MM4 replacement

[Bevan Archer]

Hello everyone!

My "day job" is looking for something to replace some aging Meyer MM4's due to the fact that I understand we can no longer buy cables for them and they've taken a lot of damage, especially to the connectors I believe.

Looking for (in order of priority):

Easily mountable to physical structures (probably some sort of existing yoke)

Self-powered 

No proprietary or "unique" cabling. XLR highly preferred 

Fairly small (definitely not much bigger than a Control 25)

Not crazy expensive

Main application would be either playback or talking heads in tradeshow booths where volume can only go so loud and needs to stay within the confines of the booth.  In the range of 3 or 4 people looking at a video on a monitor up to 15 people gathered fairly closely around a presenter.

Secondary desired application is for larger presentations that are still in a "shared space".  In the past, these have been done with lots of MM4's spread around so they didn't have to throw very far and kept the overall volume down.  I have an idea on how to bring the speakers closer to the audience, but I still need to figure out which speaker.  I'm using the concept they use at the awards shows of putting speakers underneath chairs in the audience.

Thank you in advance for any ideas you can share!

Bevan Archer 

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[Seablade -]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 9:23 AM Bevan Archer <b-ar...@prodigy.net> wrote:

My "day job" is looking for something to replace some aging Meyer MM4's due to the fact that I understand we can no longer buy cables for them and they've taken a lot of damage, especially to the connectors I believe.

Uh which cables are you looking for?  I purchased the EN3 pigtails recently and just add 5 pin XLRs on to them to use 5 Pin XLR cables the rest of the way.

 

Scratch the self-powered and I would suggest the Danley Nano speakers, which with a bit of processing can be fairly decent, but still won't match the MM4s in terms of performance and quality (But they are 1/10 the price as well)

Of course you could just replace them with more MM4 speakers as well?

   Thomas

[Steven Devino]

Long ago I popped the back panels off of my mm4s and replaced the connectors with speakon 

Steve Devino

On Feb 21, 2024, at 3:26 PM, Seablade - <seab...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Ryan Cooper]

I don’t know of another small self powered option that small not from Meyer using the intelligent DC unless you want to look at small studio monitors which lack the rigging.

Passive options there are a good few like D&B E4 or L acoustics 5XP. Cheaper options like the EM acoustics EMS-41 or Renkus-Heinz CX41 are also available. All have Yoke options(or more of a ball joint thing on the E4) to attach to stands walls and pipes.

Advantage of passive is they all use more robust NL4 connectors and I believe with all of those four can go on an amp channel so it could save you a lot of cable home runs not to mention the nifty things you can do with a NL4 and a pin flip in line. Amps would take the same footprint as the Meyer PSU or even less with some of the 1U or 1/2U options out there.

Ryan Cooper

Pronouns: He/Him

P: 919-801-0495

E: sound...@gmail.com

W: cooperaudioservices.com

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[Kyle Jensen]

I'd recommend something like the EM Acoustics EMS-41, d&b E4, or the L'Acoustics 4Xi or 5XT.

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 9:23 AM Bevan Archer <b-ar...@prodigy.net> wrote:

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[jer...@jjlee.com]

Cheap, basically self powered version of the Control One- 

https://jblpro.com/en-US/product_families/control-2p

The K-Array tornado can be turned into a self powered speaker

https://www.k-array.com/en/products/line/tornado

And the K-Gear GH4A is a good contender as well. 

https://www.kgear.it/en/product/GH4A

Good luck!

mobile +1 347.276.9468
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[Bevan Archer]

Thank you everyone for the recommendations so far!  Looks like I'll be doing some research tomorrow.

Apologies for not being a little clearer....  I should have said MM-4XP and MM-4XPD were the models we currently own and yes they have the EN3 connector.  Even when we first bought them, we were having problems with the connectors... It was almost like the plastic was extra brittle because the "corners" of them were all breaking off, as well as parts of the locking mechanism.  Admittedly, people's inexperience with them was a huge contributing factor, but they seemed to be really designed for permanent installs where they would only get disconnected 3 times in 10 years as opposed to the rental market where we're connecting and disconnecting every week or so, if not multiple times a day.  And I was told that the last time we tried to buy more EN3 cables and the speakers themselves, they weren't available anymore.  Now I haven't done any digging myself, but even if they are available, that wouldn't be a long term solution.

And the reason for self-powered is that we don't own any amplifiers at all.  Which also means we don't own any NL4.  We own hundreds and hundreds of speakers, but they're all self powered.  That being said, I completely understand that it's pretty difficult to cram one amplifier, let alone 2 or 3, into a small cabinet.... Even just the space taken up by a UPC/D-plug connector and a single XLR input are significant at the size of an MM4!

I do think exploring some of the options mentioned about how to adapt to other cables could help us in the short term and prevent us from just dumping our existing inventory.

One other thing that I should have mentioned is that the company always wants to know that there's someone else in the business that carries the same product for when we inevitably need more than we own.  We can only buy for the "average" number needed, not for the extremes, so we need an option to handle the spikes.  It does look like PRG/VER has some inventory of Control 25AV's so that may end up being the answer.  I actually bought a pair right off the show floor a long time ago when a rental company had to buy pallets for a single show and then were trying to sell as many as they could before they had to ship them back across the country!

And if I thought there was an easy answer, I wouldn't be picking all of your brains for good ideas!!

But again, thank you for the replies so far and I'll let you know what I find!

[rbing...@juno.com]

Well if self-powered is more important than anything else then there is a Behringer CE500A, which is a self-powered fairly compact speaker with a wall bracket.  While I’m sure it’s no where near the same audio caliber as an MM4, I have a few of these in my stock for front fill and I use them for small monitors in orchestra pits or a small effects speaker that can be hidden on stage in some places.  But I mostly bought them because they fit a price point and I needed something that was in stock at a time when so many things were back ordered and unavailable.  I initially used them as a powered hotspot replacement as no one seemed to have anything in that realm available for shipping at the time.

 

Anyway, yes I know it’s a Behringer.  This is not going to be anywhere near the same caliber as an MM4.  And while it has a wall mount bracket, and I have used those, I can’t imagine it holding up to a lot of repetitive installation and striking.  You would need to work on something I think.  Either a custom piece or modifying the included brackets.

Behringer | Product | CE500A-BK

 

Personally, I think it would be wiser to just accept that you’ll need something with an amplifier and deal with that.  You’ve obviously had several great suggestions for that route, I’d just throw in one more option.

The ID series from Nexo.  Well built, robust and use NL4s and comparable in sound quality.  The ID14-T is comparable in size but the larger ID24-T is a great box and still pretty compact as well.  And they have a good array of mounting accessories and options.  You could run quite a few of these off a single amplifier but they do need the Nexo amps.

 

Richard B Ingraham

[E Riley Casey]

Not sure if this violates any sort of rule about selling things on the list but I have four passive MM4s with XLRs installed on the backs and the U frames I was about to put on Ebay if that meets your needs.

[Seablade -]

FYI I meant to send this earlier, for the EN3 connectors, what I am doing is ordering EN3 to pigtails and putting 5 Pin XLR on them.  These just stay attached to the cabinet so I am not removing and replacing them, similar story on the power supply end (To a 1U plate, this is being built currently). And this last time I ordered a slightly different part number that the EN3 is much more robust on:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Switchcraft/CAEN3C5M07990?qs=NE9ChkLHqDklb6JjvnldrA%3D%3D

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Switchcraft/CAEN3C5F07990?qs=NE9ChkLHqDlLHK7xKzrd9Q%3D%3D

Just for anyone's reference.

     Thomas Vecchione

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