EVE Audio recently released the SC2070 - a 2-way studio monitor with an extra-large Air Motion Transformer, designed for mid-size professional and home recording studios. Composer and Producer Alberto Rizzo Schettino takes a closer look and listen in this exclusive world-first review…

If It Works, Don’t Touch It

"I am fine. I do not need another pair of speakers, thank you."

This is me, in any conversation about monitoring and studio setups. It's a frequent topic and I am always interested in what is new, but I have to say that, in recent years, my work has been translating the way I wanted and, with the sheer speed at which I have to output musical ideas to producers and developers, I have no intention to reinvent the wheel or jeopardise a delicate balance.

I am sure most of us are in the same situation. "If it works, don't touch it", they say. But this time it was different for me: my colleagues were persuasive, and the points they made on these speakers were definitely interesting and touched on elements about which I am particularly sensitive. On top of that, EVE Audio headquarters are a 5-minute drive from where I live, in Berlin.

On a cold January morning, I had a lovely tour of their HQ (including their amazing anechoic room and reverb chamber). I picked up my pair of SC2070s, loaded them in my car, and headed back, without the faintest idea of what the speakers looked or sounded like.

Out Of The Box And On My Desk

The SC2070s take the approach of EVE’s SC3070 (3-way) and SC4070 (TEC Award-winning 3-way in a D'Appolito configuration) and bring it to a more compact 2-way form factor around a special tweeter (more on this soon) and a 6.5" woofer. This woofer size in a 2-way, in most situations over the years, proved to be effective for me in recording and mixing up to, and including, the final stages of mastering.

A headline feature of the SC2070 is the RS7 Air Motion Transformer, the largest AMT used in a 2-way monitor, that I know of. EVE Audio has something like it in their SC207, but this is 1.5 times bigger (and it looks pretty cool, too). Once I got the speakers out of their boxes and placed them directly on my Sterling desk, the size of the RS7 definitely made them a presence in the room.

The idea behind having such a big driver is to drop the crossover frequency as low as 1.8 kHz. On paper, this allows the speaker to deliver a more linear mid-to-high frequency response and to generate imaging that is comparable to a 3-way speaker (a feature so sought after, despite the added crossover point).

In addition to this, I was pleased to read about the Class D amplifier (250W short-term, with an output of 116dB SPL at one meter for the pair), as this is the same class that I have been using for the past few years, even with my heavier and bigger floor standers. I am a fan of Class D amplifiers for studio situations as they are reliable, objective in a good way, somehow friendly in terms of consumption, and allow for a cleaner, less "opinionated" coloration, which I find beneficial to a music production environment.

Coffee And Concerns

While reading through the manual and waiting for my coffee machine to warm up, I considered a couple of things I am generally concerned about in studio monitors: first, the use of a rear port opening for bass reflex, and second the use of an AD to handle the signal, internally.

In the years, I found rear ports to be very susceptible to room acoustics and speaker placement. I am lucky to work in a great room, treated and calibrated to sound very linear up to the extreme lows, but in today's trends rear ports can be hard to work with. Furthermore, I have always found that my work translates better in the bass register with "faster, in-your-face front ports" or even through a completely-sealed loudspeaker.

The second element that worried me was the presence of an Analog-to-Digital converter. When I get out of my DA converter and head to the power amps and speakers in my studio, I do not want to convert the signal anymore. I am out, in analog, I want to stay analog. Handling a digital signal definitely opens up a number of very versatile and interesting possibilities (from crossover management to alteration of the frequency response, room correction, etc.), but I have always been a fan of speakers that just do what they have to do: make my woofers and tweeters move, hit me with some music.

Initial Testing

Once you turn the main power switch on (located on the back of the monitor), the SC2070 can be controlled entirely from the front, through its SMART-knob. A ring of LEDs marks the volume level or the settings alike, with LEDs that support a semi-lit level for additional control.

The way the volume gently raises on power up, to get to the previously-selected level, is very classy. This ramp-up allows you to avoid getting blasted by surprise and to get acquainted with the sound, especially when starting a session in the morning. It's a simple feature, but definitely more than welcome.

One of my favorite tests is - when I can - to play some digital piano through the monitors. I turned on my old and faithful CP4 and started playing. I am so used to the sound of that grand piano from my regular practice and training routine that I can confidently tell how flat or bumpy the frequency response is, just by playing through them.

I found the SC2070 incredibly linear, never "boxy" or nasal in some of the middle octaves of the piano. The sound feels bigger than the size of the speaker, unconstrained, and not flanged or inflated. Notes from C2 to C3 never got muddy and remained "zingy" in a very balanced way. The piano never felt too crisp in the highs and the lower notes never overwhelmed the higher register.

From this moment on, I had thrown my "coffee time concerns" out of the window. I opened my trusty collection of lossless digital content, and started to drop tracks in my playlist. This time, I could sit on my chair perfectly in the sweet spot, to enjoy what the speakers had to say.

Air's Venus was exactly as I remembered it. Detailed but not sharp, on the verge of breaking up in some high-mid sections (the CD version of that album is very loud!), fast in the low percussive sounds, and involved in the soundstage. Zero surprises, this was the song I knew, even at very low volume, nothing was poking out.

AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long was once again presented to me with a seal of warranty: the typical "Back in Black" left-right separation (so iconic), the center stage so satisfying and intelligible, the front-to-back tangible but not zoomed in or out. No sharpness in the highs but definitely sandy-bright, which is - to me - how it should be.

Daft Punk's The Grid, one of my favourite tracks in the Tron Legacy Original Soundtrack, was an experience. Massive low-frequency structure and majestic soundstage, as it was meant to be.

Now I had no doubt the SC2070 meant business. They go low, fast, and proud. I see why my colleagues recommended I give them a try. The lower register supports the rest of the music. Extreme high frequencies are there but never pushed to the listener, actually ever-so-slightly feathered in context with the high mids. There is a general sense of cinematic approach in the soundstage, which is presented to you effortlessly. They don't grab you by the shirt (a form of politeness I appreciate) but by the time you glance into the phantom center of the whole 3D stage, you feel hugged and dragged ever-so-slightly in.

I could keep on going with the hundreds of tracks I enjoyed listening to, but I will limit myself to two more songs: Jim Rotondi's Progress was a true test for the mids and the imaging. The arrangement and the band sounded coherent, together, never brushy or technical. The tenor saxophone was precisely nasal as I am used to.

I quickly dropped any doubt on the AD (the Burr Brown converter they used is simply put: "something you will not even know is there") and the bass reflex was outputting a clear sub, never overwhelming, shy, nor watery and perfectly delayed. I am not a fan of dedicated subwoofers (they are more a pain to set than anything else, to me) but I love it when the sound of a synth bass becomes almost a "cleansing" experience.

Controls In Real-World Testing

Fast-forward a couple of days: I got scarily close to a deadline. With the SC2070 still on my desk, I decided to take a leap of faith and use them to finish producing a number of sketches for a game soundtrack I am working on (that is, if they like the sketches...).

Before checking my revisions, I fiddled with the various settings of the SC2070.

Apart from some cosmetic choices (whether you want just the final LED to be lit when moving volume/gain adjustments, or you want them all on, or even slightly dimmed in case of a typical dark studio control room), the possibilities offered by the SC2070 are very versatile.

You can choose to boost or attenuate a low shelf at 300 Hz, a high shelf at 3 kHz, or a mid bell, centered at 1 kHz. Furthermore, you can adjust the "Desk Filter", which is either a bell dip at 170 Hz (when going for negative values) or a bell boost at 80 Hz (when going towards positive ones).

This is all done in 0.5 dB steps, represented by the LEDs (using a clever and intuitive full-lit for 1 dB and half-lit for 0.5 dB).

Using the SMART-knob to fiddle with these functions was a joy. I could quickly reach out to the two knobs and adjust the settings to assess the difference. Most importantly, you do not feel like the speaker is being pushed into some kind of compromise, outside its comfort zone.

I was not interested in raising the low shelf as I was almost afraid to lose the sub-energy I loved so much, but I found it to be capable of readjusting the intensity of the whole "low plane". This can be useful if you tend to mix with a richer bass that might be a tad too much on other systems. Raising this 1 dB will ensure you get all the nice feelings from your listening position without pushing the mix in those areas.

Lowering the values can do the opposite, but it will not act as a high-pass filter. The whole presentation can be made to feel "unpowered" in order to the low spectrum and offset it, in its entirety.

The high shelf almost felt too transparent. "Is this doing anything?". Yes, it is. I was able to make the SC2070 sound a bit more out of balance, in a good way (to my ears) as a more classic 2-way speaker with more attitude and less linearity. By pushing the highs at +2 and dipping the 170 Hz at -1, I got the idea of having a leaner, somehow dehydrated and picky reference monitor, which brought me closer to what I am used to, without feeling like I was trying to push the SC2070 out of bounds.

The 80 Hz bump is something I ended up not using but it could be very interesting in some situations. I have worked in rooms that had nearfield monitors somehow misleading in the 70-90 Hz range – even if the acoustics were great, you had the tendency to push in that dangerous area. Adding a bit of this could help you prevent such a problem.

One thing to keep in mind is that on the SC2070 you can not dip at 80 Hz (or boost at 170 Hz) but the two directions make perfect sense and somehow feel like two ways to solve the same issue: preventing the low-mids to mask each other or lead us to a mix that surprises us in the translation through a stereotypical car audio system or home Hi-Fi.

The mid-peak is completely to taste, mostly because it sounds really good when pushed, a little. I ended up going back to zero, but this could help you solve the typical mixing dilemma in which your nearfields get the "layers" wrong in a mix (lead vocals, anyone?).

In addition to these features, it is worth mentioning that the SC2070 offers you to "lock" the filter settings through a small DIP switch situated on the back of the speaker. You can also lock the volume to the current settings (through another DIP switch) or modify the maximum input level to either +7 or +22 dBu, depending on your needs. These functions might seem redundant until you have more people use the room in your absence (interns and assistants included), especially in post-production, and give you the nice feeling of safety for "now that it works, we lock it, and we just focus on the job at hand". A nice deterrent for the constantly-tweaking geeks among us.

Conclusions

I had a chance to listen to my soundtrack sketches again, through headphones and speakers that I am used to. Despite the obvious change, the work I had done on the SC2070 had no surprises. Electronic percussion had all the character, sometimes mangled by distortion and bit crushing, never overwhelming the full mix or feeling "pointy" transient-wise, poking out of the widescreen.

Sub bass sounded great on the speakers that had it (even floor standers) and on the speakers that were way shyer on those lows, nothing was wrong: it just felt lighter with no disconnection.

Mids were present, crunchy, and as "cyberpunk" as I needed them to be (sweep the filter on an arpeggiated sequence from my Prophet and you will get an idea). The mix never sounded scooped or honky on my other monitors.

High frequencies had all the detail without being over-exposed, blinding, or irritating.

The SC2070 is a modern reference monitor. Rich in bass power and sub-lows energy, fast on the transients, with a solid foundation in the subwoofer area that you can still hear at very low volume, which to me is incredibly important.

The soundstage is enticing, hugging, and somehow bold, without being overblown. Having a crossover at 1.8 kHz definitely pays off, as it gathers all the intelligible details into "one coherent sentence", while the woofer concentrates on supporting the mass of lows that sustain the track.

In their way of feeling slightly 'cinematic' to me, they obviously cross all my ‘T'’s for the style of music I compose and work on, but this goes further than just being a matter of taste, as I think the SC2070 never pretended to make things more modern or exacerbate the nature of the source.

Coming from a more traditional type of 2-way speaker, some people might feel the SC2070 to not be "incredibly fast" in the high transients, as they are used to. They do not lack the definition, but if you are looking for a more rough-edged 2-way speaker, you might want to engage the high shelf and drop the desk filter a couple of steps. It worked wonders for me in this regard. Still, you will keep feeling their translation as a "cohesive mass of sound", a trait that is so important in recent audio installations in theatres, home cinemas, and even headphones. An important aspect in the gaming industry as well, as headsets tend to propel a "boosted" experience and the SC2070 talked the same language albeit feeling "pro" at it, to avoid surprises down the line.

Last but not least, the sub-low frequencies are nothing to joke about. They feel in control, never "blasted for no reason", like your best friend's dubious subwoofer installation. If the sub is in the mix, you will hear it, otherwise, it will not be fabricated by the speaker. Adding a subwoofer to these speakers would make no sense to me, as at that point I would probably look for an entirely different solution, rather than risking breaking the balance I had.

I tested them in a good room, treated to avoid the typical issues. I know the bass reflex might be a wild horse to tame, but I have to say that moving in the adjacent rooms and hallway here in the studio never felt like I could get in trouble with my neighbors or get seasick after a mixing session.

Priced at 1199€/$1299 each, this speaker is worth way more than it costs. If I had to start a new room, with no monitoring, some of my previous go-tos would need to be reconsidered... as the SC2070 brings a fresh identity that is very beneficial and "modern".

With no bias on the genre and a little nudge to a cinematic feel, the SC2070 felt like a reference monitor I could count on.