M&K SOUND
M&K Sound, aka Miller & Kreisel, was an American firm for several decades, and reputedly the first to develop sub-sat systems back in the mid 1970s. But now it’s a Danish firm. Lars Johansen, the company head, was at the Indi Intermeet. He said that the original firm folded in the mid-2000s, principally because of an unmanageably large range. He and some partners took it over, relocated to Denmark and reduced the line-up to something sensible.
There are still plenty of models, including in-wall ones. The company catchphrase is ‘The choice of professionals’, and it seems that many pro movie and music mixing studios still use M&K loudspeakers. The current centre piece is the S150 series (le), THX certified, and showing the other point of di¢erence. For the last few decades high fidelity loudspeakers have tended towards taller, narrower and deeper. The S150II speakers have three 25mm tweeters in a vertical stack, with two 135mm bass/midrange drivers in another stack next to them. Despite flying in the face of convention, they sounded wonderful at the Intermeet.
They were accompanied by a couple of X Series subwoofers. These feature two drivers, one mounted in the usual way on the front ba¢le, the other in reverse — magnet out — in a hole at the base. Both drivers push out from the enclosure at the same time. And likewise pull in. But because one is reversed, any nonlinearities in driver design tend to cancel out. The X Series comes in three sizes: X 12, X 10 and X 8. Interestingly, all three are rated with the same frequency response of 20 to 200Hz ±2dB. I guess the di¢erence is how loud they will go. Indi Inter meet reporting: Stephen Dawson