Aeon - Active Near/Midfield Monitor
Once in a blue moon a new product comes along that blows my socks off. It’s a rare event, but when it does happen my brain goes fuzzy and I start crowing from the rooftops.
We were contacted some time ago by a Polish company, APS, who have designed a new near/midfield monitor – the Aeon. Just what the world needs, I though (paraphrasing Frank Zappa), more pro audio gear. However, when I put them through their paces I was won over, in no uncertain terms.
To start with, they are beautifully made and finished, which helps. More importantly, in blind listening tests 9 out of 10 cats preferred them, even compared to well respected monitors up to three times in price.
The sound is positive and well defined – almost ATC’ish in its clarity but with a little more punch at the bottom end. Highs are crisp and lows full with an unusual amount of detail in the midrange. Imaging is precise. These are not monitors that will smooth out the wrinkles in your mix (thank goodness) but will rather let you hear what’s going on in the track with effortless ease. As such, they’re not as flattering as this month’s favourites but I don’t want to be flattered in the control room (other than by artists of the fairer sex. Fat chance…)
Don’t take my word…let your ears do the talking.
Finishes
The standard finish is black but they can be made in any custom finishes. Please contact us for more details.
Eccentric
What the manufacturer says...
AEON – is a high quality near-medium field monitor offering exceptional sound capabilities to its user at a reasonable price. Thanks to a wide transmission band, exceptionally low descending bass as well as wide capabilities in precise regulation, AEON will be perfect for:
- Recording studios,
- Radio studios,
- TV studios,
- Multimedia studios,
- Postproduction,
- Mastering,
- Digital work stations,
- Home recording studios,
- Highest quality audio monitoring systems.
AEON monitor is an active 2-way appliance equipped with two speakers (tweeter and woofer) and two independent power amplifiers for each speaker fixed on the back plate of the monitor enclosure, as well as with an appropriate set of precise regulators, signalizes, inputs and security devices:
- Input sensitivity switch
- High tone speaker level switch
- Bass control level switch
- Bass control switch
- Ground Lift switch
- Symmetrical XLR output
- Symmetrical XLR output XLR or ¼ TRS (Jack)
AEON is designed to work in stereophonic or multi channel systems (5+1 or 7+1, or larger) like DOLBY, DTS, THX, etc.
The monitor construction is based on speakers produced by a Norwegian company SEAS. The woofer is a construction meeting the APS Spanily s.j. requirements. The monitors will be offered in two versions: with a fabric dome tweeter.
The monitor has been closed in the bass reflex enclosure with front ventilation, providing a dynamic bass properly filled with low frequencies. The edges of the monitor enclosure have been rounded to reduce reflections and to improve the quality of produced sound. The inner wall of the enclosure that completely separates the electronic module from the speaker chamber constitutes at the same time a significant reinforcement of the enclosure eliminating excessive oscillations of the monitor enclosure side walls.
In the low frequecncies range the power amplifier with discrete elements (power transistors Toshiba 2SA1943/2SC5200) has been employed. Whereas, in filter systems the highest quality operational amplifiers BurrBrown OPA 2134 and OPA 134 have been used.
Instead of traditional potentiometers, eight-position hermetic switches have been introduced, ensuring high resistance to external factors and long-lasting, failure-free functioning.
We measure the frequency characteristics of each produced studio monitor in a given batch. Next, we compare the measurement results and put the monitors in pairs with parameters maximally similar to each other.
