|| TESTING 123 PRICE: $199
PRESONUS ERIS E5 ACTIVE STUDIO MONITORS
PRESONUS ONLY RECENTLY ENTERED THE SPEAKER FIELD. HOW DO THEIR BUDGET-LEVEL MONITORS STACK UP? BY PETER HODGSON
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t’s easy to take ‘in the box’ recording for granted. You can take your earbuds out of your iPhone, plug ‘em into your laptop and go to work on a track that is utterly studio-quality… which is all well and good until you go to mix, and you realise that a mix that sounds great in your earphones just doesn’t work out in the real world, blasting through the speakers of your car stereo, over your home theatre system or good old-fashioned stereo (remember those?). The only way to make sure your sound is going to be consistently pro-level across all platforms is to use proper studio monitors that reveal the truth about your mix: the good, the bad and the ugly. MIX AND MATCH The Eris E5 set is a pair of small speakers weighing in at 4.63 kg each, measuring 178 x 260 x 195 mm each. At that size you can stash them pretty much anywhere: studio, bedroom, living room, garage… and it also makes them nicely portable for use as a mini stereo practice rig in a pinch (when paired with amp sim software) or hardware). The E5 is built around a 5.25 inch, Kevlar low-frequency driver being fed by a 45 watt, Class AB amplifier, and a 1 inch silk-dome tweeter powered by a 35 watt, Class AB amplifier. It’s capable of a clean 102 dB SPL, peak, and the frequency response is rated at 53 Hz to 22 kHz. If you require a deeper low frequency response – say, you’re working on electronic dance music or something else that’s very much skewed toward the low end – there’s the Eris E8, which has an 8 inch Kevlar low-frequency transducer, driven by a 75 watt, Class AB power amplifier, and can range down to 35 Hz while also vein capable of hitting 22 kHz via a 1.25 inch silk-dome, high-frequency tweeter and a 65 watt, Class AB amplifier. With its extra juice, the E8 can deliver up to 105 dB SPL, peak. Both the E5 and E8 set have frontported enclosures made of vinyl-laminated, medium-density fiberboard. There are three EQ controls in the Acoustic Tuning section (High, Mid, and Low Cutoff), allowing you to fine-tune the response of the speakers to approximate various speaker types, such as car stereo, portable radio, smartphone speaker. And the Low control is also particularly helpful if you’re using a subwoofer to further expand your awareness of and control over the bass response of your mix. There’s also a threeposition Acoustic Space switch which governs a second-order, low shelving filter that can be called on to cut the level of all frequencies below
WHAT WE RECKON PROS Great clean headroom Plenty of control Lots of connection options
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800 Hz by a specified amount (either -2 or -4 dB) to compensate for the boundary bass boost that occurs when the monitor is placed near a wall or corner. All of the controls are mounted on the back, with clear diagrams that detail the signal flow and explain the appropriate Acoustic Space environments. This keeps the front nice and clean from a visual perspective and removes the temptation to endlessly tweak with the controls rather than to ensure your mix itself is sounding good. GET CONNECTED Connections include balanced XLR, balanced ¼ inch TRS, and unbalanced RCA line-level inputs. If both balanced connections are in use, the TRS input will supersede the XLR input. The RCA input is summed into the signal path. This means you can hook the Eris speakers up to pretty much any line-level source, or if you’re working with a signal source with unbalanced quarter-inch TS outputs, just use a quarter-inch-to-RCA adapter or adapter cable. I plugged the Eris E5s into my Mbox via my iMac and fired up – coincidentally – my DAW of choice, PreSonus Studio One. I called up a few mixes that I was reasonably happy with when using my regular monitors. The E5s immediately revealed a few uncomfortable truths as well as a few happy victories within my mixes. They helped me to hear that my low mids were a little cluttered and that I could have used a little more low end in my bass guitar and kick drum. They were also louder than my regular monitors, and sometimes there’s stuff that you can only learn about your mix when it’s blasting off the walls at deafening volume. The Eris E5 set is equally at home as part of an ‘in-situ’ studio setting – big mixer, lots of outboard gear, plenty of mics – but its light weight and affordability make them well suited to the occasional recordist who might lay down everything with headphones, virtual instruments and plug-ins, but who requires the honesty and fidelity of real studio monitors when it’s time to mix. And they’re also designed to be great ‘multimedia’ speakers for your computer during those times when you’re not making music: editing or watching movies, listening to music, sharing cat videos and what have you.
CONS Some might prefer front-mounted controls
FEATURES • 5.25-inch Kevlar low-frequency transducer • 1 inch ultra-low-mass, silk-dome, high-frequency transducer • 70 watt Class AB biamplification • Front-firing acoustic port for superior bass-frequency reproduction • Midrange (±6 dB, continuously variable), HF (±6 dB, continuously variable), High-Pass (Off, 80 Hz, 100 Hz) and Acoustic Space settings (flat, -2, -4 dB) for accurate mixing contour • RF interference, output current limiting, over temperature, transient, and subsonic protection • Optimized, resonance-suppressing internal bracing • Balanced XLR/¼-inch and unbalanced RCA inputs
THE BOTTOM LINE These are created and marketed as budget speakers, but they definitely punch above their weight in terms of clean headroom and three-dimensionality. And they certainly have more environment-tailoring features than other monitors in this price range.
CONTACT National Audio Systems 1800 441 440 www.nationalaudio.com.au