Ocean Way Audio Montecito High-Resolution Reference Loudspeaker Preview

I have to admit, when the press release about the Ocean Way Audio Montecito High-Resolution Reference Loudspeaker crossed my desk, I took one look at the speaker and thought, "Ugh." Out of curiosity, I scrolled down to view the price. After I cleaned up the coffee I'd spit all over my desk, I took a closer look at the Montecito.

High-end speaker manufacturers tend to fall into two camps - aesthetic or performance focused. Now, I'm not suggesting that a good looking, high-end (and high-dollar) speaker can't sound great, but my experience has been that they generally do one or the other really well, not both. When I see a high-dollar, esoteric speaker that looks like it might have been made in the 70's, I immediately think that the manufacturer is worried more about sound than looks.

You know what? I am too.

Too bad you have to be this close to see the grain

The Ocean Way Audio Montecito is a big, rectangular speaker that, from a distance, looks about as unremarkable as you could imagine. Up close, however, it does show a few nice touches. The tweeter, for example, is coupled to a solid hardwood waveguide. The Montecito’s enclosure is constructed from laminated birch plywood and other high-density woods selected to eliminate colorations that might be caused by unwanted internal resonances. Each cabinet is finished with select mahogany and spruce with intricate inlays on the edges of the 45-degree-angled front corners. The cabinets then receive an 18-coat polyester finish. The Montecito is offered in a number of real-wood finishes to compliment what Ocean Way Audio is calling its "understated" design.

"Understated" is an understatement.

The color of the terminal is not important, it is the ring in the center

Looking beyond the exterior, the Montecito shows where your $48,000 a pair is going. The speaker is 52 inches high by 16 inches wide by 22 inches deep and weighs in at a stunning 154 pounds. We can only imagine the amount of bracing that must be in these speakers to achieve that weight. The rear sports dual binding posts and Ocean Way brags that they have the ability to adjust the passive crossover to match each set of components. We're guessing they are referring to the drivers as there is no indication that they will tailor the speakers for your particular components (though, at this price point, that seems like it might be an option).

When you take a closer look at the performance, you see why they want so much money for these speakers. They start with an aluminum-dome tweeter encased in ferrofliuid. The hardwood waveguide promises 6dB greater efficiency and wider dispersion. The tweeter is physically and time aligned with the anodized aluminum cone 10" midrange driver with a cast basket and a 1.5" voice coil. The dual 12" drivers take care of the bass and again have aluminum cones and cast baskets. The woofers have 2.5" voice coils and over an inch of excursion.

The tweeter is crossed over into the midrange at 1.6kHz and the midrange into the woofers at 160Hz. The Montecitos claim 88dB efficiency which, technically, isn't that bad, bu, if you are dropping the price of a BMW on a pair of speakers, you should probably grab a couple of monoblocks as well. With the dual binding posts, bi-wiring or bi-amping is always an option.

When looking at a $48k pair of speakers, you're hoping for more than just a pretty face or fancy drivers. Ocean Way Audio has spec'ed the Montecitos from 24kHz to 30Hz +/- 1.5dB! That's pretty insane performance for any speaker at any price point. The Montecitos are true full-range speakers in every sense of the phrase. We'd love to see how these would sound with everything from orchestral music to some of the high res music we love to test speakers with. It would be especially fun to put them up against our reference Status Acoustics Titus 8T towers, which retail for about the same. Ocean Way promises that matched pairs will measure within +/- .5dB of each other for perfectly balanced musical reproduction. They also promise that the Montecito speakers will produce very loud levels with low distortion, and by looking at the driver array, we tend to believe them. However, We doubt they play very loud at the bottom of their frequency response, 24Hz.

Conclusion

At $48,000 a pair, Ocean Way Audio only has to sell a few of the Montecito speakers to have a good year (we're guessing). That said, with the performance they are promising (24kHz to 30Hz +/- 1.5dB and matched pairs measuring within .5dB of each other), you can see why someone with a lot of money that wants the absolute best performance they can get out of a two channel system would consider these speakers. If all it took to make a great looking speaker was the best quality materials and phenomenal performance, the Montecito speakers would be the best looking speakers on the market. Our suggestion is to invest in some high quality outriggers to dress these plain-Jane speakers up a bit.

For more information, please visit www.oceanwayaudio.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.