The Experts team wondered what we thought people would want to find behind the windows of a dream studio advent calendar. Some of the things we own, some we wish we did. Owned or not, we think any of the things we name in the next 6 days would be a gift to a professional studio owner.
Day 19 Avantone Mixcubes
Luke Goddard talks about his Avantone Mixcubes.
With so much time, effort, and expertise happening upstream of any monitoring, this critical piece of the puzzle is the lens on the engineer’s work that is ignored to the detriment of everything else. Though many have ‘dream’ monitors either on their wish list, fewer actually work with a pair, in front of them. My Mixcubes are rather too, well, attainable to be on any sane person’s dream gear list, but I find them nonetheless indispensable.
We all understand the need to obtain as accurate a picture of the mix as possible. Before being mangled on the way to the listener, frequently the lovingly-crafted mix is then sentenced to Audio Death at the listener’s end. When it comes to throwing away information for a compromised listening experience, my Avantone Mixcubes are the perfect solution.
For the uninitiated, Avantone’s Mixcube monitors are derived from the infamous single-driver, bridge-perching Auratone C5 ‘grotboxes’ from the 1970s. With their primary signature being a bass and treble-light ‘upturned bathtub’ response, they are perfect for anticipating what might happen for any consumer not holding a Martini whilst listening through PMCs in their recliner…
As well as their translation skills, the other thing I love about the Mixcubes is how great they are for making big-picture level judgements of voices and mid-range instruments. Being restricted at the extremes really lets me zero-in on the middle with ease, avoiding the indecision that their full-range standmates can sometimes provoke.
Although my Mixcubes are passive (driven by an old hi-fi amp), the modern incarnation of this classic studio tool is available as an active version, and both flavours have a few welcome additions that improve performance. These boxes are heavier than they look, and as such have non-slip neoprene base pads to isolate and to avoid catastrophes. The cabinets are radiused at the corners & edges to reduce diffraction and aid imaging. The undersides have 5/8” threaded inserts for stand-mounting. Clearly these little units box cleverer than a first listen would suggest.
I would even go as far to say as that the MixCubes are as useful as my main pair of AE22s but in a very different way. Anyone who has sat in front of another loveable rogue, the Yamaha NS10, might agree that this box can present something of a middle ground. Possibly tempered by its well-meaning hi-fi DNA, it brings a restrained signature without degenerating into true subversion. Building on that, my MixCubes go the whole way towards true sparsity, as the logical conclusion of what a B pair should be. Where getting to The Truth is an increasingly valuable commodity, I want my speakers, of all things, to tell me like it is. So, is this gear exotic, exciting or expensive? No. Invaluable? You bet.