STUDIO MASTERS

As M&K Sound approaches its 50th Anniversary, the legendary 150 loudspeaker family continues to be the preferred choice of residential and professional customers alike.

It’s hard to believe that M&K Sound will enter its sixth decade of operation next year. Even the company’s iconic S150 speakers are testament to their own enduring appeal as they celebrate their 26th birthday this year. With its undisputed and uncoloured performance characteristics, the look of the speaker has remained essentially unchanged over the years, though materials and manufacturing methods have evolved. The classic design of the line has always promoted audio function over form, but is compact and discreet enough to allow placement flexibility either in a studio, home cinema or living room. Never a company to rest on its laurels, M&K Sound has ploughed ahead with a line-up of SKUs to suit the whims of the studio community, custom install market and end user. The extended 150 family includes the MPS2520P active studio monitor, and both onwall and in-wall versions of the original classic S150 loudspeaker.

With a history of challenging the consensus, M&K invented the first satellite subwoofer system in 1976 and the first powered subwoofer the following year. The 1996 Tripole surround speaker was a nifty but THX-endorsed interpretation of Lucasfilm Ltd.’s dipole design mandate, ushering in a revolutionary way of accommodating both 5.1 discrete and 4.0 matrix audio sources. More recently, the company has overhauled its reference subwoofer line to award-winning and earthquake-rendering effect with the X+ Series.

The M&K S150 satellites (combined with various versions of the company’s subwoofers) have been adopted by all the major film studios at one point or another for editing, mastering and monitoring of audio, both in production and post-production settings. Lucasfilm. famously deployed M&K speakers for the entire audio workflow of the Star Wars: Episodes I – III films, and many of the Blu-ray discs we enjoy at home today earn their sonic seal of approval after review on the S150 platform. If your residential customers want to know “what the director intended”, they could do a lot worse than invest in a set of the S150s or IW150s.

M&K Sound announced the arrival of the IW150 in-wall speakers in 2018. Along with

the company’s other models, they can be mixed and matched for a cohesive soundstage. This is, of course, important for object-based audio sources where the audience’s detection of speaker placement is undesirable. The IW150 brandishes the 150 family’s archetypal vertical array of one-inch soft fabric dome tweeters and pair of 5.25in polypropylene woofers. With a sensitivity of 90dB and 80Hz to 20kHz frequency response, the speakers are primed for demanding source material. The sealed enclosure design promotes the same neutrality of its S150 siblings, and paintable magnetic grilles and in-built mounting hardware ease the installation process.

CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT

A more recent addition to the range is the IW150T Tripole which acts as the in-wall counterpart to the S150T Tripole on-wall model. Deploying the same crossover technology as the latter, the IW150T uses 2.35in angled polymer side drivers. Due to a surround speaker’s proximity to a listener, these hidden drivers trade off some high-frequency energy towards front and rear walls, resulting in an improved sense of envelopment.

M&K Sound is also using this opportunity in Essential Install to confirm that it will shortly release a further addition to the in-wall family, the IW150A. Targeted primarily as a Dolby Atmos-friendly in-ceiling model, it can also be used for other in-wall cinema or multi-room music applications. Its single 15-degree anglefixed tweeter makes the IW150A ideal for effects-based information in multi-speaker setups. The debut of this new 150 member means that, along with the IW28S subwoofer, M&K Sound will shortly have a complete in-wall solution for reference-grade home cinemas.

It is also worth mentioning that the M&K 150 family, in all its iterations, represents a realworld price/performance proposition in these uncertain times. The ubiquity of 150 systems installed in professional locations is proof of their value and ability to offer a return on investment. Achieving equivalent performance from those presented by direct competitors will often cost multiples of that of a 150 system.

Even though relocated back in 2008 to the European continent, M&K Sound’s 150 speakers are still unmistakably American, suited to the bombast and hyperbole of the Hollywood movie blockbuster, while also being detailed and restrained when needed. These workhorses prove to be fluent in the language of film, yet sensitive to the dynamics and precision of music sources. The speakers are also within that affordable range where customers are getting the performance they pay for, as well as an endorsement from the pro audio community. One reviewer recently wrote of the S150 speakers that “…once you get hooked on M&K, you might find it forever difficult to walk away.”

In the UK, M&K Sound speakers are distributed by Gecko Home Cinema. For trade enquiries or to show your clients the full M&K range in Gecko’s exclusive private listening rooms, call 01635 268114.

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