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Avantone Pro MixCube Monitor Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 169 83.3%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 15 7.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 4 2.0%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 15 7.4%

  • Total voters
    203

ElJaimito

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Mar 28, 2019
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Yup.. These are reference monitors and safe to say they’re standard in every major recording studio I’ve stepped into. I own a pair along with two other sets of studio monitors (KRK VXT, and Adam Audio A7V). Speaking from my own experience, they actually do help quite a bit when mixing/mastering the tough and muddy frequencies (true mono 200hz range). They don’t sound sweet by design, they reveal any impurities in your mix, and also help adjusting levels of individual instrument tracks. I really hope no one is using these for movie/music consumption
Indeed. I much prefer my original Auratones, though. And I have never used them as any sort of aid for translation: they are for setting mid-range balance, just as you point out, and that is the core of the mix. Just as with real NS10s.
 

stevenswall

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Yup.. These are reference monitors and safe to say they’re standard in every major recording studio I’ve stepped into. I own a pair along with two other sets of studio monitors (KRK VXT, and Adam Audio A7V). Speaking from my own experience, they actually do help quite a bit when mixing/mastering the tough and muddy frequencies (true mono 200hz range). They don’t sound sweet by design, they reveal any impurities in your mix, and also help adjusting levels of individual instrument tracks. I really hope no one is using these for movie/music consumption

How does your process work mixing with these?

If something has 2k suckout these will make it sound normal... So then the engineer has to know that, and more or less memorize and invert the filter this is applying and then correct things right?

EX: "Oh, this doesn't sound peaky and wretched at 2k like it should on this monitor, better push it up until it's disgustingly busted... Okay, that sounds like garbage, and this speaker is supposed to sound like that, so now it will sound normal when I put it on flat monitors."

It's amazing what people can do, but this seems like it would just show how tinny bad things sound, and the response on high end systems would suffer if that's compensated for, in addition to other terrible systems that have different frequency response from this.

I'm sure people can make them work, but I don't understand the purpose of an inaccurate speaker in a studio settings. (Bass limited, yes, but crazy frequency response, no.)
 

ElJaimito

Member
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Mar 28, 2019
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How does your process work mixing with these?

If something has 2k suckout these will make it sound normal... So then the engineer has to know that, and more or less memorize and invert the filter this is applying and then correct things right?

EX: "Oh, this doesn't sound peaky and wretched at 2k like it should on this monitor, better push it up until it's disgustingly busted... Okay, that sounds like garbage, and this speaker is supposed to sound like that, so now it will sound normal when I put it on flat monitors."

It's amazing what people can do, but this seems like it would just show how tinny bad things sound, and the response on high end systems would suffer if that's compensated for, in addition to other terrible systems that have different frequency response from this.

I'm sure people can make them work, but I don't understand the purpose of an inaccurate speaker in a studio settings. (Bass limited, yes, but crazy frequency response, no.)
You are misunderstanding their raison d'etre. They are primarily used for critical balancing of mid range elements against each other. They are not used, and are of no use, for overall spectral mix balancing, ie lows to mids to highs. They don't HAVE any lows or highs -- and that's the point. They do also emulate what someone listening on a 1980's desktop radio would hear, but that's not really relevant today, as most listening is on mobile devices via headphones. But the critical balancing of mid frequency sounds still is king. Or queen, if preferred. And that's why so many studios still use them. I refer to Auratones principally, but all these crap boxes do the same job... you might like to review https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/spotlight-secondary-monitors
 

mhardy6647

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Indeed. I much prefer my original Auratones, though. And I have never used them as any sort of aid for translation: they are for setting mid-range balance, just as you point out, and that is the core of the mix. Just as with real NS10s.
An Auratone/NS-10(m) "shootout" would might be interesting...
 

fpitas

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dfuller

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An Auratone/NS-10(m) "shootout" would might be interesting...
NS10s are substantially more full range than horrortones. They both sound awful.
 

Ron Texas

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These have just about the worst frequency response imaginable. Thank you @amirm
 

fpitas

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lol. you guys basicly hard-reject any explaination for while tools like this might be/can be useful amongst others during production. while on the other hand all of your "audiophile fears" have been desconstructed one by one.
Who me? I never said a word about using them for mixing etc. Knock yourself silly.
 

deejaystu

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May 25, 2023
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I feel like many people who are knocking these don't understand their intended application. Until you've mix/mastered music in a studio environment, have put in the countless (and I mean thousands) of trips back and forth to the garage to perform the "car test", and several other reference testing of your mix quality, you won't have a good understanding of the value.

EX: "Oh, this doesn't sound peaky and wretched at 2k like it should on this monitor, better push it up until it's disgustingly busted... Okay, that sounds like garbage, and this speaker is supposed to sound like that, so now it will sound normal when I put it on flat monitors."

It's amazing what people can do, but this seems like it would just show how tinny bad things sound, and the response on high end systems would suffer if that's compensated for, in addition to other terrible systems that have different frequency response from this.

You're thinking of this the wrong way. That in itself is the primary benefit, because they don't go low, you can check that you will still hear the kick/bass on small systems. If the kick or bass disappears, it means you are lacking harmonic. You're not "pushing it up until is disgustingly busted", you're making a calculated adjustment. Needless to say you're not solely relying on the Avantones in a studio environment.

How does your process work mixing with these?

I normally do stem mastering for 50-100 stem productions, I certainly don't mix in mono, but it's important to check in mono. I'll go through each channel bus and A/B with the Mixcubes to ensure instrument channels are balanced with the stereo mix. I'll check the image to ensure that certain ultra-high fq instruments are not bleeding into the midrange, etc. The whole point of having multiple monitors is for exploiting their differences.

Just FYI - Quincy Jones called them “The Truth Speaker.” Even today, Kendrick Lamar’s release "To Pimp a Butterfly" (mixed by Derek Ali) was 80% mixed on an Auratone. Again, these are not speakers intended for pleasure listening and I'm surprised they're even being bench marked/discussed on ASR lol.
 
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