Meyer Sound Amie Monitor Review

[holdingpants01]

No, did I mention Neumann or Genelec?

There were the only serious companies to compare mentioned in this thread and KH150 is half the price, so not directly but kind of

 

[Mr. Widget]

There were the only serious companies to compare mentioned in this thread and KH150 is half the price, so not directly but kind of

My point was that Meyer is a tool and not a hifi speaker. There are those on this forum who are armchair warriors who make up their minds on the value of a product based on measured performance and don't consider other aspects of the product.

There are lots of good and even great speakers that have better or at least similar performance at far lower prices than the Amies. Do these other manufacturers offer exceptional product support for decades even after the product is retired, in most cases no. Do they offer speakers that are individually tested with verified unit to unit consistency? In most cases no.

Yes, the Amies are expensive and as Amir pointed out, part of that cost is that they are hand built in Berkeley California. They are not just assembled in California, in many cases even the paper for the cones is made in house. Meyer is very concerned with manufacturing control and product longevity and consistency. I personally find that worth the cost.

 

[Ron Texas]

These are too similar to the 708P to be worth twice the price. Equivalent preference scores, better than typical dynamic range for their class and both appear to sound subjectively better than their preference score would suggest. Movie studios can spend what they want. For the rest of us peons it's a personal decision. Yeah, honey, I had to have them. Then she said, pack your bags. The price difference is because the JBL's are mass produced (in Asia?) and the Meyer is hand built in Berkeley. Does hand built in Berkeley make it sound better? This one sure has the troops riled up

 

[amirm]

This is unacceptable for home listening IMO especially regarding the price.

My testing was in near-field where the coverage cone is very small. In Hi-Fi listening, you would place the speaker much farther and with it, get larger coverage.

 

[amirm]

I wish that some people would maybe pause and think or wait before commenting however.

One of the main reasons I test these monitors is for audiophiles cross shopping pro products for music enjoyment. In that regard it is fine for them to evaluate the products based on those priorities. Indeed the owner of this speaker is an audiophile and not a pro.

Thinking about it, almost all Pro products are sent in by audiophiles and not Pros. We do have a lot of Pros here but surprisingly they send little to no product in for testing.

 

[GXAlan]

We certainly agree the speakers disappear in our two cases (you with your 708p and me with my 308p (both JBL)), and it's perhaps a little true what you say re headphone sound, but that's only because the speakers disappear and I feel totally engulfed by the musical stage - it spreads within me and all around to the sides - it's an imaginary soundfield that is a result of the music design and fact that the speakers dissolve (no sensation of two point sources).

I'd love to try that track with the Amie's when they come back. That's the difference of the 708P at $4200 MSRP, which I've listed here for $2250 used and the Meyer Amie's at $8160 MSRP, but I got a discount on as demo unit.

That "little bit of headphone sound" isn't bad at all. But imagine having a sound stage that still feels like you are still engulfed by the music but you lose that headphone sound and you start to have the sense that you're there are a concert where the image is in front of you when it's supposed to be in front of you but all of the ambience is still there.

If there was a $50 upgrade, you'd probably pay it. As the price goes up, you're less likely to pay for it.

The way I look at it, it's a lot more expensive to try to remodel my listening room to be bigger, so rationalized that way, the price premium isn't as bad

Phase trickery in special recordings and movie effects does not replace spaciousness that results from early reflections / pattern width. Which is why it is possible to asses from mono listening to the width of the pattern if the speakers will sound spacious or not.

Why not test them, before the return window has closed?

In your mind, other than smoother FR, how would the JBL 708P and KH150 differ in sound?

The way I look at it, I heard differences and the measurements show that there are differences. Is it better or just different? Definitely bad resonances and unusual directivity from what we expect to be standard.

Factoring in circle of confusion, I am likely to keep the Amie’s for the belief that the differences are more likely to be correct given what is being used at the studios mastering the content I am listening to.

What I want to see are the subjective impressions of others with Genelec’s and Newman’s EQ’ing to match Amie and then deciding how it sounds.

Exactly -- above 100Hz, the 8351B is cleaner at 96dB than the Amie is at 86dB. That really puts it into perspective

For sure. The Neumann Kh150 is the good choice for a smaller speaker. The larger 8351B is the good choice for the same budget but tolerating a bigger speaker.

It's just hard to reconcile this performance level with Meyer's billing in pro audio as the pinnacle of engineering.

Some people seem weirdly emotionally invested in forgiving the pretty obvious flaws of this speaker. Also funny that the company itself seems to be aware of them, but because they say they're 'intentional' then somehow they should just be accepted. Whatever Amir's subjective listening test tells us/him, why would anyone buy these feature-poor monitors with second-rate performance over the demonstrably superior offerings from Neumann or Genelec, and at (more than) double the price?

These are mine, so definitely an emotional investment here. That said, if you search my history, I have bought and returned Focal Vestia’s and JBL L52 Classics and JBL Studio 590s.

So my bias as purchaser is real but I am not afraid to return stuff if I don’t like it and I am still in my return window.

My bias as listener is real. There are speakers that I reject outright and others that I like but end up selling later because they don’t have consistency.

As stated above, I like these because they sound different. They sound different in that they don’t have that headphone-like imaging that can happen with mid field (8 ft) listening with the JBL 708P or narrow width soundstage of a Rogers LS3/5a. They sound like I am in a bigger room than I really am, and I have not had that experience when listening to coaxial and non coaxial Genelec.
I have not listened to the KH150. We know they have a non traditional outcome on spinorama.

I run the risk of just having having buyer’s rose tinted glasses, but I genuinely believe that once you are in the JBL 308p range, you’re well past the point of diminishing returns and it’s the mastering and source quality that makes the biggest difference. Once you introduce circle of confusion, that argues for using the same speakers used in the studios producing the content you listen to the most.

Along those same lines, I cannot convince anyone that it sounds different spatially. I cannot convince anyone that it’s worth the price because the frequency response irregularities are minimized in stereo and the ability to do a room remodel with no permits, construction woes by switching out a speaker is cool. All we can say is, I heard the high frequency rolloff that was initially disappointing despite having the bias of the flat anechoic measurements. I am telling you that there is something this speaker does in stereo that is unique. Amir had presented measurements and in a way, it’s also worthwhile to know that his opinion subjectively exceeds what you would expect.

It would be better to be even flatter FR and have even less distortion and have even fewer resonances. Those are all clear weaknesses along with price. But the effect of speakers disappearing and seeming to be further back in the room and intelligibility/balance in recordings like Hotel California on Hell Freezes Over is a real wow.

I don’t know what gear was being used back in the 90s, but Warner Bros runs Meyer Sound now.

There were the main competitors in this thread and KH150 is half the price, so not directly but kind of. What were you comparing to black and decker exactly?

Conceptually, the idea is that for 2x the price, what do you get?

1) You get cooling that isn’t dependent on not blocking the vents like the KH150 is. There are no vents on the Amie. Meyer does recommend 3” behind the Amie, based upon their official spec of 2 hours at 120 dB music-noise.

2) You get reliability features like integrated surge protection that suppresses high voltage transients up to several kilovolts. You can plug in and unplug them without any thumps.

3) Meyer has a more sophisticated limiter letting you push the dynamics higher

These are too similar to the 708P to be worth twice the price.

The problem is that the one guy who has both (me) is telling you these things sound completely different set up at 8 ft listening distance that it’s not even silly. The fact that they sounded different, and the circle of confusion series that the difference favors the Amie being correct, I was pretty much set on them unless they showed up as a headless panther and it was all sighted bias.

 

[amirm]

Erin's usual choice is compression testing, which apparently is kind of a pain to do, but it does show a speaker's limits pretty well.

What he is doing/showing in most cases it not compression testing. Variations in frequency response across the whole audio spectrum does not indicate such especially where in some cases he actually shows the inverse relationship. True compression testing is a long term test where components really heat up. They are not going to do that in a couple of sweeps. Such Null tests are very sensitive and over-demonstrate changes in the system so care needs to be there in interpreting them.

 

[IamJF]

Meyer Sound - cool to see one of their products here!
It's a pitty that they couldn't solve the narrow radiation in the 10kHz area, that's a common problem with deeper waveguides. When Meyer can't do it better ... I better stick with more shallow ones
And the midrange resonances of the port.... I really dislike these.

Would be VERY interesting if you can hear these in a "proper" listening setup in Stereo and a little more distance, so you also get the room response. And OF COURSE in comparison to the KH150!

 

[gnarly]

2) Lack of attenuators. There’s no way to reduce noise by running the preamp hot and cutting at the amp.

In-line XLR attenuators. Easy peasy. Common in prosound toolboxes.
I use this adjustable one, -10, -20, -30 dB.....with some big Meyers that are about 20 dB more powerful than the Amie's.
(and have the same type, no-controls input panel)

 

[Mr. Widget]

In-line XLR attenuators. Easy peasy. Common in prosound toolboxes.
I use this adjustable one, -10, -20, -30 dB.....with some big Meyers that are about 20 dB more powerful than the Amie's.
(and have the same type, no-controls input panel)

View attachment 315984

While useful in some applications these won't reduce the self noise.

 

[Zensō]

Lovely monitor, cool company, what’s not to like (other than the price)?

 

[IamJF]

Lovely monitor, cool company, what’s not to like (other than the price)?

That's a pretty perfect description of Meyer Sound

 

[changer]

In your mind, other than smoother FR, how would the JBL 708P and KH150 differ in sound?

The way I look at it, I heard differences and the measurements show that there are differences. Is it better or just different? Definitely bad resonances and unusual directivity from what we expect to be standard.

To be frank, I assume the KH 150 sounds basically the same as the Amie, just better.

The signature of both Amie and KH 150 is very similar, which is why you might be get away with the KH 150, when considering circle of confusion where your favorite studio produced the content:

Easily compare loudspeakers measurements

www.spinorama.org

Other than this, the KH 150 scored a preference rating of 6.9 over the Amie at 5.1, which is significant. And even post-EQ, score only raises to 5.6 and @pierre suggests to stick with manufacturer settings:

Meyer Sound Amie Monitor Review

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?). The deep, horn like waveguide sets the speaker apart from its competitors. The large throat of the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Linear distortion is very important. I think the KH 150 will sound more detailed, the image will be more clear and coherent, due to its well engineered port and the optimized enclosure that integrates baffle edge diffraction peaks cleanly. The high level resonance of the port of the Amie messes up its midrange, you have two transducers there, the port and the woofer. The cancellation below port resonance, peaking at port resonance, will clearly be detrimental. Maybe still perceptually masked, but I would not bet.

 

[gnarly]

What he is doing/showing in most cases it not compression testing. Variations in frequency response across the whole audio spectrum does not indicate such especially where in some cases he actually shows the inverse relationship. True compression testing is a long term test where components really heat up. They are not going to do that in a couple of sweeps. Such Null tests are very sensitive and over-demonstrate changes in the system so care needs to be there in interpreting them.

Hi, What's your definition of compression testing? It sounds like thermal, (which is mine also).
M-Noise or whatever the new AES implementation of it is called, appears to do a good job of defining/quantifying thermal compression.
And like you say, compression is a longer term, heat-em-up, type test.

The other, and I think more prevalent form of SPL limitation (for home audio in particular), I think is excursion limiting, especially within tolerable distortion allowances.
I see excursion limiting as coming from, either drivers running out of excursion in their passbands, or amps being unable to provide needed power to reach full driver excursion.

I really wish some form of AES standardized sweep test would arise for excursion, like Meyer's M-Noise did for thermal.

 

[RobL]

I'd love to try that track with the Amie's when they come back. That's the difference of the 708P at $4200 MSRP, which I've listed here for $2250 used and the Meyer Amie's at $8160 MSRP, but I got a discount on as demo unit.

That "little bit of headphone sound" isn't bad at all. But imagine having a sound stage that still feels like you are still engulfed by the music but you lose that headphone sound and you start to have the sense that you're there are a concert where the image is in front of you when it's supposed to be in front of you but all of the ambience is still there…

The “you are there” vs. the “they are here” difference in sound you hear many audiophiles speak about?

 

[beagleman]

My point was that Meyer is a tool and not a hifi speaker. There are those on this forum who are armchair warriors who make up their minds on the value of a product based on measured performance and don't consider other aspects of the product.

There are lots of good and even great speakers that have better or at least similar performance at far lower prices than the Amies. Do these other manufacturers offer exceptional product support for decades even after the product is retired, in most cases no. Do they offer speakers that are individually tested with verified unit to unit consistency? In most cases no.

Yes, the Amies are expensive and as Amir pointed out, part of that cost is that they are hand built in Berkeley California. They are not just assembled in California, in many cases even the paper for the cones is made in house. Meyer is very concerned with manufacturing control and product longevity and consistency. I personally find that worth the cost.

I still "See" it as $8,000 for 2 little speakers.


Yes it looks to have good measurements and all, but I am not sure it is a "Value" issue, or simply feels like a LOT of money one would just sorta Throw away on this.
I mean there is some point, where a product is just laughably over priced. I think for many this is at or very close to that point.

 

[gnarly]

While useful in some applications these won't reduce the self noise.

Oh yes they will !! Or at least have with all my Meyer stuff.
I personally think 95% of "self noise" is bad gain staging

 

[jhaider]

Other than this, the KH 150 scored a preference rating of 6.9 over the Amie at 5.1, which is significant.

Is it, though?

IMO there’s way too much emphasis on PIR (especially differences in the statistical region), and thus by extension preference score here.

Note this is solely a comment on the utility of PIR/pref score and not related to a comparison of these two speakers.

 

[Ron Texas]

Time for a car analogy. You can buy a Corvette for around $80k. It's stupid fast and looks like a race car. The imports cost 3 or 4 times as much. What's the difference? Fewer people get to drive the imports.

 

[gnarly]

Hey all, I'm not one to talk about prices of things I've bought, seems like kiss and tell.

But when i bought my Meyer stuff, I barely knew the difference between unbalanced and balanced, and what I'd have to do to hook up the speakers.
IOW,i was an ordinary average home audio consumer. But I searched around and found proaudio MSRP has little to do with street price.

$8000, or whatever the stupid sweetwater price is ??? No way friends....lot's of downward room if you truly search.

I'm not in anyway saying I think Amie is all that desirable. Honestly with a speaker that small, for its intended use, I'd look at Neumann, Genelec, etc alternatives very close.
I just don't think there are the real world price comparisons being discussed.