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UREI 813
CXL-2580Cとは直接関係ないのですが、PAS社のこうしたユニットはUREIに採用されたことがありました。

以下の文章は、UREIのモニタースピーカーシステムについて、ランシングヘリテッジフォーラムの管理人、Don McRitchie氏が2001年8月に同フォーラムに記載したものです。

ちょっとだけ訳してみると…

オリジナルの813(下の画像)はモディファイしたALTEC604-8GとEminence社(北米のスピーカーユニットメーカー)のウーファーを使用。このウーファー(型番はU800W、または800W)は最低域を伸ばすのではなく、パワーハンドリングを改善するためのもの。

UREI 813_c0143750_1941565.jpg


その後、1979年にフェライトの604-8Kに変更。フォーム状のパッドをホーンに取付けカットオフ近辺のクセを低減。さらに、ホーンの内壁にレゾネーターを形成して3kHzのピークを解消。これが813A。

70年代後半から80年代初頭にかけてALTEC社は品質管理に問題を抱えるようになり、UREIは604の代わりを探し始めた。候補としてTannoy、Emilar、Gaussの同軸をテストしたが要求を満たさず。結局、PAS社の同軸ウーファー部にJBL社の2425を組み合わせ、これにEminenceの補助ウーファーを搭載したのが813B(下の画像)。UREIのビジネスはこれで大成功する。

UREI 813_c0143750_19292467.jpg


UREIはその後ハーマンに吸収され、1984年にJBL社の801と呼ばれる新型同軸ユニットと2215Hを組み合わせた813Cになったということです。


UREI stands for Universal Recording Electronics Industries. It was founded by Bill Putnam in the 1960’s as a small manufacturing arm of his larger recording studio business – Universal Recording Company (later United Recording, United Western and currently Ocean Way). Bill was one of the most respected recording engineers in the business. He was Frank Sinatra’s favorite engineer and worked on many of his most renowned recordings.

Bill was instrumental in developing many of the technological innovations that have become standards in the recording history. A detailed profile of his life can be found at:

http://www.uaudio.com/history/BPsr.html

Word of Bill’s innovations in developing homebuilt equipment for his studio spread throughout the industry and resulted in demand for him to manufacture and sell his products. This was the genesis of what would ultimately become UREI. One of Bill’s homebuilt products that gained significant word-of-mouth was a customized monitor that was the prototype for the 813.

The original prototype was based on the Big Red monitor developed by Sherwood Sax of Mastering Lab and manufactured by Audio Techniques of Stamford Connecticut. It was based on the Altec 604. The major innovation of the Big Red was to replace the standard cross-over with a customized design that tamed a ragged midrange response that plagued all 604/605’s of that era. It resulted in a much smoother response that addressed the long standing reputation of the 604 as being a “fatiguing” monitor.

Bill Putnam worked with Dean Austin, Ed Long and Dennis Fink of UREI to further improve the 604. The multicell horn of that driver had relatively poor directional control and poor loading at crossover which contributed to the harsh and ragged response. The 813 was developed with a customized, flared horn that had tighter pattern control and a revised cross-over. The cross-over was designed by Ed Long and introduced the patented Time Align (R) concept that allowed the 604 to operate as a time-coherent point-source.

The original 813 was installed in Putnam’s own United/Western recording studios in the mid 70’s. Outside mixers and engineers that booked time in these studios were very impressed with this new monitor and pressured Putnam to manufacture and sell the 813. In 1976, UREI expanded its field of operations and entered into the monitor business.

The original 813 used a modified 604-8G along with an Eminence helper woofer and Ed Long’s Time Align crossover. Interestingly, the main purpose of the Eminence woofer was not to extend bass response but rather increase overall output. The 604 was prone to failure at high output levels. The helper woofer allowed UREI to increase the power handling of the 813. To this day, unless soffit mounted and equalized, the 813 has a reputation of being somewhat bass shy.

In 1979, Altec introduced the 604-8K as the ferrite replacement of the Alnico 604-8H. The new driver was found to sound quite different leading Putnam to make further revisions to the 813. A new horn was introduced that added foam padding to the interior of the horn and a foam extender on the horn mouth to soften the cutoff frequency characteristics. Putnam also included small Helmholtz resonators on the internal side walls of the horn to trap the persistent 3 khz spike in the 604 response. The network was redesigned to accommodate the driver changes and the new system became the 813A.

During the late 70’s and into the early 80’s, Altec was experiencing significant quality control problems. At the time, Altec was headed towards bankruptcy and the eventual closure of the Anaheim facility. It resulted in such poor product consistency that UREI was rejecting as much as 95% of the incoming Altec drivers. UREI became an authorized Altec repair center just to ensure they would have enough stock on hand to build the 813. It led UREI to ultimately seek a replacement for the 604.

UREI initially tested Tannoy, Emilar and Gauss products, but none would meet their requirements. Ultimately, they became interested in PAS drivers which had a unique 15” bass driver that could accept a high frequency compression driver of the user’s choice. UREI was favorably impressed with JBL’s 2425 compression driver and tried mating it to the PAS transducer. This became the basis of the 813B introduced in 1983. Again, an Eminence helper woofer was employed. This was a very successful design and led to a very healthy upgrade business for UREI in converting 813A’s to 813B’s. The 815 was also introduced at this time which was a monster monitor that contained two Eminence helper woofers for a total of 3-15” drivers.

During the development of the 813B, there was a very interesting problem with the production 813A. All of the sudden, new 604’s exhibited a deep, narrow hole in their response at 3 kHz. A phone call to Altec established that the long known issue of the spiked midrange response had finally been addressed by a new engineer and a design change was made without informing their customers. UREI addressed this new development by substituting closed-cell foam of the same color as the original open-cell foam in the resonating holes, which disabled the resonators without changing the product cosmetics.

In the early 80’s, Bill Putam’s wife died and he began to lose heart in the business. Harman International expressed interest in the firm and UREI was sold in late 1983 to become a division of JBLpro. Dean Austin moved over to JBL and became responsible for the ongoing design of UREI monitors. In 1984, the 813C was introduced as an all JBL product. It used a new coaxial called the 801 and replaced the Eminence helper woofer with the 2215H (pro equivalent of the LE15). This was the most successful 813 yet and replaced the 815B as well since it had higher output than that 3 driver system. Dean went on to design the very successful 12” 809 which was the last UREI monitor that was sold when Harman International discontinued the brand in the mid 1990’s.



















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by kiirojbl | 2008-06-18 19:29 | UREI
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