It’s perfectly reasonable to ask if the Amie works as an audiophile product.
1) Why not get the Neumann Kh150 if the price is way cheaper and it measures better and has more features?
2) Why not get the Genelec 8351B if the price is the same and it measures better?
My answer is pretty clear:
most audiophiles probably
should get the other speakers since it’s a
safer recommendation backed by measurements.
Yet, I am pretty sure I am going to keep these if my first impressions are consistent during the trial period.
I am not trying defend the product or convince you of my decision. I am instead trying to share my experience since that is what discussion and science is about. We can simulate speakers with headphones and customized HRTF. Maybe we can simulate other speakers with neutral speakers, so if anything, these measurements might help others who don’t buy the Amie but can learn something from the experience.
In the beginning
It all started with Ahsoka and my Monolith HTP-1. With Dirac, it was easy to load a Harman-official Dirac curve and compare it to the StormAudio Dirac curve.
The sound of blasters and lightsabers were vastly different in terms of sound character/timbre from the FR difference.
Which is correct? Should these lightsabers be raw and strident, reflective of the fallen Jedi Order and the progression toward the harsh sound of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber? Or am I just hearing sibilance and a HF boost for what should be a weapon of a more civilized time?
Is what is on the recording that is reproduced by my setup what the director and recording engineers intended for playback? Is it possible to have a superior experience to even what the director heard?
Also while watching Ahsoka, there is a rapid roll off in bass in the recording. Using community-sourced BassEQ enhances the fun factor/experience.
So what is more important? Reproducing exactly what’s on the recording? Optimizing my in-home experience? Some variant of both?
This led me down the path of trying to figure out what Skywalker Sound used in its studios and I learned about the Meyer Sound Amie. Of course, Meyer Sound is well known for events and
shows such as this. I filled out the form to “let me know when this is in stock” assuming that it would be 6+ months before a pair came in and then a demo unit came in.
Does it sound different?
Yes, to me in sighted listening. I put down my claim in writing that the Amie measures reasonably flat on axis according to reviews but to my ears they are more rolled off or smoother than the JBL 708P which also measures flat on axis. That is true. We know why with the spinorama — the difference in off axis results.
Circle of confusion means that with the FR squiggles alone, if this is what Skywalker Sound is mixing on, I will have a higher chance of approaching the sound in the dubbing stages at Skywalker Sound if I have the same exact speakers than picking something else. This is an active speaker with squiggles and the Acheron 80 has the same squiggles, perhaps more constrained by size/SPL.
In the first 5-10 seconds of any test track, there is smooth but less-than-usual treble. This is a negative impression. I made the claim that soundstage changes in a way that I have never heard. When comparing the JBL 708P against a Rogers BBC Ls3/5a, vocals float higher on the BBC monitors than the JBLs even though the LS3/5a is a much shorter speaker. I don’t love the sound of the LS3/5a, but the FR irregularities probably generate an Atmos HRTF like effect.
Some speakers widen (Bose 901) or heighten (Magnepan MG3+ class) the sound stage. Some image pinpoint and others image diffusely. Some have narrow sweet spots while others are more relaxed. Besides your usual speakers, I have heard MBLs, Sony acrylic omnipolars, ribbon tweeter box speakers, ribbon tweeter Magnepans, non ribbon tweeter Magnepans, open baffle. These Amie’s sound different to me.
When comparing the Amie against the 708P, I hear the FR tilt, but more importantly, there is a clear sensation that the stage is further away, in a good way, and less headphone-like. This is at 8 ft.
Movies, we know. I went through my usual pure music tracks. I enjoy listening to something in just about every genre. Symphonic recordings sounded like the experience in the actual symphony hall, while live recordings, like the Eagles, mirrored what the old MTV concert looked like. Highly processed multi track music from the La La Land soundtrack (likely mixed on JBL) sounded great as did classic audiophile songstresses like Rebecca Pidgeon. Did I hear the rosin on the bow of the violins or the dripping sweat of the rock star? No. It doesn’t have the hyper real detail but it had a soundstage that felt like I just upgraded and remodeled my home.
This sensation of “I feel like I upgraded my room” is most subject to sighted bias and my REW sweep doesn’t show anything obvious. Looking at the way Pierre showcases early reflections, you can see how dramatic the difference is. It may still be sighted bias, but if it isn’t bias, at least there’s something that may be worth investigating.
Even though a single speaker sounds narrow and you don’t have spaciousness, the subjective experience in stereo is the exact opposite! The speakers completely disappear and even the classic
audiophile test track of a person talking in phase and then out of phase was grin-inducing in just how diffuse the out of phase portion was. Many of us have heard this track or some variant of this track for decades, but this was the first time I actually had a grin! This is the last track on my test playlist to make sure I haven’t wired anything incorrectly.
Again, sighted bias or the difference in-room, I will let you decide.
Making a decision
Put yourself in my shoes for a bit. It almost hurts that I really like this speaker.
If it measured amazingly, solved the circle of confusion, sounded good subjectively, and had great reliability and customer service — we’d all be thrilled and basically just hope the tech trickled down to lower costs over time. “Congrats on making it to the end game.”
If it sounded close enough to the JBL 708P, it would be an easy decision also. I would return it, and pocket the change and move on. Just as we are well beyond the point of diminishing returns for DACs, maybe the same is true in the present era for speakers.
But this is
crazy expensive so keeping it means selling off other gear. This measures idiosyncratically and it would be easier if Amir thought it sucked and said it was all my sighted bias but even he thought it was surprisingly better than he would have thought… and I know the effect that stands out are effects that require stereo. It solves the circle of confusion for a lot of Hollywood produced content, and subjectively it sounds great to my ears…
The
safe choice is for me to return the speakers.
Another
reasonable choice is to say I am returning the speakers in this forum, keep them, and avoid the scrutiny of “Am I really wasting all this money on a
subjective feeling that isn’t clearly backed by science?”
This site, more than any, has proven that a prestigious brand name and high price does not translate into audio performance.
On the other hand, you have
1. Skywalker Sound, with far deeper pockets than ours, coming to the conclusion that nothing existing in the market met
their needs. They must have sampled JBL, Genelec, Neumann, or any other number of studio monitors and found them lacking. Again, 2014-ish era.
2. You have Meyer Sound, which publishes measurements and develops in house simulation software for simulating multiple speakers and arrays providing a solution to Skywalker Sound’s request about making small rooms sound like bigger cinemas, which is very different from what an audiophile may request about transparency to a recording.
If you watch the
second half of this video where they talk about modeling and measuring rooms and developing a statistical model of a room transfer function, you see their approach is clearly science driven and focused on multiple speakers not just a single anechoic design. They are not a “we use special silver and copper wires and fancy capacitors” type of company.
3. My brief experience which was favorable.
4. Amir’s measurements showing that my subjective experiences may have explanations in measurements (as opposed to a -300 dB difference).
I am taking a leap of faith that this speaker is going to work out in the long run. Maybe this is another example of the emperor having no clothes, but just maybe, just
maybe, we are seeing where the Preference Score based upon monaural speaker testing and all of the benefits of mono testing has blind spots in certain conditions.
Just as important as the question, “does the Meyer Sound Amie sound good?” Is the question, “why couldn’t Skywalker Sound go with another brand of monitor speaker?”
