:
View attachment 315766

View attachment 315767

While I didn't capture it, even at 103 dBSPL, the sweep sounded very clean with no sign of strain or distortion.

Waterfall graph is ruthless in the way it shows the port/woofer resonances:
View attachment 315768

Step function shows some kind of optimization in timing of the woofer and tweeter:
View attachment 315769

Meyer Sound Amie Listening Tests
Up to this point my impression was that "this is a good speaker but not great." That changed in an instant when I started to listen to it. That impressive and clean bass with practically unlimited dynamic response (in near-field listening) plastered a big smile on my face that remains up to this point! Sitting on axis, tonality is excellent as helped with bass response. Track after track not only sounded right, it also sounded beautiful.

On tracks with deep sub-bass, speaker simply didn't play that region making me thing there is a high-pass filter in there. This was the only miss.

Really, the sound was as perfect as I would wish it.

Note however that this is all with direct, on-axis response. Move to the left or right a few inches and highs drop right off. This also means that there are no spatial effects. With my eyes closed, the sound would come very focused form the speaker itself. Of course this is in mono. In stereo you would get a center image but I expect overall effect to be a smaller, more focused soundstage.

Conclusions
Active monitors have such a great advantage over passive speakers in the way they can be so optimized. Alas, many short change you when it comes to power, dynamics or deep bass. This is especially true in smaller monitors. I can fix frequency response errors in EQ but can't do anything about lack of power or too much distortion. It is clear that Meyer Sound put dynamics and clean power front and center. It gives up a small amount of precision but gives you all you want in dynamics which fits my priorities just fine. That said, I wish they would do a revision and put the port in the back.

I am going to put the Meyer Sound Amie monitor on my recommended list. It will be a model I will remember together with a small handful of other top performing studio monitors.

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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/

Amir, you say "I nearly jumped out of my chain". I think that should be "chair" but "chain" does conjure up some quite entertaining images ;-) Does someone chain you to the AP to make sure you get the measurements done?

 

[AudioSceptic]

A size comparison photo would be welcome for every product review.

I agree. The panther isn't much help because we don't all have one (or am I one of the odd-ones-out?). I suggest a CD case or LP sleeve.

 

[dominikz]

KH150 hits 1% only at 40Hz at 86dB. Without having to deal with all the little jaggy resonances this Meyer has.

Plus, waveguide engineering has proceeded way past the 10kHz DI bump this has. Seems like these guys haven't gotten the memo and are coasting off blind worship of their cottage industry designs like ATC.

Looking at available measurements it doesn't seem that the Meyer Sound Amie has any more bass max SPL capability compared toNeumann KH 150; if we compare the digitized max SPL graphs at 3% THD for both we get:

(Neumann KH 150 source)
(Meyer Sound Amie source)
Unfortunately the Amie was measured at 3% and 10% THD while the KH150 was measured at 1% and 3% - so we can't see a comparable THD level at 1% and 10%. Perhaps Amie can play louder at 10% THD than the KH150 can?

Given that KH150 seems to measure flatter out of the box, doesn't have resonances from the port, has built-in DSP/EQ and is a lot cheaper I also can't help thinking it is a better value out of the two.

 

[CrustyToad]

Superb that it was a speaker you now tested Amir. Speaker tests are and remain the most interesting thing to read, I think.

+1