JBL 'M2' Master Reference Monitor

Not sure what's new here; CD (constant directivity) waveguides have been around awhile, including from JBL.

Maybe it's the evolution of the WG, which looks different, with improvement of directivity control at the freq extremes.

Any ideas on an msrp?

Looks interesting!

There is nothing in the JBL info that suggests that the horn noes not exhibit the typical CD horn roll-off, so that remains an open question. What appears to be key to this product is the horn shape, use of the "D2 Compression Driver which uses two annular diaphragms," and integrated electronics. I'd love to mate this to our active crossovers and correction- that would be very interesting!

Yeah... What is the MSRP on these babies?

you better don't wanna know :P

lets guess ... 10k?

Suddenly the thread...went...curiously.......quiet.....

That's nonsense for a Crown amp.

Looks like an incredible speaker!! I'll take 3. I'm a huge fan of JBL, mostly the Pro Cinema stuff, and along with the 1K of Crown power is pretty much all the speaker I would ever need.

ad JBL S4700: http://www.jblsynthesis.com/images/prodphotos/prod_149_634625681485396739_S4700%20units%20web.jpg quite simple crossover to me. would be nice to compare to some top "dyi" products, summa etc.

$6K MSRP each for the speaker itself, available in March:

http://www.soundonsound.com/news?NewsID=15853

why DSP amp to run them?

6k a piece...well, who'll buy it anyway?

I am very likely a candidate for putting three of those behind the screen in the home theater. I already own BSS London Soundweb DSP and Crown amps, so it would be a no brainer! I have been wanting the JBL K2 S9900 for a long time, but they are out of my budget - but with the M2, I think you can get almost equal performance for a lot less.

yeah, lot less, around 1/10 the price

so what other need for DSP is there besides the active crossing of the driver/woofer? i thought i saw a passive crossover in the picture .. passive crossover can be done to be not worse than an active xo anyway..

The speaker you are linking to, is not the M2, but the consumer S4700. Uses the same LF driver though.

Besides the crossover, I would think you need DSP for the level matching between LF/HF and generel EQ filters for HF/LF. I think it would be hard for a passive crossover to beat an active solution.

sorry my fault, i'm looking at the different wg too right now

maybe it's not in scope of this thread but I'd be interested why it shouldn't be put otherwise: why the active solution should beat a decent passive xo.
to level the different sensitivity (simplified:) you put a resistor to the HF section, it's common not only in consumer solutions though. you can build almost any RLC passive filter. in my eyes the only advantage of the active crossing is that you can choose a power amp to each section and you have no additional coils etc. in the LF section, which would eat some power.

...and you could fine tune it to the specific room environment in which it was installed without fighting the passive crossover's preset compromises, and you could create saved presets for changing physical configurations and set ups in the studio, and you could program the entire thing as an "aware" system using the JBL-recommended electronics.

This is an interesting inversion of practice in which the high end consumer side of Harman is bleeding into the pro side.

Harman Luxury Audio Group: JBL Synthesis: The SDEC units (rebranded BSS units) know the processor, the amps, the speakers (and individual drivers) in the system to a "T" since they're system-specific and all the relevant data is profiled in memory. Then during calibration the SDECs "know' the room and its characteristics and the room itself becomes part of the system. Crossovers, slopes, PEQ, response curves are all tailored to that environment.

JBL Pro: M2 Master Reference Monitor: the I-Tech or BSS units know the amps (or are part of the amps), the speakers (and individual drivers) in the system to a "T" since they're system-specific and the relevant data is profiled in memory. Then during calibration the BSS Blus "know" the room and its characteristics (additional compounded by speaker placement: soffit, against a wall, freestanding) and the room itself becomes part of the system. Crossovers, slopes, PEQ, response curves are all tailored to that environment, and presets can be stored for environmental changes, such as in a project studio where there may be two or three room arrangements depending on number of musicians, instrument deployment, etc.

Can't do any of that with a passive xo.

Of course, the proof, after all the measuring, is in the listening.

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/01/25/jbl-professional-debuts-m2-master-reference-monitor/

sure you can't for all rooms, why would ya? i'm sceptic to try to correct room problems via some kind of equalizing and stuff, not for all listening positions. i'm talking in home industry. i'm not aware what requirements are there for studios and another specific pro apolication. maybe this graph is what it's all about (listening axis response inluding room reflexions):

Well, since you asked:

sure you can't for all rooms, why would ya? Because sometimes a studio has more than one configuration, and when things are moved around, it becomes a different room with different response characteristics. Also, unless you've got a resident passive crossover genius on staff, there's no way the typical studio can put the same kind of monitor in each of its studios, control rooms, or mixing rooms with just a middle of the road stock crossover and extract the best from the speaker or get consistent room-to-room response.

i'm sceptic to try to correct room problems via some kind of equalizing and stuff, not for all listening positions. Room "problems" meaning what? The primary utilization of these monitors is in professional environments which will have had some thought given to room design and construction. These rooms will have different sonic characteristics no doubt, but not the kinds of problems you'd find in virtually every home environment. There aren't going to be big openings into a kitchen or a vaulted ceiling open to the second floor or a giant double doorway between two large rooms or hard tile floors in a studio environment. In the professional environment the sonic differences will be easily addressable through calibration to get consistent room-to-room response.

i'm talking in home industry. These are not home speakers intended for the typical "put it anywhere and power it with anything" consumer. They're Master Reference Monitors for professional applications.

maybe this graph is what it's all about (listening axis response inluding room reflexions): That's what it's all about in the space where it was measured, which is unlike any space in which it will be installed. These kinds of graphs are useful to compare speakers with each other if the measurements are done in the same way and under the same conditions. But once the speakers are moved out from that testing environment they are placed into a world that's very unlike where they were tested. What the graph does tell us is that the speaker is capable of that response, but it's up to the user to create the conditions that will make it possible. JBL/Harman is saying, "We can give you that if you use our whole system to set it up in your environment. If you don't, it'll still be pretty good, but it won't be as good as that."

---

zorg43x, these final comments are not directed at you. They're just general observations.

Since AVS has some accomplished pros who both lurk and post here, there might be 100 or so folks who have the background, experience, equipment, funds, and hopefully the free time to create something pretty close to what's in the M2 system as recommended. I bet 5 -10 of them could even improve on it. I doubt that any of them would give it to me for free. This stuff is expensive because it costs a lot of money to develop over a long period of time, then there's manufacturing costs, distribution, marketing, support, the list is long. So for something with this much potential to be priced as it is is remarkable to me.

AVS also has tens of thousands of enthusiasts who believe that a couple of google searches, advertorial opinions by people with clear conflicts of interest, and comments by people with a lot of posts carry more weight than hundreds of thousands of dollars of research, published AES papers, and peer-reviewed studies.

I'm in neither camp. I know I'm neither an accomplished pro who can make any significant contribution to the science that is before us, nor am I a witting tool for shallow analysis of complex ideas just because I can get a dummies version on Wikipedia or a watered down oversimplification from someone with a competing interest or a blast of hot, opinionated air from someone with 10,000 posts. I like to appreciate the honest, hard work of others who are better and smarter than I am in their field, and I like to learn why they do things the way that they do. Then I like to listen to it the way they intended and decide if I like it or not.

Sorry if my posts sound like bitching, it was not meant like that

Sorry if I insulted someone, I would define myself as a "Beginner, who has read a couple of AES papers, gathered some knowledge on AVSf, DIYA etc. and is putting together his first home horn-loudspeakers"
Edited by zorg43x - 2/9/13 at 12:30pm

20K for a full-pro set-up, who cares.

These will sound amazing.

Reminds me of my Gedlee Summas, except with a coaxial compression driver instead of the B&C that's used by Geddes. USSpeaker sells the BMS compression driver, so DIYers might give this a try.

Obviously the coax is a pricey upgrade, and some might argue that the cost is not worth it. But I'd love to hear the difference. I *personally* prefer the upper treble of the small compression drivers to the big ones, and I think diaphragm size plays a big part. (In other words, if you're using a xover point of 2khz or higher, I prefer the sound of a BMS 4540ND or a Celestion CDX1-1425 over anything with a large diaphragm, such as the B&C. BUT if you need a low xover point, like the Summa uses, the small compression drivers won't work; they're too small.)