The Barefoot Sound MiniMain12 is a 4-way active system with 7 drive units housed in sealed enclosures spanning 20Hz to 40kHz with vanishingly low distortion, breathtaking dynamic range, and ultra-fast transient response. Every driver has an under-hung voice coil moving inside an advanced geometry motor that enables it to make extremely long linear excursions. The ring radiator tweeter is incredibly detailed and produces very wide dispersion out to its highest frequencies. The aluminum cone subwoofers, woofers and midranges radiate as perfect pistons to at least 2.5 octaves beyond their respective bandwidths. Barefoot has teamed up with Bruno Putzeys of Hypex to develop the powerful and completely transparent amplifier stage of the MM12. Melding the system together is a groundbreaking DSP crossover.

With beautifully designed high-end converts and cutting-edge proprietary filtering techniques the MiniMain12 produces such a seamless and coherent wavefront that, if you dare, you can actually listen to this speaker from less than 3 feet away with no sonic compromise. And yes, the MiniMain12 works perfectly out to far field distances as well, producing SPLs equivalent to big mains.

If all this weren’t enough, the MiniMain12 brings yet another revolutionary feature into the mix—MEME (Multi Emphasis Monitor Emulation) technology. While no other monitor in the world can match the MM12’s linearity and transparency, the MM12 has the capability to emulate other speakers. Despite the advantages of high-resolution monitors, Barefoot realizes that many engineers still use their NS10M’s † and mix cubes as secondary references. These speakers have long traditions and people find them familiar and useful for focusing in on certain aspects of their mix. However, crowding one’s console with those extra boxes degrades the sound field of the primary reference monitors. Not to mention, they are no longer manufactured, they need amplifiers, cable runs, and they consume more studio space. So why not make the MiniMain12 sound and translate like those speakers as well? With the turn of a knob one can switch from the MiniMain12’s brutally revealing “Flat” response to the warmer and sweeter “Hi-Fi” setting, generically emulating the sound of some high-end consumer audio gear.

More specifically, the “Old School” setting closely emulates the sound of the NS10M nearfield. While the “Cube” setting emulates the mid-centric sound of classic mix cubes, the idea is not to perfectly replicate every subtle quirk of these venerable old speakers. But the MiniMain12 can capture the essence of how they behave and translate, modeling their frequency, phase and transient responses, dynamic compression and even some of their distortion components. If you know how to work on these speakers, you will feel very comfortable working on the MM12’s emulation settings.