So I've had these things in since some time mid-last week. I managed to score a fairly good deal on eBay for a 2nd hand pair from the local distributor of Rode Microphones. After some initial problems (like being sent a passive monitor), all was sorted and I managed to start plugging and playing.
I initially noticed that with both 'Input Sensitivity' pots set to max, the monitors were putting out mis-matched levels. So it seems straight out of the box that the amps on these aren't matched 100%. After fiddling around and setting one of the monitors to -5dB input, I managed to approximate an equal volume level that gave me a nice, centered, mono position.
Given that my room has some serious bass nulls, traditionally I had to run my monitors with a software bass boost. These things on the other hand have convenient low-shelf pots on the back that do gain in the range of +/- 3dB. Given that I have them as close to the back window as humanly possible, I've gained a ton of bass off the back wall, and consequently only have to run these things with around 1dB on the low shelf.
Without much adjustment to the monitor position (going off my last pair of monitors) I went straight at it and noticed that first and foremost, these things were putting out some serious midrange. After consequently putting some serious distance between them and my mixing position I started getting a response I was slightly more familiar with. Initial impression here was that, wow, these things have some fairly hefty low-end extension to work with. Most of the first hour of use consisted of me putting 90s club tracks, trip-hop and orchestral music through them to suck as much juicy 40Hz as I could. High-end is fairly sub-dued and natural sounding, without any noticable hype. These definitely aren't high/high-mid forward monitors of the likes of ADAM or Focal. The midrange is fairly forward, but can be tweaked depending on one's seating relationship to the monitors. I found having them further took some of the edge off and made them sound more natural and akin to what I'm used to. Essentially they're a TINY bit on the hi-fi side, with a seemingly pleasant scoop somewhere in the lower midrange, but with all the natural core mid action I've come to expect from the ATH M-50s headphones.
Now, to look at the midrange in detail, I have to say that these pale in comparison to the PMC TB2s I was trying out here several months ago. The PMCs had an incredibly detailed, surreal element and depth to the overall soundstage that simply doesn't exist with monitors of the ASP8s' price point. The ASP8s give me a ton more midrange detail than I'm used to from my cheap Chinese monitors (my workhorses for the last 3 and a half years). Having said that, at times the midrange can seem a bit cloudy and not particularly as 3d as I've come to know from monitors such as the KH O300s and PMCs. This criticism could stem from the fact that the 8" driver is reproducing frequencies all the way to 40hz quite evenly, yet still expected to deliver a convincing and rich midrange. That sort of thing simply isn't going to happen. The dome tweeter on these things is also not the favourite that I've run into. It seems subdued and laid back, but at the same time somewhat brittle, which make it slightly difficult to look into overheads, vocals and clean instruments with the degree of precision I would like. This is all perfectly acceptable for a pair of monitors in this price point, and these are criticisms commonly reserved for speakers of a higher caliber.
After spending several hours in front of them today (first time I've really had a chance to since getting them), I think I can definitely get used to their sound. I've played around with different positioning in the room, to give me slightly different bass responses, in that ever-elusive search for neutrality. I've settled on a position very close to the back window, to give as much natural bass as I can get acoustically out of the room, rather than relying on the electronic boost on the amps.
On the whole I think these are some of the nicest and most neutral monitors I've heard at this price point. The only set that comes to mind which could match up is the Dynaudio BM6A, which is a fair bit more expensive, and doesn't give the sort of bass response one can expect from the Events. All in all, nice monitors to tide me over until I eventually buy a set of KH O300s
.Cheers for reading (in case you made it this far)!
