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measure the on-axis response and the
indirect response of the system using our
computers and measuring systems, and try
and get a balance between the two.” Though
Munro is a great believer in the technical
aspect of speaker design, he’s not unaware
of the part played by the human ear. “A lot
of people design speakers by ear and a lot
design purely on paper – and they are often
completely wrong,” he says. You always end
up with something that isn’t quite musical
enough and you always have to balance the
two. I do believe that a monitor should be
spectrally correct, but personalities can
add a different flavour – you get the
interpretation factor from different people.”
Monitor speakers not only differ
greatly in design, but also in the type of
components used, and you’ll see systems
with different tweeter dome and cone
materials, horns, ribbons, and esoteric case
designs. Munro doesn’t think that designing
speakers from the component-end upwards
is the best way to achieve excellence.
“Sometimes the results you obtain are an
accident of the philosophy or technology
that you are using,” he says. “If you’re using
a horn loaded tweeter or a wave guide for
example, it’s a deliberate choice and you
must then balance everything else against
that choice. I fundamentally believe you
should start with something with a flat
power response and then tweak or tune it
very slightly to give it a neutral character.”
So if monitor speaker design is a simple
technical problem, are the specifications
published by most monitor manufacturers
meaningless? Not if they are accurate,
says Munro. “I work mainly with Dynaudio
in Denmark and while I can’t speak for
other manufacturers, their published
driver specifications are totally and
consistently accurate to 1dB for any driver,
and therefore the combined performance
of several drivers becomes a very precise
specification. Some hi-fi companies offer
‘matched’ pairs of speakers, but two wrongs
don’t make a right because any one pair will
be different from any other – and God help
you if you blow a driver!” If there’s an ideal
way to design and manufacture a monitor
speaker, why then are there so many
different models on the market? “It’s all
monitors 2009
The m4 –a munro Acoustics design.
basically down to economics,” says Munro.
“The best drivers and the ones that have
really good power handling are extremely
expensive and there are relatively few
companies that use them in their monitors.
Making something that’s truly accurate and
fulfils the requirements of a studio monitor,
such as sufficiently smooth power handling
characteristic and the controlled dispersion
associated with it, will always be a very
expensive process.
“In my opinion, any monitor worth the
name should be able to reproduce the full
audio spectrum and dynamics – and that
means going up to a 120dB broadband peak
sound pressure without compression – that’s
going to be a pretty tall order for virtually all
the small speakers on the market.”
Most speakers destined for the home
will have to be compact for cosmetic and
practical reasons, so you’d be unlikely to
get something that can reproduce the full
range of frequencies and high sound levels
accurately and still fit it into the typical
domestic environment. “They also lift bass
by relative loss of mid-band sensitivity,
so instead of 90dB for 1W you get 83dB,”
says Munro. “So you need more power
and drivers that could handle the amount
of power needed – so you have a bit of a
conundrum. To make a small driver that
can handle this needed power and a control
system that would stop it blowing would
be a very expensive system. You can’t
realistically make this kind of system for
a few hundred quid.” Effectively, low cost
systems have to be compromises, and that
is why there are so many designs on the
market – there are plenty of compromises to
choose from. “In an ideal universe everyone
would buy expensive speakers,” says Munro.
Blurring The Boundaries
So what about that doyen of the modern day
recording studio, the ubiquitous Yamaha
NS10 – which was originally designed to be
a home-based hi-fi speaker? Munro called it
“A slightly weird leftover from the 1980s,
which has become, for better or worse,
the ‘NS10 philosophy’.
“It’s the idea that you can only get a
really good mix through a pair of speakers
which make it sound as if it’s being played
through a transistor radio. I don’t subscribe
to that philosophy – though the NS10, as it’s
such a simple loudspeaker, has a very good
transient response!” The NS10 also has a
slight lift in the midrange, which brings out
the vocals quite well, and Munro finds that
they can be a useful adjunct to a pair of
accurate monitors, but that to do a final mix
on them would be ‘acoustic suicide’. This may
be where boundaries between home hi-fi and
studio monitors are blurred, because a lot of
successful albums have been mixed on such
gear. “The great albums that have supposedly
been mixed on NS10s will have also been
listened to, and possibly mastered on, high
quality monitors.” says Munro.”
So while Munro has strong beliefs in ‘the
ideal studio monitor’, he also has a place for
a basic home-style speaker in his philosophy.
As long as people see the need for superb
monitoring, set in a fine acoustic space to
produce audiophile recordings, his services
will continue to be in demand. Meanwhile,
the audiophile hi-fi world can continue to
discuss the merits of ‘timing’, ‘rhythm’,
and ‘flat and round earth presentation’ of
the various hi-fi speakers on the market.
INFORMATION
www.munroacoustics.com
THE InTERnATIonAl AuDIo monIToRs buyER’s GuIDE 7