This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Avantone Pro MixCube compact monitor speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $259.
As you can see, the unit is quite compact sporting in a single driver. Enclosure is quite hefty and solid with glossy finish. Back side shows a large heatsink indicating class AB amp (?). And one of the heaviest outboard power supplies I have seen:
Company advertising starts with: "The black Avantone Active MixCube Powered Full-Range Mini Reference Monitor is a professional studio reference monitor specifically tailored to produce the useful musical range of 90 Hz to 17 kHz."
Let's see if it delivers on that.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
Reference axis for measurements was the driver. Room temperature was rather cold at around 60 degrees F.
Avantone Pro MixCube Measurements
Let's start with our suite of frequency response measurements:
Oh boy. I have not see such a bad response from any other speaker. Not only does it lack any kind of flat response, there are clear resonances after natural response of the driver starting at 5 kHz.
Our early reflection graphs don't match near field response but here it is anyway:
Ditto for predicted in-room response:
We see another problem area in our beam width measurements:
A single driver's beamwidth naturally narrows as frequencies go up. No wonder company says to point it at your ear. Contoured plot shows us that the resonances radiating to the sides:
Due to use of a single driver, vertical dispersion is the same:
With such an uneven response, it was hard to figure out the playback level. I did my best to get close:
The driver is definitely breaking up above 2 kHz or so.
Waterfall measurement clearly shows the strong resonances:
Finally, here is the step response:
This is certainly cleaner than just about any multi-way speaker but clearly doesn't indicate any goodness.
Avantone Pro MixCube Listening Tests
I connected the speaker to my RME ADI-2 Pro and queued up my first reference track (female vocal). Ouch. No bass as expected. You mostly hear mid-range (which is what people say is the intended use of this speaker), but also distorted highs that chime in along the way. I could not stand it so stopped here.
Conclusions
The Mixcube is well built and good value as far as what you get in parts. The execution though, is terrible. Even if you want to use it to monitor mid-range, why have such a broken response with resonances/break up? Why not filter all that junk? Yeh, if you did, you could no longer advertise "usable response to 17 kHz." But what is usable about what we see in the treble measurements? Unless space is at a huge premium, why not just filter the response of a proper studio monitor to the mid-range instead of using this box?
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Avantone Pro MixCube. It is unfit for any purpose in my mind.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
As you can see, the unit is quite compact sporting in a single driver. Enclosure is quite hefty and solid with glossy finish. Back side shows a large heatsink indicating class AB amp (?). And one of the heaviest outboard power supplies I have seen:
Company advertising starts with: "The black Avantone Active MixCube Powered Full-Range Mini Reference Monitor is a professional studio reference monitor specifically tailored to produce the useful musical range of 90 Hz to 17 kHz."
Let's see if it delivers on that.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
Reference axis for measurements was the driver. Room temperature was rather cold at around 60 degrees F.
Avantone Pro MixCube Measurements
Let's start with our suite of frequency response measurements:
Oh boy. I have not see such a bad response from any other speaker. Not only does it lack any kind of flat response, there are clear resonances after natural response of the driver starting at 5 kHz.
Our early reflection graphs don't match near field response but here it is anyway:
Ditto for predicted in-room response:
We see another problem area in our beam width measurements:
A single driver's beamwidth naturally narrows as frequencies go up. No wonder company says to point it at your ear. Contoured plot shows us that the resonances radiating to the sides:
Due to use of a single driver, vertical dispersion is the same:
With such an uneven response, it was hard to figure out the playback level. I did my best to get close:
The driver is definitely breaking up above 2 kHz or so.
Waterfall measurement clearly shows the strong resonances:
Finally, here is the step response:
This is certainly cleaner than just about any multi-way speaker but clearly doesn't indicate any goodness.
Avantone Pro MixCube Listening Tests
I connected the speaker to my RME ADI-2 Pro and queued up my first reference track (female vocal). Ouch. No bass as expected. You mostly hear mid-range (which is what people say is the intended use of this speaker), but also distorted highs that chime in along the way. I could not stand it so stopped here.
Conclusions
The Mixcube is well built and good value as far as what you get in parts. The execution though, is terrible. Even if you want to use it to monitor mid-range, why have such a broken response with resonances/break up? Why not filter all that junk? Yeh, if you did, you could no longer advertise "usable response to 17 kHz." But what is usable about what we see in the treble measurements? Unless space is at a huge premium, why not just filter the response of a proper studio monitor to the mid-range instead of using this box?
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Avantone Pro MixCube. It is unfit for any purpose in my mind.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/