Avantone Pro MixCube Monitor Review

[lewdish]

I have a friend who owns one for music production, as far as I understand while Avantone markets it as a Full range product, almost all music producers seem to use it to isolate mid centric sounds which it more or less fulfills. Its def not an audiophile product and more for mix engineers to use for specific mixing applications. My friend uses it as a mid centric mono channel to isolate out things like vocals and mids center imaging.

 

[bennybbbx]

Please use an online translation program, it is hardly possible for me to understand the meaning of your sentences.




A flat frequency response roll-off in the low frequency range is better than a steep drop-off, that is true. But even better is a linear frequency response (constant phase). Best without additional excess phase by filters like for example around a crossover frequency.

The CubeMix speaker shows a high pass behavior below 1kHz and a low pass behavior above 2kHz, so it works like a bandpass around the 1-2kHz frequency range.
This leads to a relatively high group delay in the range 100-500Hz.

A good 2-way loudspeaker has a linear FR in this frequency range and shows only a small off-set in the GD depending on the crossover frequency and filter order. Therefore the GD of a 2-way speaker in the important frequency range 100-500Hz can be better than that of the MixCube - of course the group delay of the 2-way LS is higher below 100Hz, but the MixCube does not reproduce this range at all and in combination with a subwoofer the GD would be similar or higher than with the 2-way LS.

If one would (and could) adjust the FR of the MixCube via EQ, the GD would of course also massively improve.
View attachment 271693
The only price to pay for this is a higher GD in the lowest low frequency range.




You do realize that you can't just add a delay to a signal and then play or mix that with the original signal.

I dont know where i have done this ?. if you mean the ITD pan test the settings are 100% wet. this mean no mix because dry signal is then 0%. only when set wet knob to 50% then it is mix 50% dry 50% wet. . My ITD test is done without mix, it delay the data of 1 channel.

You have to convolve the original signal with the appropriate filter (for example LR 4th Order at 100Hz) and use these two files in the ABX software.

The differences are audible with some practice, but not so big that you can do without an ABX test - especially when using LS like the MixCube the distinction could be difficult.

Have you not see my video ?. I use the freeform phase shifter from melda production with best quality (extreme) setting and it can hear very much. You can verify yourself with any phase shift tool you know. results are the same. it is much hearable. did you not hear much diffrence in video ?

here is freeform phase . it is in the free pack https://www.meldaproduction.com/MFreeformPhase

 

[Spocko]

I’ll say this: about a year or two ago, there was a free site called audiodrillz.app for audio ear training. It was an awesome competitor to sound gym and I used it daily for months. The compression ratio and release drills were very hard but the compression attack time drill was easy with the mix cube. I know it seems to conflict with Toole’s minimum phase argument but these were objective blind tests with scores and everything. Until now I totally forgot I did that. I even had the top score for awhile. Anyway, when I say this speaker has been useful, I’m not whistling Dixie. I’ve released three EPs, a number of singles, and around a hundred videos using this thing over about 10 years of daily use. If such a flawed specimen can be of such use, imagine a good one!

I believe that if you gave a talented sculptor a terrible hammer and chisel, he'd still make something amazing so maybe it speaks more to your talents despite any shortcomings of your gear!

 

[dasdoing]

here is very easy delay test https://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_timing_2w.php?time=10

 

[ctrl]

Have you not see my video ?. I use the freeform phase shifter from melda production with best quality (extreme) setting and it can hear very much. You can verify yourself with any phase shift tool you know. results are the same. it is much hearable. did you not hear much diffrence in video ?

You should be a bit more systematic and make sure that the settings and the generated signals really correspond to real examples, e.g. LR4@80Hz or LR2@80Hz.

I have analyzed the bass drum hit with and without phase shift from the beginning of your video.

In the ABX test I can easily distinguish both, as the original bass drum hit sounds much fuller than the phase-shifted version - so far so good.

Then have a look at the frequency response of both .wav files (see attachment):

Between 10-20Hz the original file has up to 3dB more sound pressure level - this range is more than 20dB attenuated, so I assume it makes no difference.

Then take a closer look at the phase response:

Between 95Hz and 120Hz there is 80° phase shift, which is about twice as much as would happen with a LR4@100Hz in this frequency range. So it's more a phase shift of an 8th order all-pass filter in this frequency range.

Don't get me wrong, an LR4@100Hz is audible, but not as easily as in your video. The wild back and forth of phase shift sliders in your video rarely corresponds to real situations. Already a third order BW filter @100Hz will be much more difficult (Phase-FR grey curve).



The same is true when comparing CB and BR (this example is only a rough approximation). An LS as CB with f3=60Hz and as BR version (QB3 tuning) with f3=40Hz differ noticeably in phase response only below 60Hz and the phase difference increases only slowly.

 

[fineMen]

here is very easy delay test https://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_timing_2w.php?time=10

Thank's for bringing this up. Using my headphones (AKG 702 e/q'ed) I can tell the difference for 20ms, but barely. 10ms are hopeless.
Won't test it on speakers, because mine are as mutch fullrange worthy as my headphones. The result replicates already well established wisdom: 10ms in bass is nothing. The test sound is bass + something delayed.

Pre- and post-masking is one thing. Another are non-linearities with varying effect on perceived sound depending on relative phase, we had it all. I recall a thread that went nuts on the relevance of ... "phase".

Only as some food for thought. Consider the possibility that a high pitch signal 'in time' would sit on the peak of a bass burst. Then 'delay' it, so that it shifts a bit off that peak. What if reacting to the bass burst would, just for that very moment, alter the properties of the driver when operating on the higher frequency content at the same time? Intermodulation that is, and despite the neglect it exsists. In case of 'in time' the high pitched signal would be radiated by a driver with properties so and so, in case of a delay it would be radiated by the same driver but with temporarily altered properties.

Sounds different.

What could be more prone to such effects than the rubicon in question?!

 

[RobL]

Thank's for bringing this up. Using my headphones (AKG 702 e/q'ed) I can tell the difference for 20ms, but barely. 10ms are hopeless.
Won't test it on speakers, because mine are as mutch fullrange worthy as my headphones. The result replicates already well established wisdom: 10ms in bass is nothing. The test sound is bass + something delayed.

Pre- and post-masking is one thing. Another are non-linearities with varying effect on perceived sound depending on relative phase, we had it all. I recall a thread that went nuts on the relevance of ... "phase".

Only as some food for thought. Consider the possibility that a high pitch signal 'in time' would sit on the peak of a bass burst. Then 'delay' it, so that it shifts a bit off that peak. What if reacting to the bass burst would, just for that very moment, alter the properties of the driver when operating on the higher frequency content at the same time? Intermodulation that is, and despite the neglect it exsists. In case of 'in time' the high pitched signal would be radiated by a driver with properties so and so, in case of a delay it would be radiated by the same driver but with temporarily altered properties.

Sounds different.

What could be more prone to such effects than the rubicon in question?!

On my 8361’s the difference at 10ms was pretty obvious.



Edit:

…hmmm

 

[dasdoing]

I can tell the difference for 20ms, but barely. 10ms are hopeless.

that's intresting. I really expected everybody to be able to do the 10ms. I can do 2ms, but 1ms is hopeless. explains why some of us swear by phase correction and others wont care even after trying.
some things are just relative I guess.

The test sound is bass + something delayed.

not really though. the kick has a midrange component. it's not really simulating group delay in the bass

 

[fineMen]

Edit:
View attachment 271776
…hmmm

Hmmm ...

the kick has a midrange component. it's not really simulating group delay in the bass

Case closed: when filtering out the bass (2nd order 100Hz/0.5) the delay appears to me as an all too obvious "snap", while the original bass sound is missing entirely. No snap-sound in the original for me. Still, only for curiosity, is it pre- or post masking, or with a (by own measurement) proven superior headphone even, some non-linearity in the transducer? Would reverberation support the distinction?

I give you the benefit of doubt if you say that a speaker as the Avantone MixCube could emphasize differences from esoteric parameters of a mix, because it's characteristics are unpredictable.

 

[mhardy6647]

apropos of (almost) nothing -- a little synchronicity as I was surfin' the ASR boards. I was lookin' at this post:

Audeze film of Jerry Harrison and ET mixing in Dolby Atmos

We worked with Audeze and brilliant cinematographer Brian Capener to create a story on Dolby Atmos and Audeze heapdhones and Jerry Harrison and Eric “ET” Thorngren’s mixinh of their catalog in Dolby Atmos. Listening to the extended version of Burning Down The House in 9.4 sound was spectacular!

www.audiosciencereview.com

Watchin' the video... and... looky there! A Horrortone! Cool babies (as the Heads might've put it themselves)!

 

[Hexspa]

There was a time...

(Random eBAY auction images)

or more recently...

View attachment 271659
Thanks, JVC.

Tubular, dude!

 

[Hexspa]

I believe that if you gave a talented sculptor a terrible hammer and chisel, he'd still make something amazing so maybe it speaks more to your talents despite any shortcomings of your gear!

I’m not easy but you’re making headway.

 

[Hexspa]

there is reckon S 300 spehre coaxial and not expensive https://reckhorn.com/en/speaker/speaker/56/s-300-satelliten-speaker-1-piece?c=115

Looks neat. Might be a fun product to drop ship to Amir if he’s willing to spin it.

 

[Hexspa]

Nik Roos from Noisia has soffit mounted ATCs and a mixcube. All I can ask about that is, “If ATCs have such superb translation, why put such a cheap, “bad”, speaker in your room?”

I’m really trying to mind my words here but let me just say that the room he’s in was specifically designed for these speakers, as you can read elsewhere in the article. If ATCs flagship speakers (or at least multiway soffit mains) in a room literally designed just for them can’t be sufficient as a single source for translation then, well, there’s more to the story than some people let on. I’ll leave it at that.

 

[fineMen]

Nik Roos from Noisia has soffit mounted ATCs and a mixcube. All I can ask about that is, “If ATCs have such superb translation, why put such a cheap, “bad”, speaker in your room?”

I’m really trying to mind my words here but let me just say that the room he’s in was specifically designed for these speakers, as you can read elsewhere in the article. If ATCs flagship speakers (or at least multiway soffit mains) in a room literally designed just for them can’t be sufficient as a single source for translation then, well, there’s more to the story than some people let on. I’ll leave it at that.

Emphasized 'flaws' if you will, see my previous post #329 regarding the 'benefits' of a restricted bandwith (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pro-mixcube-monitor-review.42817/post-1519974).

Mindless overprocessing is an issue with many contemporary productions. Today any airy reberberation is available by touching a button, bass is as tight as you ever could ask for, unlimited dynamics, razor sharp stereo imaging. Do you remember the muddy treble on the inner grooves of a vinyl record , or the permanent damage done by a bad stylus back then?

 

[markanini]

Mindless overprocessing is an issue with many contemporary productions.

This always existed, I remember reading somewhere about Beatles vinyl pressing in the 1960s having 3kHz boosted by several dB to account for expected deficiencies in consumers playback equipment.

 

[bennybbbx]

Between 10-20Hz the original file has up to 3dB more sound pressure level - this range is more than 20dB attenuated, so I assume it makes no difference.

I write to you private and explain more, to not fill this thread more . in short there is noise in the kick at around 100-200 hz and kick sound not so thight. simular as when use phase linear filter on kick. you have cut the beginning of the changed drum in wav file because the main peak of the changed version begin later. transients are not time exact

 

[bennybbbx]

maybe do this test move in a own thread, good to see that people do tests . not all people hear same good
I can hear 5 ms clear with seperate transients on headphones . On my most expensive speaker the focal alpha EVO 65 i hear at 5 ms no seperate transients of kick and high hat. all washy. 10 ms i can hear on focal with seperate transients.

also good when speaker developer or speaker testers can do the test

 

[Hexspa]

Emphasized 'flaws' if you will, see my previous post #329 regarding the 'benefits' of a restricted bandwith (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pro-mixcube-monitor-review.42817/post-1519974).

Mindless overprocessing is an issue with many contemporary productions. Today any airy reberberation is available by touching a button, bass is as tight as you ever could ask for, unlimited dynamics, razor sharp stereo imaging. Do you remember the muddy treble on the inner grooves of a vinyl record , or the permanent damage done by a bad stylus back then?

No because I’m 40 years old and when I started listening to my dad’s records I was far too inexperienced to perceive such things. But I’ve heard stories

My point about the ATC is that their users claim that the translative properties of their loudspeakers are essentially unsurpassed and that “objectively perfect” monitors are “too gentle”. Well, here you have Nik saying the ATC is too clean and that he needs a mixcube - despite explicitly stating that he uses filtering as a ‘hearing aide’. It’s just the circle of confusion all over again: clean monitors are too clean so I need dirtier ones. My dirty ones are too clean so I need dirty ones. My monitors are too dirty so I need clean ones. Ahh, the spinning makes me nauseous!

Whatever, I’m not going to pick on ATC anymore. The point is clear: their monitors might be good and work for some people but they are just as susceptible to needing “a second reference” as Neumanns, Genelecs, or KRKs. The anti-objectivity, pro-authoritarianism tendencies of their supporters is absolutely, unequivocally unwarranted when deadmau5 and Noisia - particularly heavily invested in that company - need mix cubes and NS-10s in their “million dollar” studios.

 

[fineMen]

My point about the ATC is that their users claim that the translative properties of their loudspeakers are essentially unsurpassed ...

Translating what part into which? I get your argument, I think, but I also acknowledge the need for a more basic, as to say, monitor. As MPEG shows, masking is a strong instance in audio. With the hearing test given above me thinks that masking might prevent me from hearing the time delay. Same may be true for other effects, that may get masked with clean equipment, but would show up in, ironically, less perfect environments. The less good in 'objective' terms, the more 'revealing' as our high-end friends would confirm in their intricate lingo

You don't want an x-ray picture of your mix heard by unbidden audience, while you allegedly polished it to a glaring shine in your studio.

But, again your argument. There are limited ways to make a good speaker. As to make a bad one the choices are infinite. What kind of a decision would it be to select this one?