I checked these out at 2 places on Tuesday.
In one room, which is ironically touted as a great monitor room, they sounded abysmal. The reason? Massive bass reinforcement in the room itself. I don't know whether it was purposefully designed that way, but the bass in that room is overkill, muddy and just plain unrealistic. Even on 1/4 wavelength mode it was still barely controlling itself.
They sounded much better in a larger, untreated room (when not located in a corner). They have some massive bass extension which can lead to problems with incorrect positioning. There are a ton of EQ/room adjustment options on the units themselves. There are 1/4, 1/2 and 1/1 wavelength modes (depending on size of room and positioning). Low shelf, high shelf, a sweepable mid EQ, and a dimmer for the logo LED. The tweeter waveguides are also rotatable so the speakers can be horizontally mounted (which is something that I might make use of).
On the tonality of the speakers... compared to my ASP8s they are rather more subdued and hollow in the mids. The highs are amazingly open, compared to Adam A7s, Genelec 8040As.. in fact they absolutely demolished the 8040s. The A7s sounded muffled by a blanket in comparison. They are loaded with metal tweeters so the high end sounds quite forward. Whether or not that is a result of low distortion or not, I don't know... but it's a sound I can definitely vibe with. Transient response is superb. Those 750 watts really come into play when you are hearing the master bus compression of source material snapping down after the initial 'thwack'. Listening to CLA mixes was a total pleasure here.
My biggest concern is that they are not mid forward at all. If anything they lean more on the hi-fi side of the spectrum, with some gaps in the lower mids. As such it becomes a bit more difficult to discern detail in the midrange of guitar-centric music (which is just about every project I do). So I'm not entirely sold on whether they are voiced the best way to give me the detail in the right areas... but I do know that I can vibe off them immensely. They sound like a miniature PA system, which massive low-end extension, superb transient reproduction, and an amazingly deep and sweet soundstage. The highs are pristine (if a little in your face).
They seem like a good set to pair with some NS-10s, or cheaper monitors of the 'shite' variety, to cover all bases.
On the whole, if I can sell the ASP8s soon enough, I will most likely grab a pair.
Oh! When Event finish their room calibration software they ship the customers a free calibration mic along with the software, so they can tune their rooms with the on-board EQs more accurately.
Further information: http://www.event1.com/index.php
In one room, which is ironically touted as a great monitor room, they sounded abysmal. The reason? Massive bass reinforcement in the room itself. I don't know whether it was purposefully designed that way, but the bass in that room is overkill, muddy and just plain unrealistic. Even on 1/4 wavelength mode it was still barely controlling itself.
They sounded much better in a larger, untreated room (when not located in a corner). They have some massive bass extension which can lead to problems with incorrect positioning. There are a ton of EQ/room adjustment options on the units themselves. There are 1/4, 1/2 and 1/1 wavelength modes (depending on size of room and positioning). Low shelf, high shelf, a sweepable mid EQ, and a dimmer for the logo LED. The tweeter waveguides are also rotatable so the speakers can be horizontally mounted (which is something that I might make use of).
On the tonality of the speakers... compared to my ASP8s they are rather more subdued and hollow in the mids. The highs are amazingly open, compared to Adam A7s, Genelec 8040As.. in fact they absolutely demolished the 8040s. The A7s sounded muffled by a blanket in comparison. They are loaded with metal tweeters so the high end sounds quite forward. Whether or not that is a result of low distortion or not, I don't know... but it's a sound I can definitely vibe with. Transient response is superb. Those 750 watts really come into play when you are hearing the master bus compression of source material snapping down after the initial 'thwack'. Listening to CLA mixes was a total pleasure here.
My biggest concern is that they are not mid forward at all. If anything they lean more on the hi-fi side of the spectrum, with some gaps in the lower mids. As such it becomes a bit more difficult to discern detail in the midrange of guitar-centric music (which is just about every project I do). So I'm not entirely sold on whether they are voiced the best way to give me the detail in the right areas... but I do know that I can vibe off them immensely. They sound like a miniature PA system, which massive low-end extension, superb transient reproduction, and an amazingly deep and sweet soundstage. The highs are pristine (if a little in your face).
They seem like a good set to pair with some NS-10s, or cheaper monitors of the 'shite' variety, to cover all bases.
On the whole, if I can sell the ASP8s soon enough, I will most likely grab a pair.
Oh! When Event finish their room calibration software they ship the customers a free calibration mic along with the software, so they can tune their rooms with the on-board EQs more accurately.
Further information: http://www.event1.com/index.php
