About - Onsite Marketing Radio

Radio World: Reprinted from March 15, 2000
News index

Hayes: 21st Century Speaker Design
by Rick Barnes

WASHINGTON - Looking for something original to add to the broadcast or recording studio- Something that looks futuristic?

The design of the Hayes Spatial One near-field monitors makes it an excellent choice for the studio or an addition to spice up any facility. The look is unique.

The speakers are available through LPB Communications, which specializes in turnkey radio packages. Hayes positions this as a speaker for many kinds of applications, including radio.

The Spatial Ones are 16 inches high by 7-1/2 inches wide by 10-1/2 inches deep and weigh 24 pounds each. The frequency response is 55 Hz to 20 kHz, and it can handle a long-term maximum power of 120 watts and a short-term maximum power of 300 watts each.

It has a Seas 6.5-inch polypropylene woofer with a 1.5-inch voice coil and a Philips one-inch fabric dome tweeter.

The innovation in the design comes from the placement of the tweeter. Instead of the tweeter being aligned with the bass driver, as with most monitors, it is mounted on a plank that sticks out of the top facing downward. The sound bounces off a diffuser at an angle of approximately 45 degrees toward the listener. Hayes calls this "fractal engineering."

The reflected highs give the speakers a more "rounded" sound, yet the high end has clarity. In other words, there is clarity but it is not biting or edgy or crass.

In order to test these speakers, I took them to the home recording studio of my friend Charlie Garrett. We compared the Hayes Spatial Ones to Charlie's JBL 4410s and the Alesis Point 7 near-fields.

We started by listening to Spyro Gyra's "Dreams Beyond Control" CD. The Hayes speakers had a well-balanced sound. Some selections featured the "Tower of Power" horn section. The speakers had the crisp brass sound that I always enjoy hearing..

Next, we listened salsa music by Victor Manuelle titled "Solo Contigo." On one selection, the Hayes made some of the mid- to high-frequency percussive triangle and bells jump out in the mix. I did not hear that part of the mix as prominently as with the other two pair of speakers.

John Devecka, vice president of sales at LPB Communications, responded to the notion that the speakers were bright.

"Things have been changed in the design since the prototype the RW tested. The brightness has been tuned out. The 4 kHz notch has been filled out and the overall tweeter level reduced slightly," he said.

"The immediate effect is monster bass without sacrificing any clarity. Also, the 200 Hz slight bump is changed by decoupling the enclosure."

To check the low end, I was looking for something "disco-y" and also something classical. Charlie and I borrowed Aqua's "Barbie Girl" from Charlie's daughter and the Gustav Holst's "Suite #1 in Eb for Military Band."

Needless to say, the JBLs delivered much better bass response because of the larger woofer. The sound of the Hayes was similar to the Alesis. There was plenty of pumping disco bass with Aqua and the tuba section could be heard with great clarity as well on the Gustav Holst piece.

These speakers work fine for any studio, but as we were comparing them to the other speakers, we noticed that the Hayes speakers were softer in volume than the other two pairs of speakers. Charlie has a Hafler amp that was used for all three pairs of speakers. All settings and controls remained exactly the same for all three as well.

The relative volume levels of his JBLs and his Alesis were comparable, even though one was self-powered. At first, we thought that the Hayes speakers were just less efficient, but that was not the case.

Because no technical material came with the speakers, I had to read the fine print on the back of them - using a magnifying glass - to discover that they are rated at 6 ohms. Most amps used in studios ate 8 ohms, so there is an impedance mismatch. I am assuming this mismatch accounted for the loss in volume.

I wanted to find out more about the speakers. Again, on. the back label of each speaker, and again in fine print, was the e-mail address for Hayes in Australia.

I contacted the designer, Joseph Hayes, who was accommodating in answering questions.

"The crossover has a series notch that causes a 1 dB reduction in output. The monitors sound best when cranked," he said.

Charlie and I heard considerably more than a 1 dB reduction in volume when compared to his Alesis and JBL speakers. However, Hayes is correct in that these speakers do sound fine when cranked.

Also on the back of each speaker is a small toggle switch that Charlie and I could not figure out. The switch did not affect the phasing or the impedance.

When I asked Hayes what this switch is supposed to do, he said, "Nothing. It was left over from an earlier prototype." I do not know why it is there, but I was correct in my assessment.

Hayes has also changed the crossover from the model that I reviewed, and claims the newer monitors sound better. If you have a 6-ohm amplifier or an impedance matcher, or don't mind turning up the amp a bit, the speakers are fun to listen to. With a list-price of $695 for the pair, consider the Hayes Spatial One near-field monitors for your next set of studio speakers.

Rick Barnes, CBRE, is a studio engineer with the Voice of America and a Ph.D. candidate in communications technology. He can he reached via email at KE3QJ@email.msn.com