Ever heard or used a Meyer Melodie Line Array?

[Gracetech]

I've made Radio Shack systems sound good...not great mind you but good. Overall system design is important. Unfortunately we often have to make sacrifices because of budget. Sometimes i walk into a room and think to myself "they spent more money than they had too".

On the topic of a Meyer Melodie system i can make one work in just about any room you can throw at me. Would it be the ideal match to the room?...probably not. The fact remains that the Melodies are really nice speakers and when you have a room that works well with them you will have a great sounding system. In fact i just installed a system in our new building of 12 Melodies in 6 box arrays. The results have floored just about everyone that has heard the setup. Infact they keep asking me when we are going to get these speakers in our Larger existing room. The fact is that they wouldn't work that well in our existing venue because the seating area is very shallow and wraps around 270 degrees of the stage. Point source systems work better for spaces like that but the point source system we have in place is poorly implemented.

I can tell you that gear can make all the difference. In the case of Meyer designed boxes you will have less box resonance than any other loudspeaker on the market. Because of the reduction in imperfections like that and the use of high end components you start out on the best leg possible. So while you can argue that great system design is important you can't argue with quality of gear. Meyer brings quality to gear and while they haven't always "hit it" they have managed to stay on top of the pack and the Melodies are right at the top of the pack in terms of quality of sound reproduction.

crt

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by Gracetech

I can tell you that gear can make all the difference. In the case of Meyer designed boxes you will have less box resonance than any other loudspeaker on the market. Because of the reduction in imperfections like that and the use of high end components you start out on the best leg possible. So while you can argue that great system design is important you can't argue with quality of gear. Meyer brings quality to gear and while they haven't always "hit it" they have managed to stay on top of the pack and the Melodies are right at the top of the pack in terms of quality of sound reproduction.

The usual 'tripod' arrangement with product, application and operation as the three 'legs'. Improving any one element may improve the result but that result is also going to be limited by the weakest element(s). And improving the quality of the design and/or operation may often offer a better cost/benefit ratio.

A common problem is that many people assess products without regard for any specific reference or application. I remember being at a show where Dave Gunness was introducing his Fulcrum Acoustics products and he mentioned how he was disappointed by how many people seemed to make an assessment of the speakers based on standing directly in front of the speaker on a show floor. No apparent consideration for off-axis response, pattern, etc., which are areas on which Dave spent considerable effort. This is also what happens at events, someone likes the sound where they are seated and sees the speakers so they decide those must be good speakers without even considering any other aspect that related to the sound they heard or how that may translate to other applications.

Quite frankly, the last two times I considered Meyer solutions they were eliminated due to lack of support and response. On one of those, the Owner decided to eliminate Meyer from contention when they could not get some initial questions answered or get anyone to talk with them. On the other project, the person I initially contacted at Meyer regarding a Constellation system responded but even after multiple attempts they could not get anyone else there to provide any further assistance (Steve Barbar at LARES provided the same type of information in a couple of days, thus that was the only system I could recommend to the Client). My experience just before that was a Meyer representative giving a talk on church sound that based on both my impression and comments from several others suggested that they were rather out of touch with the market. At least to me part of product quality is the related support so while they may have some very good products, my own recent experiences with Meyer have been a bit less than quality in terms of support.

[Gracetech]

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

The usual 'tripod' arrangement with product, application and operation as the three 'legs'. Improving any one element may improve the result but that result is also going to be limited by the weakest element(s). And improving the quality of the design and/or operation may often offer a better cost/benefit ratio.

This is similar to giving a point and shoot to a great photographer. Yeah you could get some pretty good shots but they will never be as great as they could be. It's so funny when you give some regular people great gear and a few pointers and stand back and watch the results. You will see some great things happen. Now they won't have the "know how" to give you consistency in all situations but in the church part of serving is about growing. As we all know the sound systems in a church is a constant morphing beast. There is little the consultant can do about the operation of said church so the best he can do is design the system the best he can and use the best possible gear in hope that the operation of said equipment will do the system justice. I do agree that you could get carried away spending money in hope that the gear will fix an issue.

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

A common problem is that many people assess products without regard for any specific reference or application. I remember being at a show where Dave Gunness was introducing his Fulcrum Acoustics products and he mentioned how he was disappointed by how many people seemed to make an assessment of the speakers based on standing directly in front of the speaker on a show floor. No apparent consideration for off-axis response, pattern, etc., which are areas on which Dave spent considerable effort. This is also what happens at events, someone likes the sound where they are seated and sees the speakers so they decide those must be good speakers without even considering any other aspect that related to the sound they heard or how that may translate to other applications.

Ain't it the truth. As far as sound systems are concered we are just really starting to truely understand them. It will be another 20 years i believe before manufactures actually start producing great systems. Even the best of the best speakers can behave very erratically off axis. Co-axial and Tri-axial systems have reduced the erratic behavior but still aren't able to smooth the frequency coverage. Dave has done some remarkable work in this smoothing process but feel he is still a ways off from reaching his potential.

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

Quite frankly, the last two times I considered Meyer solutions they were eliminated due to lack of support and response. On one of those, the Owner decided to eliminate Meyer from contention when they could not get some initial questions answered or get anyone to talk with them. On the other project, the person I initially contacted at Meyer regarding a Constellation system responded but even after multiple attempts they could not get anyone else there to provide any further assistance (Steve Barbar at LARES provided the same type of information in a couple of days, thus that was the only system I could recommend to the Client). My experience just before that was a Meyer representative giving a talk on church sound that based on both my impression and comments from several others suggested that they were rather out of touch with the market. At least to me part of product quality is the related support so while they may have some very good products, my own recent experiences with Meyer have been a bit less than quality in terms of support.

If we judged companies by bad experiences then i wouldn't do business with any of them. At some point or other over the past 20 years i have had issues with one company or another. I understand your pain for trying to satisfy your client in the present and not getting the response you need. The good news is that bad behavior doesn't go unnoticed and eventually things get better. I've never had to contact Meyer so i have no first hand experience with their service.

crt