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M-Audio EX66 Reference Monitor - Professional High-Resolution Active MTM Reference Monitor

Top Features

custom linear-piston woofers > high durability with exceptional definition and precision
titanium tweeter > crisp, smooth, and transparent
DSP-tuned cabinets and crossovers > unparalleled accuracy
MTM architecture > wide sweet spot with reduced room reflections
24-bit/192kHz digital inputs > total digital studio connectivity
The M-Audio EX66 monitor is the culmination of years of research developing cutting-edge high-definition active reference monitor technology. Our midwoofer-tweeter-midwoofer (MTM) design yields a wide sweet spot while minimizing room reflections. The unique low-frequency drivers and custom titanium high-frequency driver deliver exceptional smoothness and transparency across the entire audio band, without resonant peaks—and the drivers are impervious to environmental conditions such as heat, humidity, and sunlight. Onboard DSP handles cabinet resonance tuning and crossover optimization to round out an incredibly accurate frequency response. Digital inputs compatible with up to 24-bit/192kHz signals and high-impedance balanced analog inputs insure that your signal path is entirely pristine. Both the specs and the sound are unrivaled at any price, let alone this value. Sold individually, the M-Audio EX66 represents a new high-resolution standard for both 2-channel and multichannel applications.

Read about the making of the EX66

Dual Woofers

The M-Audio EX66 uses a midwoofer-tweeter-midwoofer (MTM) vertical array configuration to provide optimal imaging. Traditional 2-way speaker designs can cause significant early reflections from consoles, floors, and ceilings, resulting in coloration and smeared details in the audio. In the M-Audio EX66 monitor’s MTM design, the interaction of the two large drivers with the tweeter serves to channel the sound into a much narrower vertical pattern, thereby eliminating many of these reflection problems. The design simultaneously provides a large, coherent horizontal radiation pattern, giving you and your colleagues a much wider sweet spot.

Unique Low-Frequency Drivers

The M-Audio EX66 woofers use our proprietary linear-piston technology to minimize driver break-up modes and inertial effects. Our drivers have exceptional intrinsic damping characteristics with absolutely no frequency response peaks or resonances in the audible band. They provide truly linear pistonic action over the entire musical spectrum, bringing all portions of each musical transient into correct alignment and revealing more of music's subtle details. As an added bonus, our drivers can withstand extreme temperatures, moisture, humidity, sunlight, and salt, so they can weather the harshest conditions without deterioration.

Titanium Tweeter

Our 1” tweeter sounds as smooth as it looks. Titanium is known in the aerospace industry for its high tensile-strength-to-weight ratio and its resistance to corrosion. We craft the M-Audio EX66 tweeters from titanium in order to create a stiff, yet responsive piston that moves natural resonant modes well above the 20kHz audible threshold. This allows the tweeters to reproduce every nuance of musical detail with crisp, transparent accuracy without any high-frequency energy smearing or the harshness sometimes associated with rigid high-frequency drivers. The titanium tweeter is a natural complement to the M-Audio EX66 low-frequency drivers, providing smooth, coherent reproduction over the entire audio band.

 

  

Noise-Free Bass-Reflex Port

Many loudspeaker enclosures use a port to form a Helmholtz resonator to improve bass response. In some ported speakers, however, this has the side effect of audible friction noise from air moving in and out of the enclosure. Not so with the M-Audio EX66 monitors. Our engineers developed a dual-flanged rear-cabinet port to minimize the vibrations normally generated by low-frequency signals. This custom port is extremely efficient in its air transfer characteristics and is virtually noise-free. Rear placement also prevents port turbulence from interfering with the front dispersion of the midwoofers and tweeter.

Optimal Enclosure

Like the other components, the M-Audio EX66 enclosure has an important role in shaping the overall sonic response. In order to provide more stable performance, we designed an enclosure made of a special high-acoustic-efficiency medium density fiberboard (MDF), along with unique interior adiabatic foam reinforcement designed to absorb extraneous vibration, standing waves, and even extreme impact. Furthermore, our custom OptImage II waveguide on the front panel minimizes diffraction and dramatically improves stereo imaging.

DSP-Tuned Cabinets

All speaker cabinets exhibit resonant frequencies that color the timbre of the audio being reproduced. The extent to which they are mitigated is much of what allows critical listeners to distinguish between exceptional monitors and mediocre ones. The M-Audio EX66 monitors employ sophisticated on-board digital signal processing (DSP) technology to eradicate all resonances and tune the cabinet with exceptional precision. The M-Audio EX66 monitors also use DSP filters to achieve its precise and maximally flat 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover for the smoothest transition between the high and low driver frequency ranges.

Superior Biamplification

The M-Audio EX66 monitors use two separate 100-watt PWM power amplifiers to drive the 4-ohm woofer combination and 4-ohm tweeter separately in an audiophile-quality bi-amp structure. The ultra-low distortion at 200 watts per channel rounds out the M-Audio EX66 monitor’s profile as a truly world-class active loudspeaker monitor.

 

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Reviews
"They serve a perfect function—just the right size with excellent imaging. They sound smooth and fall in a perfect space, which is important when you’re working at a desk. I absolutely love them."
- Patrick Leonard - Record Producer
"The EX66s blew me away. If you make music, they will actually inspire you. Don’t believe me? I bought the review units and gave my old monitors to my best friend. Color me converted."
- Keyboard Magazine
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"I'm so sick of hyped 'pro' speakers; it's so nice to find monitors...that aren't deceiving and actually tell me the story I need to get a good mix. You need to listen to the EX66s for yourself."
- Recording Magazine
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"In a mature market, it’s almost impossible to be revolutionary, yet that’s exactly what the engineers at M-Audio have done with their new EX66 line of monitors."
- Beat Portal, October 2007
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"M-Audio wanted to create a serious studio monitor that would make people sit up and take notice…the EX66s might just fast track them into the big boys' league."
- Sound on Sound, September 2006
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