MasterStack, Barefoot Sound, AES 2008

[lucey]

As you may know I was the first to publicly embrace Thomas Barefoot as a brilliant designer, and strongly recommended to an all around good guy and GS client Tetness that he invest in the company when it was just a bedroom operation. Since then, the MM27s came out to great applause and I've gently pushed many clients and many slutz to get on the Barefoot train, or at least to give the product a listen. I've used my original MM12s for 3 to 4 years now with great success.

So Thomas has a new design releasing this week in SanFran. I've been mastering with the beta unit for a month and it's working out really well. It's my pleasure to announce these first, to the GS community both for mastering engineers and for larger mix rooms I'd suppose.

The MasterStack is a unique design, a kind of a 'floating' tower, made up of two separate cabs per side. It doubles the amplification power and subs of the MM27s, and of interest to me, adds a low mids driver per side. It comes complete with internal amps and custom/heavy stands from Sound Anchors that are height adjustable. Easy to install the 6 shipping boxes into 2 stacks with one helper, 280 lbs. per side including stands.

There are 4 x 10" sub drivers per side, so massive power and clean headroom (1000W / side in the subs). It adds a lower mid driver per side to the MM27s dual driver set up, in what Thomas calls a 3.5 way design (the third driver covering 95 to 300hz only, the other two 95 to 2500) .... and 500W/side in the mids. It uses the same midbass drivers as my original MM12s and the MM27 and uses the MM27 cabs x 2. The lower cab has the 3.5 way, low midbass only driver.

The omni subs L and R are deep and tight, evenly presenting all around the room. Today I'm working on the speakers at 70 dbA, and just checking at 85-90 or more, as needed. The overall power potential is immense, so if your mix room is huge and you wanted MM27s, these are for you. For me, even working at low volumes, the evenness, low distortion, and definition under 400hz are where it's at.

The gain on the rear of each (upper and lower) box is switched, so fine tuning can be done for your room/taste. I was running the bottoms back but am now flat on both top and bottom with a 15db pad on the front end! Lots of power here.

The full specs are:
Input Impedance 50k Ohm
Frequency Response 33 Hz - 20 kHz (+/- 1.5 dB)
Bass Response -3 dB @ 28 Hz
Q = 0.707
Slope: 12 dB/octave

Cabinet 64 liters total internal volume, Sealed sub enclosures, Individual sealed midbass enclosures, Machined aluminum front baffle plates

Crossover Frequencies 95/300/2500 Hz

Tweeter 1" soft dome, Rear waveguide chamber
Power: 90 W

Dual Midbasses 3 x 5" poly cones, Sealed rear waveguide enclosures
Power: 500 W

Dual Subwoofers 4 x 10" aluminum cones, 1" peak-to-peak linear excursion
Power: 1000 W

AC Power Input Nominal 115 VAC or 230 VAC selectable
Power Consumption Idle: 60W, Maximum: 1350W

[RoundBadge]

[Gravity8058]

Very cool! So, if one owns a pair of MM27s and wanted to up the ante, they'd just buy the two additional cabs with the new stands, and sell their current stands? Bada bing?

[lucey]

Originally Posted by Gravity8058

Very cool! So, if one owns a pair of MM27s and wanted to up the ante, they'd just buy the two additional cabs with the new stands, and sell their current stands? Bada bing?

The upper and lower subs are running -6 vs. the MM27s for flat output, and there is a midbass crossover change in the top boxes to accomodate the low mid driver in the bottom. So it may look the same, yet is a different product ... but hey, you can always beg for a trade in!

[peeder]

I listened to these on the AES floor today vs. the MM27.

These big boys are completely and utterly amazing!!!!

You could tell how remarkable they are even in the cacophony and vast chamber of the AES floor.

I think I even heard new things in my most basic reference material.

Only drawback (besides the $17K price tag ) is they are designed for mastering rooms not mix rooms...I'm not sure hiding them behind a console is going to be good for the sound.

Even so they blew away the MM27's at least in that A/B. Which were great speakers by any means.

Mr. Barefoot is really enthusiastic and is definitely the shooting star in studio monitoring.

[jamwerks]

Why not also do a cheaper version of the MM27 without the dual subs in each monitor, and make that a seperate unit (2.1). With 1, 10 inch woofer for the <100's (instead of 4!), he could probably build them for half the cost. Granted they wouldn't perform quite as well, but many of us could live with those imperfections!..........

[andsonic]

I talked to Mr Barefoot yesterday. He spoke of about the economy's of scale of using the same cabinets for the "subs".