23rd January 2019

Rock MK-III 2 way active monitor

Unity Audio have updated their award winning 2 way active near-field Rock monitor with the release of the new MK-III model.

The Rock was the first active monitor in the Unity Audio range which was launched 10 years ago. The highly respected and revered Rock has been embraced over the decade by thousands of professional engineers, producers, artists, recording and mastering studios all over the world. Being hailed as the modern 'NS-10', it's forte being a brutally honest mixing reference monitor that gives the information to form intelligent decisions about the recording, mixes and balance.

Staying true to the MK-II

Rather than discontinuing a model after a few years , Unity Audio's philosophy is to evolve it's range of monitors. Unity's founder and designer Kevin Walker explains the reasons behind this.

"Being an engineer and user of professional audio products myself, I can put myself in the shoes of our customers. Relying on key integral equipment like monitoring, you'd like to have peace of mind that the monitors you rely on day in day out won't become discontinued and obsolete, but rather have longevity and continued development. We knew we had to keep many of the Rock MK-II attributes in tact as there's so many people who love them and trust them implicitly. We worked long and hard to achieve this but also to improve and evolve the Rock as well. We have a number of long-standing diehard Rock MK-II users that auditioned and subsequently bought the new MK-III and we've received nothing but praise. Confirmation that it's still a Rock at heart but even better!” Kevin Walker – Unity Audio MD

The Rock MK-III still retains many key features and most importantly the overall sonic footprint of the previous MK-II model. One key factor is the original Tim De Paravicini SP64 input/crossover which is still used, albeit modified to accommodate other changes in the new model. The integral 50kHz folded ribbon tweeter is also still present. The cabinet dimensions remain exactly the same and still use the original Baltic Birch plywood sealed cabinet design to guarantee fast, accurate and detailed low frequency information. The same Corian front baffle is employed to ensure a resonant free solid mounting platform for the drivers.

MK-III Key Changes

New 180mm Crystal Membrane Woofer

The key changes on the MK-III include the new replacement Crystal Membrane 180mm woofer and the amplification The new woofer is the same physical size as the previous MK-II, but electronically and mechanically far superior.

The 180mm woofer cone is manufactured with the same successful sandwich AS technology: a paper cone to which a special aluminium foil is glued with enhanced acoustic characteristics, lesser distortion, improved dynamics and much higher SPL capabilities. The aluminium foil which covers the paper cone has been pressed into a special shape, closely imitating the way a finished crystal would look, hence the term Crystal Membrane.
This stamping stiffens the aluminium dome considerably which diminishes the membrane-internal resonances resulting in less sound coloration. The unconventional voice coil mounting results in the expansion of the transmission range of the woofers by nearly an octave. Due to the specially wide double asymmetrical ('DAS') rubber surround, the Rocks new woofer can handle up to ±15mm excursion.

New Amplification

The Mk-III model now uses very high quality quiet efficient Class D amplifier with a huge combined output of 360 watts per cabinet resulting in a monitor with loads of headroom, detail and dynamics.

The Unity Audio Rock MK-III is available now at £2,144.00 a pair ex VAT / $2,938.00 a pair ex Tax/