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
