[BretLudwig]

(( The center horn should have been pink instead. Bret.))


1977 UREI 813 Studio Monitors



"In the mid-70s, UREI founder Bill Putnam€”unhappy with the sound of
the Altec 604 monitors in his United Western Studios€”worked with UREIs
Dean Austin and Dennis Fink on ways to improve the 604. They replaced
Altecs multicell horn with a wider dispersion design and added a
15-inch Eminence woofer to boost LF output. Ed Long applied his
Time-Align„¢ crossover techniques to achieve time- coherent, true
point-source performance.

Engineers and producers mixing on the system were so enthusiastic about
its sound that UREI started producing the monitors as a commercial
product, with the first UREI 813 debuting in 1977. Typically
soffit-mounted, these large, double-15 monitors were ideal for the larger,
higher-SPL control rooms of the time.

UREI founder Bill Putnam Sr. tests a very early 813 prototype.

Two years later, Altec replaced its Alnico 604-8H with a ferrite model,
requiring modifications to the 813 design, including a foam diffraction
buffer, crossover mods and small Helmholtz resonators in the horn flare.
This 1979 model was the 813A, followed by the 815A (a 604, plus two extra
woofers) and the single-driver 811A, but the 813A was far more popular.

Financial and QC problems at Altec led UREI to find a new driver source,
now mating PAS coaxial 15 to a JBL 2425 compression driver. The new 813B
version debuted in 1983. Later that year, Putnam sold the business to
Harman, with UREI becoming a division of JBL Professional; the 813C, a new
model with all JBL drivers, launched in 1984. But in its various
incarnations, the UREI 813 was the most successful large-format studio
monitor ever made."

http://mixonline.com/TECnology-Hall-...nitors-090106/



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