Recording - March 2021 - 34

REVIEW
appearance of a modular horn-loaded
cabinet from a traditional PA stack.
Despite appearances, these are not the
horns from your old high school PA-
they're based on trusted, time-tested
Ocean Way designs going back to the
United Western era.

The HR5

The HR5 is the new 'baby' of the line.
It's billed as a near/mid-field design
aimed at pro and project studios alike.
The gray textured Baltic birch and MDF
cabinet measures 17.5 " wide, 12 " tall
and 14.5 " deep. Underneath its dual/
hybrid (horn) waveguide lives a 7 "
aluminum woofer and a 1 " silk dome
tweeter with an aluminum voice coil.
The Class D bi-amped system (125/90
watts) drives a frequency range of 45
Hz-20 kHz and a max SPL of 110 dB
SPL @ 1m. The enclosure is ported in the
rear and weighs a respectable 38 lbs.

Analog and digital

Ocean Way Audio HR5
Powered Studio Monitor
This unique-looking speaker sounds incredible
anywhere in the room
REVIEW BY PAUL VNUK JR.

B

efore the dawn of pro audio brands, most recording studios
employed respected technicians and engineers to design and install
custom consoles and monitoring systems. One such studio was
Ocean Way (originally United Western), and the engineer was Allen
Sides. Now coming full circle, Allen's famed monitor designs are a pro
audio brand by way of the Ocean Way HR Series and Pro2A reference
monitors. After eyeing up their distinct look for years, I've been insanely
curious to check these out.

Meet the family

The HR1, HR2 and HR3 are far-field
monitors primarily designed for soffit
mounting and professional installs in
large scale facilities. Further models
34 RECORDING March 2021

include the three-way HR3.5 with dual
12 " woofers, the smaller 8 " HR4, and
the new 7 " HR5 Reference Monitor
under review here. The HR4 and HR5
are two-way designs, and both give the

On the rear of the cabinet are XLR inputs (analog and digital) and a digital
output for chaining to the second monitor. Along with a master volume control
is a recessed push-button and four LEDs,
used to select between analog or digital
input, between left and right positioning
in a digital setup, and to engage a fixed
highpass filter for using the HR5 with an
Ocean Way S series sub. There's also a
rear-located power switch and a threeprong IEC power socket.

Making waves

The dual/hybrid waveguide is key to
the HR series. Quoting a conversation
I had with Allen Sides, " By putting a
straight horn in front of the low-frequency driver and cutting it off, you can take
the dispersion, which would normally
only be about 40 degrees, and make
it 90 degrees so that the low-frequency
and high-frequency elements have identical dispersion characteristics. Also,
both horns add about 10dB of efficiency
to the components, which allows them to
work less hard and coast. "
This wide 90 to 100-degree horizontal
throw results in an insanely wide sweet
spot and a very uniform sound regardless
of where you're sitting in the room.
Recording - March 2021

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