Get This Free Cheat Sheet Guaranteed To Help Your Next Mix

Sunday, December 9, 2012

New Music Gear Monday: Equator D5 Monitors

Equator Audio D5 image from Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture production blog
Monitor speakers are such a personal thing, almost like clothing or hair styles. What works for one person probably doesn't work for another. There is one thing that works for everyone though, and that's high quality at a low price. The only problem is that combination doesn't come around that often.

That's not the case with the Equator Audio D5's, a monitor speaker that at $299 a pair has such a big bang for the buck that it borders on amazing. Equator sells these direct so there's no dealer or sales rep or any other middleman costs involved, which can add up fast. You're not paying them here so you get a pair of monitors for $299 that probably would be sell for nearly twice that otherwise.

But enough about the price. I can say that I've been using them for a month or so and they've become by go-to nearfield. Why? They use a dual concentric speaker (meaning that the tweeter is set in the center of the voice coil of the woofer) so the phase is perfectly aligned, and that makes a big difference in the sound quality (watch the video below for more on that).

They're pretty beefy sounding as well for a small monitor, with a big sound and more bottom than you think they should have, especially one with a 5 1/4 inch woofer. Not only that, they're biamped with a fifty watt amp for both woofer and tweeter, so there's plenty of volume if you want.

Check these out. Also check out the isolation pads. For only 20 bucks, they're the cheapest ones out there.



----------------------------------

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

4 comments:

Jef Knight said...

I'm skeptical of the absence of phase annomalies. I think that if you have any x-over overlap at all, it doesn't matter where the driver is located. Now, it could be guessed that the center location will perhaps reduce the transaxial collisions, making for a distincly cleaner sound, but I still would guess that the axial overlap near the center would be still there. Hmm. Dunno. THey might be very workable.

Besides my Genelec 1031's I use Tannoy System 600's. Same idea there. They are far less clear in the upper mids than the Gen'ys, which I've always thought was caused by some sort of phase problem. They're like luxury NS-10s...lol

Cheers

Cham said...

HI!! I´m from Argentina and considering to order a pair of these... Any spare coupon code?? :)
We have 220V here and I think they are 110v. Would it hurt the sound working with a transformer?

Your blog is superb. Thank you.

Yamil

Tim Mustain said...

Hey, I know that guy - the one and only Ted Keffalo! BTW, nice torun across you after Ll these years Bob - it's been awhile since that Quadraverb manual. :)

Stu said...

These are fantastic monitors! I do most of my mixing on them. Teddy's a good guy too! All of my D5 mixes translate "perfectly" on other monitors that cost in the thousands!!! That's how good the D5s are. The D8s are also great. There like the D5s, only bigger, with a bit more low frequency reach.

Equators are hard to beat, especially at such a low price. If there was a middle man, the D5s and D8s would be well over $1000.00 easily!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...