michael popham
October 31, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Probably the best sub £600-800 monitors your money could buy.

Recently i was tasked with finding a good set of monitors for creating and finalising tracks by someone with a pretty much unlimited budget - whereby it could be justifyed & after listening to many, many different speakers i found myself choosing these over everything else.. i even upgraded my own monitors to these shorty afterwards. and heres why..

Dispite the fact that these monitors are most definately on the market, in a \'budget\' price bracket; don\'t let that fool you - they really deliver. they are brutally honest, clear & produce a soundstage thats so real, its a shock the first time you hear it.
Mixes created using these speakers manage to sound really good on pretty much any system you play it on. so theres no real need for additional monitoring for comparison.
This is furthered by the fact that the bass response on these is so deep (40hz odd), that you dont end up producing muddy \'small monitor\' mixes ..as is so easily done with other speakers. also because of this you wont really need a subwoofer !

Some people find the crispness of the top end on these speakers a little much to start with; as they are often used to listening to \'softer\', less honest monitors. you can boost and cut the speakers response for hi & low if you desire to match them to your tastes / the room (bass); however this defeats the point of accurate monitoring (& thus mixes) somewhat..

Although overall i really like the solid (heavy) build & design of these monitors (\'thonk\' free cabs, plenty of heatsink); i do have one niggle.. to some eyes the use of plastic, silver speaker trims may look a little cheap.. however i\'m quite happy to waive minor matters like this for having all the investment that went into these; going into making sound... which is what they are all about anyways !

In the end, i really couldnt see any fair competition from speakers in the same price range & i found it hard to justify spending really big money without having a room designed specifically for mixing & thus get the best out of them.

and if those sorts of thoughts come to mind; maybe its time to visit a pro studio..

Also something which folks into their hifi should check out; sitting back and listening to music on these is sheer pleasure.. however you may get a slightly rude awakening when you happen across the occaisonal mediocre recording !

reccomended to everyone & possibly affordable for all too !