REVIEW: Sound On Sound on Sat 8 & Sub 212
If you demand brutal and revealing precision from your monitors, read on…
By Mike Senior
The working title for this new full-range 2.1 monitor system from Blue Sky was the Mid Blue, because it plugs the gap in their product line between the Sky System One and their flagship Big Blue. It comprises two Sat 8 three-way active satellites and a single Sub 212 subwoofer (both of which are unported, infinite-baffle designs), and weighs in at around 85kg in total. It hardly seems worth insuring the system against theft, as it would take some kind of ‘B’-movie monster to make off with it in a hurry — and most policies usually exclude Acts of Godzilla anyway!
Design & Construction
Each Sat 8 combines eight-inch and four-inch hemispherical drivers, plus a ring-radiator tweeter. The slots either side of the tweeter aren’t porting vents — they don’t actually breach the cabinet — but are stuffed with acoustic absorption material to soak up high-frequency diffractions and thereby keep high-end horizontal dispersion more even. As you can see from the pictures, the tweeter and mid-range driver are mounted on a separate plate, and this can be rotated to maintain this improved horizontal dispersion when mounting the monitors on their sides.
Published in Sound On Sound, February 2010. For the full article, click here.