Feb 1, 2001 12:00 PM, BY MICHAEL COOPER

I would hazard a guess that most studio engineers will not recognize the D.A.S. name, as the Spanish company's last studio monitor was produced roughly 20 years ago. Established in 1970, D.A.S. began as a manufacturer of studio monitors before changing its focus to produce loudspeakers for sound reinforcement applications. The company has returned to its roots with the introduction of its Monitor line of near- to midfield recording and broadcast studio monitors. The Monitor-8s and their smaller sibling, the Monitor-6s, are the first offerings in the expanding product line. The larger Monitor-8s are reviewed here.

At $459 each ($918/pair), the Monitor-8s are modestly priced, so I was completely surprised by what I heard when I first auditioned these superb passive monitors in my control room. In short, I was completely blown away. The Monitor-8s are world-class monitors offered at a bargain-basement price.

FIRST LOOK

Straight out of the box, the Monitor-8s are beautiful to behold. The heavily radiused side panels are fashioned from exotic Iroko plywood, adding rigidity as well as visual contrast to the black, 15mm-thick MDF cabinet. This reinforcement minimizes coloration from panel vibration. The top and bottom edges of the cabinet are not radiused. Cabinet dimensions (with a vertical orientation) are 16.5×11×11.5 inches (H×W×D). Each cabinet weighs 28 pounds. The monitors are not magnetically shielded.

Behind the detachable, black cloth grille are two drivers—an 8-inch polypropylene woofer with a rubber surround and a 1-inch soft-dome, ultra-fine aluminum diaphragm tweeter. The low-frequency driver's oversized motor structures and cast-aluminum chassis promise improved efficiency and impulse response. The tweeter's voice coils are Ferrofluid-cooled for maximum power handling and improved linearity.

The tweeter sits behind a protective fine-mesh metal grille. Both the tweeter and grille are inset in a Linear Quadratic Spherical^™ waveguide, the curved shape that reportedly reduces diffractive effects at high frequencies (the radiused side panels make a similar contribution). The result is wider, more uniform imaging and less distortion due to comb filtering. The waveguide also increases the tweeter's sensitivity.

A circular bass tuning port is on the rear panel, directly opposite the high-frequency driver. Also on the rear panel are two binding posts that provide power amp connections; these accept only bare wire. Two M6 (metric 6) female mounting points are located on the bottom of the cabinet that allows the monitors to be anchored to a flat stand with a downward tilt.

SPECS

The Monitor-8s are rated at 125-watt RMS power, 250W program power and over 500W peak power handling capability; D.A.S. recommends an amplifier rated at 125 to 250 watts at eight ohms. The specified peak SPL at full power is 116 dB, and I found a stereo pair of Monitor-8s to be plenty loud when powered by my 150-watt Hafler P-3000 Trans•nova amp. On-axis sensitivity (1 watt/1 meter) is a respectable 89dB SPL.

The Monitor-8s' frequency response is specified as 38 to 33 kHz (with no tolerances given). D.A.S. recommends you place the Monitor-8s four inches from a wall for added reinforcement of bass frequencies, and a supplied chart shows the frequency response one would ideally expect with such placement. The response is three dBs down at 55 Hz and two dBs down at 20 kHz, with impressive linearity in between both extremes. (These measurements were made using a 1W swept sine signal at one meter with the Monitor-8s in a half-space anechoic environment. The crossover point for the 12dB/octave Linkwitz-Riley passive crossover is 3 kHz.

TESTING 1, 2, 3…

For reasons specific to my control room's acoustics and ergonomics, I placed the Monitor-8s about two feet from the nearest wall. D.A.S. recommends you orient the monitors vertically, and the nonconcentric arrangement of the drivers suggests this for optimal imaging. However, ergonomics directed me to orient the monitors horizontally in my control room. Nevertheless, stereo imaging was spectacular.

The Monitor-8s were installed into my Acoustic Sciences Corporation ATTACK Wall, a modular arrangement of cylindrical bass traps designed to soffit speakers and neutralize the acoustic signature of the front of the control room. Because the Monitor-8s are ported in the rear, the sidefill ASC Studio Traps^™ and top Monitor Trap^™ for each speaker were removed to allow low frequencies to vent back into the room to the mix position.

For my critical listening tests, I listened to many of my recent mixes and favorite outside CD releases that I was intimately familiar with, spanning rock, pop, country, techno, grunge, folk and Celtic music styles. I was immediately struck by the Monitor-8s' rock-solid stereo imaging, profound soundfield depth, open clarity and articulate detail. It was as if a veil had been removed from the mix, revealing hidden subtleties. The silky-smooth high end was sweet yet eminently articulate, without a hint of stridency. Vocals sounded startlingly realistic, brimming over with unfettered nuance. Chimes and strummed guitar sounded downright palpable, with transients accurately and sweetly reproduced. Overall, the mids and highs were beautifully balanced and smooth.

The only downside of how the Monitor-8s performed in my setup was that lower bass frequencies—below roughly 80 Hz—were reproduced rather weakly. No doubt this could have been improved by placement closer to a wall. And it must be said that most close-field monitors suffer the same weak bass, if often with a somewhat lower cutoff. Switching in my Tannoy PS-88 active subwoofer (a discontinued model) completely corrected the imbalance, and the Tannoy perfectly complemented the Monitor-8s. In fact, the Monitor-8s' relatively high-bass roll-off kept interference with the sub to a minimum, creating a more seamless coupling of the two systems.

With the sub added to the mix, drums sounded extremely realistic. Stick and kick drum beater strikes were beautifully defined and the traps' timbres perfectly balanced. Heaven.

I found the Monitor-8s to be very nonfatiguing without sounding even slightly dark or veiled. Of course, the timbre was understandably darker outside of the sweet spot, but the balance was nevertheless easily workable.

CONCLUSIONS

Engineers looking to use the Monitor-8s as their main speakers will want to add a subwoofer, especially if they can't place the cabinets four inches from the wall, as the manufacturer suggests. But even without a sub, “mid-room” placement still affords an extremely accurate reference for checking stereo imaging and the spectral balance from the mid-bass frequencies on up. This has always been a near-field monitor's raison d'être, and the Monitor-8s deliver in spades.

The Monitor-8s are one of the most detailed and transparent monitors I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Imaging and depth are downright superb. As an added bonus, the monitors are really fun to listen to, without sacrificing accuracy.

With their first studio monitor offering in 20 years, D.A.S. has hit a grand slam home run over the center field fence. These are world-class monitors at a dirt-cheap price, and there's no way that I'm going to relinquish them. My check is in the mail!

Dist. by Sennheiser, 1 Enterprise Dr., PO Box 987, Old Lyme, CT 06371; 860/434-9190; fax 860/434-1759; www.dasaudio.com.

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Michael Cooper is a Mix contributing editor and owner of Michael Cooper Recording in beautiful Sisters, Ore.

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