Review: Meyer Sound CAL

Smarter than your average column speaker

Something I really like about Meyer Sound is that their solutions to challenging audio problems are founded firmly in science, not marketing. Every functional design decision is made for a reason based on actual physics.

CAL, or the Column Array Loudspeaker from Meyer was designed with the specific purpose of vocal reproduction in acoustically difficult environments. It doesn’t do anything much at all below 125Hz – not because they couldn’t have made it work, but because that’s not what it’s designed to do. It was designed for speech, and the majority of human voices don’t have a lot going on under 100 or even 200Hz.

While CAL provides a horizontal coverage angle of 120 degrees, the cleverness of it lies in its vertical coverage, which can be electronically steered. The vertical coverage can be switched between 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 degrees, and it can also be steered up or down in one degree increments by as much as 30 degrees. A common misconception about how this works is that the drivers inside the cabinet physically change angles to adjust the vertical coverage, but this is not the case. The coverage is altered by changing the timing relationship between the transducers.

CAL is available in three different sizes – CAL 32, CAL 64, and CAL 96. The larger two models allow the vertical coverage to be split into two sections, meaning you can use one CAL to cover a floor
and balcony area. The model numbers reflect the number of transducers in each unit, and there are effectively three 20mm tweeters for every one 4” driver. Each driver has its own DSP and digital amplification channel. Little wonder that at just over 3m tall, CAL 96 weighs 78.5kg – not actually very heavy at all when you consider how much stuff is jammed inside!

Meyer Sound isn’t the only company to make a steerable column speaker, so it’s important to address the points that distinguish CAL. First up, CAL is AVB capable and AVnu Alliance certified. It has dual AVB ports on EtherCon connectors, and you can input up to three AVB signals. If you don’t want to input AVB, CAL also has three analogue inputs with loop-throughs as well as AES/EBU input, all on phoenix connectors. Also on the same type of connector are GPIO terminals for mute and override, logic inputs to change presets, and even NC and NO fault contacts. It’s perfectly setup to integrate with 3rd party control systems or paging systems.