Producer, engineer and Slate Digital/Slate Pro Audio CEO Steven Slate has installed an Ocean Way Audio HR3.5 monitor system in the recording/mixing/testing studio of his LA headquarters.
‘This is where every Slate Digital product gets tested and approved,’ says Slate. ‘It’s is a really important listening environment for us because this is where the tools that the industry uses are finalised. We needed an exceptional monitoring reference because the tweaks we make on our products here are going to be essential and critical choices for our products worldwide.’
The Ocean Way Audio HR3.5 is standalone or soffit-mounted monitor speaker with a frequency response of 20Hz-22kHz and 120dB SPL. The HR3.5 Reference Monitor incorporates an integrated two-way dual-horn system with a 1-inch HF and 8-inch mid drivers, mechanically time-aligned with twin 12-inch sub-bass drivers per channel.
‘For one thing, we actually have a true low end. It’s important for me to make sure I hear what our plug-ins are doing in the 40-100kHz range – a very critical area,’ Slate elaborates. ‘It needs to be delivered in reference quality. It has to have the proper dynamics, the proper detail, and the Ocean Way 3.5s really deliver in that area. If I’m tweaking how the transformer harmonics and a certain plug-in sound, that is a critical area which has to be accurate, and it has to be trustworthy. The top end is pleasant and not overly accentuated. It’s accurate, dynamic, and it’s reference quality. I need to trust what I’m hearing, and the top and the bottom on these speakers deliver just what I need.’
The system’s A-4100 amplifiers powering the HR3.5 offer both analogue and 96kHz/24-bit digital inputs, tri-amped with 3.4kW/channel. At the heart of the acoustic design is OWA’s geometrically complex, stone-casted dual/hybrid waveguide system.
‘Tweaking and calibrating our plug-ins requires a truly accurate monitoring system,’ Slate continues ‘I love my HR 3.5s and they come with a guarantee, that Allen Sides legacy, designed not just by a technical designer, but a creative designer who’s worked extensively and made fantastic records. An important part of the decision to install these monitors was knowing the designer behind them.’
The HR3.5 system delivers accurately matched and detailed imaging with Ocean Way’s signature 100°x40° dispersion, yielding a sweet-spot across a broad area of the listening environment. The consistency of its stereo image, even at the far corners of the room, is due to the highly-consistent directivity response of the unique speaker system construction.
