Avantone Pro MixCube Monitor Review

[3125b]

If bad sound is the point, why not just get a cheap bluetooth speaker?

... as in: Why simulate a 50$ speaker with a 500$ pair of speakers? Makes no sense.

 

[Geert]

I forgot they still make the Auratone itself.

Production ceased in 2004, a year before the founder of the company died. Years later his grandson took over the business. In 2014 he launched the new generation of Auratones. In the meantime companies like Behringer and Avantone had started to produce copies of these speakers.

Initially the Auratones were cheap speakers with not a lot of alternatives in that price range.

 

[kongwee]

If bad sound is the point, why not just get a cheap bluetooth speaker?

It is to target cheap bluetooth speaker audience.

 

[abdo123]

@amirm In light of this review, Could we consider using the fundemental harmonic frequency as a reference moving on?

Obviously distortion being below 40 dB when we're producing 60 dB for the fundemental is not as relevant when we're producing 86dB.

(This already could be the case for the precentage based graphs, I just don't know till I ask).

 

[amirm]

(This already could be the case for the precentage based graphs, I just don't know till I ask).

It is. For this reason, sometime you want to look at one graph vs another (percentage vs absolute).

 

[abdo123]

It is. For this reason, sometime you want to look at one graph vs another (percentage vs absolute).

Thank you, in REW the percentage graph doesn't take the fundemental as reference by default. You have to go out of your way to enable it. Without it enabled the picture can be radically different deppending on how flat the entire full-range response is.

 

[FeddyLost]

Never imagined that they was SO bad.

It would be interesting to measure SuperCubes ... They must be much more linear.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Never imagined that they was SO bad.

It would be interesting to measure SuperCubes ... They must be much more linear.

I don't know. They might be SUPER BAD.

 

[tomtoo]

You get much better BT speaker. So it makes no sense to use this to simulate them.
Maybe they can simulte a 50$ kitchen radio?

 

[crappypanther]

Its normal for single woofer

 

[daftcombo]

Why don't you play the track directly on the car radio or kitchen bluetooth speaker? Why do you need that speaker to emulate crappy sound?

 

[Geert]

Because records were not being made in cars or kitchens. (Nowadays I'm not so sure anymore).

 

[thewas]

In the 70s and 80s there might be some excuse of using them for emulating typical car, portable and kitchen audio system but nowadays they simply make no sense with typical car systems of BT loudspeakers having a much more neutral and broadband response.

 

[PeteL]

If bad sound is the point, why not just get a cheap bluetooth speaker?

... as in: Why simulate a 50$ speaker with a 500$ pair of speakers? Makes no sense.

I can’t speak for these avantone, but as for the original auratone which these are trying to get the market from,It’s hard to know why they became a standard, it just was, indeed they always purposely sounded like crap, but it was crap that the mixing engineer knew really well. Why would a studio buy that? simply because the other studio and the next one had them. And mixing engineers are freelancers, they are not tied to a specific studio. They work everywhere They just happened to know how a mix is “supposed” to sound in a mix cube.They will check if too much bass in their mix will cause the drivers to break up, they will check if the instruments is still all coming trough in crap systems. It’s not sufficient, they will go and listen trough, their car system, trough there laptop speakers, trough their phone, etc. but on the spot, in the studio, you would just periodically toggle in the shit box,to make sure your mix is still in check and is not only for people with a hifi system, that it will still work on most kitchen radios. But why this shit box and not an other shit box, only because it was expected from a studio to have a mix cube. Because it’s shit you are familiar with. Most of the time just one to check your mix in mono too.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

As many have pointed out, every music studio had Auratones. Everyone knew they sounded bad, but studio engineers also know the majority of listening is done casually in noisy environments using speakers with a single driver.

You can make the case that what @amirm has measured here is what most people experience music sounding like! In the 70s through to fairly recently, the majority of people never heard how good music could be. These days, high quality is cheap and most people, through phones, earbuds and streaming are much better off.

 

[PeteL]

As many have pointed out, every music studio had Auratones. Everyone knew they sounded bad, but studio engineers also know the majority of listening is done casually in noisy environments using speakers with a single driver.

You can make the case that what @amirm has measured here is what most people experience music sounding like! In the 70s through to fairly recently, the majority of people never heard how good music could be. These days, high quality is cheap and most people, through phones, earbuds and streaming are much better off.

Well, my “modern” laptop speakers are much worst and band limited than that,It’s not true that people listen only to high quality, Actually I think it is wost than ever because people expect a commercial music production to be heard trough a few millimeters iphone speaker. Nobody would have cared about that in the 70s you would never think that your tune should still be listenable deprived of everything below 500 hz or so.

 

[Geert]

Well, my “modern” laptop speakers are much worst and band limited than that,It’s not true that people listen only to high quality, Actually I think it is wost than ever because people expect a commercial music production to be heard trough a few millimeters iphone speaker. Nobody would have cared about that in the 70s you would never think that your tune should still be listenable deprived of everything below 500 hz or so.

Still enough crap speakers around for sure. Just look at the type of speakers you find in the average flatscreen TV (not just crap speakers, but also firing to the back because speakers in the front don't look sexy...).

One of the main reasons to use Auratones or NS10's was to evaluate how a mix sounded on speakers with very limited low end. As a sound engineer you can work on that so your mix doesn't fall to pieces in these conditions.

 

[FeddyLost]

They might be SUPER BAD

I thought if they were present in studios, they should be at least notched at breakup.
Beaming, no bass, fast impulse is ok, but such distortion in peak of human hearing is ... strange.

 

[MZKM]

Reserved.

 

[Hexspa]

Hi everyone. This was my speaker. The reason I bought it was because of online reviews and the legendary status of the original Auratone, but primarily as a tool for improving my mixes.

The theory is that, being band-limited, the speaker acts as a filter to remove frequency ranges which 'translate' less. This holds true in many cases today although fewer due to the wide proliferation of high-quality earbuds and improved engineering. Beyond translation, humans are most perceptive to the bandwidth from 400-6khz and this speaker at least contains that. Another benefit to this speaker is that, assuming you use just one, it also instantly puts your mix into mono; which is again a characteristic of both low and high quality club/PA systems alike. Further, mix engineers tend to listen at low volumes. Indeed, there are reasons to use a lower reference level than 85dB: prolonged exposure, lower distortion, ease of level balancing (a dominant task in audio mixing), as well as the psychoacoustic impact of nearby boundaries in rooms smaller than 10,00ft3 (283m3); the size of room for which the 85dB reference standard was developed. To the point, this speaker does have fairly low distortion at the kinds of levels a mix engineer might use them at. At 86dB, besides the resonance at 2.7kHz, it's below 1% distortion for any individual component from 250Hz up and 3% down to 60Hz; although it's also down 20dB by then. This is not too far outside the broadcast GRADE standard for harmonic distortion requirements of professional loudspeakers - though that standard is for 90dB at 1m. Lastly, it is a sealed design with the characteristically soft roll off same as a NS-10 or ATC SCM25A with the bunghole closed.

Band-limited, low-distortion, mono, sealed secondary reference. Some of you have commented how these are not present in high-end studios. This may be for commercial facilities but anecdotally less true for producer studios. Amon Tobin can be seen in this Neumann promo video for their KH 420/KH 750 system saying that he begins mixes on the mixcubes before going over to the mains. Incidentally, this is also my process. In this video by Rupert Neve audio, deadmau5 can be seen with not only ATC soffit-mounted mains but also NS-10s and two Auratones (modern actual Auratones are available today though the Behringer C50A, panned by Sound on Sound appears currently unavailable).

Now, this is not a treatise in defense of this speaker. Indeed, I sent it in because I want to look past adjectives, anecdotes, and the rampant hazing in the audio community [note that I am CaptainNovember7 on gearspace and was 'removed' from that discussion despite being personally attacked numerous times and conducting myself with the most professionalism I could muster (though that might not be much)]. In simply requesting for a nearfield scan of the updated ATC SCM25A Pro mk2, I was practically overwhelmed by the outpouring of purely subjective statements from several members. Not only was I attacked but so was the entire ASR community. I am not playing sides here, I seem destined to be at odds wherever I go. Point being, yes this speaker objectively sucks worse than anything I've seen. That said, similar to the ATC speaker, its beauty might lie in its imperfection. To wit, I've heard multiple claims that Genelec and Neumann speakers 'don't translate' or are 'too clean', etc. My stance is to have both - measurements and subjective perceptions - and to weigh both carefully before dumping into the soup of your life.

I hope my contribution is clear: let's not rest at either measurements or subjectivity. Amir says he recommends this for no purpose. If you were to purely look at this data then he is unassailable in his position. ATC owners claim that they are expensive, yes, but are unsurpassed for their intended purpose - creating mixes Their measurements certainly don't bear out their price so maybe there's something to their subjectivists claim. After all, placebo or not, if they're objectively performing better at their professional goals then that is a metric that should not be ignored.

Below is a measurement of this mixcube in my last (treated) room showing +-5dB from 80Hz-8kHz. Subjectively, I trust(ed) this speaker from 90Hz-10kHz. It was placed semi-center and within 1m distance of my listening position behind my monitor which I believe was on a VESA mount at the time. In other words, it's more-or-less a real-world example of what you might hear if you were to use it. And, for fun, I also made a PG-13 rated semi-nsfw video on why you should buy this speaker. It's several years old and a lot of the information is bad but it's what I believed at the time.

Thank you,
Michael Carrillo