Avantone mixcubes

by **The Tasmanian** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:34 am

Hey guys
just like to share my falling in love with the passive Avantone mixcubes - They absolutely rock! The best new mixing weapon that I have found in years.
So cheap - aroung $350 pair
Incredible detail
amazing stereo image
and so good at revealing problems that other speakers cannot
They absolutely smoke Auratones
Try em out - I promise you'll dig em

by **13thbeach** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:17 pm

Awave have them for $600. But i'm sure you'd get a better price if you tried.

by **NYMo** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:09 pm

Hi there,

Apparently there was a problem with the POWERED Avantones and they had to go back to design stage for the mark 2 vers.
Anyone know about that ?

I had thought of buying some about 6 months ago ...but that put me off !
(and somehow I ended up with good ol' NS 10 m's !)

Cheers
N
Y
MO

by **jkhuri44** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:29 pm

NYMo wrote:Hi there,

Apparently there was a problem with the POWERED Avantones and they had to go back to design stage for the mark 2 vers.
Anyone know about that ?

I had thought of buying some about 6 months ago ...but that put me off !
(and somehow I ended up with good ol' NS 10 m's !)

Cheers
N
Y
MO

i was also keen on the powered ones !

are you using any old amp to power these babies Chris?

by **reddirt** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:18 am

I have the passives-got them from the states before A-wave stocked them.
Yes, they did have dramas with the power amps originally but I know no more than that
They need a solid break in time as the lower mids are very "quacky" out of the box; once broken in they are a great little speaker in that the mid info is there for all to see, so reverbs, vocal levels, compression etc are easier to work out; don't rely on them for bass however. They are also great as a single mono.

I have event ASP8s as well which are almost the polar opposite so I find that to be a good combo, doing almost all my work on the Avants and flicking up to the Events for confirmation as well as bass work. Another thing I like about the mix of both is the Events show up vocal 'plosives which the Avants just don't reproduce.

Finally, 60's music such as Brenda Lee/Marty Robins etc which would have been mixed on single cone systems sounds so right on the Avants.
A very useful speaker.
Cheers, Ross

by **OzDrum** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:23 am

we recently got a pair of Grover Notting reference monitors - similar size to Auratones and these things are great.

by **DrAlienSmith** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:35 pm

Yeah, i've had the passive Avantones for about 2 years now. Great compliment to my Adam A7s. The Kiss My Poodles Donkey cd New Hope For The Dead sounds pretty good through them!!

by **TimS** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:47 pm

OzDrum wrote:we recently got a pair of Grover Notting reference monitors - similar size to Auratones and these things are great.

The Grovers are very well priced too..

by **Kurt** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:06 am

I'd have thought these days to get a "true" representation of what people are listening to music on you might want to spend $10 on some shit earbuds rather than $600 on shit speakers!

Wasn't the point or Auratones to sound like the single driver systems most people would end up listening to music on in the early 1970's? Then it was Tv and AM radio, now it's iPods....

by **Jason** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:41 am

[quote="Kurt"]I'd have thought these days to get a "true" representation of what people are listening to music on you might want to spend $10 on some shit earbuds rather than $600 on shit speakers!

Wasn't the point or Auratones to sound like the single driver systems most people would end up listening to music on in the early 1970's? Then it was Tv and AM radio, now it's iPods....[/quote]

Bought some earbuds the other day just for this reason. And yes..... "shit" really does discribe them.

by **Chris H** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:59 am

Got myself some sennheiser ear buds a few months ago. I thought if im going to be using earbuds i might as well get good ones. Not cheap but they sound quite good. For referencing a mix rather than using horrortones i have one of those 80's smaller stereo cassette / radios with the RCA inputs that i switch to. Does the job and cost next to nothing.

by **jkhuri44** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:07 pm

Jason wrote:
Kurt wrote:I'd have thought these days to get a "true" representation of what people are listening to music on you might want to spend $10 on some shit earbuds rather than $600 on shit speakers!

Wasn't the point or Auratones to sound like the single driver systems most people would end up listening to music on in the early 1970's? Then it was Tv and AM radio, now it's iPods....

Bought some earbuds the other day just for this reason. And yes..... "shit" really does discribe them.

ive got ipod ones, f@#$ they are disgusting.

by **headman** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:52 pm

I bought some "Fatman" earplus they work really well. But you wouldn't want them in all the time.
In 60 years time there are a whole lot of people going to be walking round with hearing problems even worse that musicians (and recordists).

by **rob** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:30 pm

and i've just heard on the ABC that there is likely to be a limit placed by the europeans on the max level that mp3 type players can spit out due to their significant potential for hearing damage.

Of course this will lead to a market for highly efficient earbuds...

by **waitup** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:16 pm

rob wrote:and i've just heard on the ABC that there is likely to be a limit placed by the europeans on the max level that mp3 type players can spit out due to their significant potential for hearing damage.

Of course this will lead to a market for highly efficient earbuds...

...earbuds with valve amplifiers hanging off your head?

by **Mark Bassett** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:18 pm

Farina's son, Adriano, wrote an AES paper on this subject - testing the playback levels of high school students' portable devices.

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14340

From his paper...

"It can be seen that only one of the devices tested produced an SPL larger than 100 dB (A): it was an iPOD Video 30 GB, but it was equipped with after- market Sennheiser headphones. It must be said that iPODs sold on the European market have an internal limitation of the playback gain, which is designed for avoiding levels in excess of 100 dB with the original headphones. But, when the headphones are changed with more efficient ones, this internal limitation becomes insufficient for avoiding exceeding the prescribed limit".

It seems that European iPods already come with the level limiting, and that yes, changing headphones will render this useless.

"It can be seen as for 5 of the 13 devices the time limit is well below 1h, meaning that in reality the owners of these devices are probably exposing themselves to a daily dose well in excess of the safety limit, as most users declared an average usage for 1h to 2h hours."

by **The Tasmanian** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:10 pm

Sorry my password got stuffed up - lost contact for a while..
Ive got the passive Mixcubes - Trying Robs Simplifier out for an amp - they take so long to run in!!!

by **mfdu** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:08 pm

[quote="DrAlienSmith"]Yeah, i've had the passive Avantones for about 2 years now. Great compliment to my Adam A7s. The Kiss My Poodles Donkey cd New Hope For The Dead sounds pretty good through them!![/quote]

OMFG!!!! Get off!!!! i never met anybody else who has that!

and yeah, i been kenning for a mono powered horrortone. but i bet the run-in time would be hard work as they'd have the potential to be real honky, huh?

by **mfdu** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:09 pm

and i used to see kmpd at the great britain all the time

oh the memories

by **DrAlienSmith** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:23 pm

mfdu wrote:and i used to see kmpd at the great britain all the time

oh the memories

Yeah, a classic CD that, i thought Chris might appreciate the flashback. I bought it and Lubricated Goats Paddock Of Love at the same time. Awesome.

by **toddd** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:50 pm

so, it says on the avant website that 50-200 watts of solid state power is optimal.

but the simplifer is only 25 watts per channel at 8 ohms.. does this present a problem in anyone else's opinion?

i've only ever owned and operated powered monitors, but i always heard that you should run speakers at as close to their limit as possible to get the best response out of them..

cheers todd.

by **The Tasmanian** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:06 am

Well well well...
New hope for the dead....
haven't listened to it for about 10 years (at least)
I'm glad there is still some memories of those gigs out there in the ethers (hope they are good)
I did go to a barbie once and one of the songs came on - I nearly fell over, and then they played the whole album -
And to top it off today I was working with my old friend Phil punch who mixed that album with me way back then...oh memories...We were talking about the Ensoniqe eps 16 (one and a half second sampling time mind you) that I used to record my guitars through and absolutely distort the input and get this amazing great crunch that subsequent newer digital samplers/software cannot do at all .
And - back to the Avantones - 25w may be a touch shy - they do seem to like some stick -I was just getting used to the Avantones, and now I'm listening through Phil's Bearfoots -wow what speakers!!

by **NYMo** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 9:03 am

Hi there,

mmMmmm...Barefoots MM27....they are beautiful !

I nearly bought some...but went with the Focal Twins instead
(couldn't justify a $12k speaker in my little room !)

Cheers
N
Y
M
O

by **The Tasmanian** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 12:38 pm

How do the focal twins sound?

Avantone mixcubes

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