PreSonus Audio Electronics Monitor Station Review

PreSonus Audio Electronics Monitor Station. Price: $299.97 (street)

Perhaps your expertise in the audio field has developed to the point where you're building tracks in a digital audio workstation; recording voiceovers and some foley, bringing in audio from CDs, old records, maybe even some RDAT tapes; and tracking musicians in your studio. If so, you may need to build some additional hardware connectivity into your system. If that's the case, you would do well to consider the PreSonus Audio Electronics Monitor Station.

A small (approximately 9"x8"x2") unit that fits easily into almost any work environment, the PreSonus Audio Electronics Monitor Station has loads of connectivity. For starters, you can switch between three sets of loudspeakers at a push of the button. Good-quality monitors are highly affordable these days, so you should have at least two sets: mid-field loudspeakers that allow you to move through your room listening to a mix from a variety of vantage points, and a set of near-field monitors that allow you to sit directly in the sweet spot as you fine-tune your mix. If you mix for broadcast, you should also have a cheap set of tiny loudspeakers that let you predict how your work will sound when played back on a low-quality system. If you prefer, you can hook up a subwoofer to the C input and set the Monitor Station so that it remains active while you toggle between the A and B loudspeakers.

There's plenty of connectivity on the input side as well. The Monitor Station is an analog device, however, so you won't be making Alesis Digital Audio Tape (ADAT) Optical Interface or S/PDIF connections to your gear. I took a pair of 1/4in. cables out from my RME Fireface 800 audio interface into the ST 1 ins on the Monitor Station. The ST 2 pair can be used to connect the unit to another stereo device, but that wasn't necessary for me. I appreciated the RCA inputs, which allowed me to dial my old DAT player into the monitor station. As I said, the Monitor Station is a strictly analog piece of gear, so there's no S/PDIF connection. The analog RCA inputs sounded fine, and besides, they give you the flexibility to hook up a turntable to your system. This aux input has its own trim control. The buttons that let you switch between inputs and outputs are large and well lit and have a good feel.

Four seperate headphone outputs are provided. Most useful if you're recording a band live in your studio, multiple headphones are also helpful if you've got two or more actors reading together. Each headphone output has its own level.

As you get into mixing, you'll appreciate the Monitor Station's Cue Mix functionality. Your DAW might let you create a seperate Cue Mix. For instance, the bass guitar player really wants to hear the bass drum, so you pump it up in the Cue Mix and send it out of your audio interface on its own bus. Then set the Monitor Station to receive its Cue Mix from that pair of connections (ST 2). Each of the four headphones can be set to either the Main Mix or Cue Mix, so you send the Cue Mix with the beefed-up kick drum to the bass player only. And you thought you'd never be an engineer.

If you've set up an isolation booth in your studio, you'll appreciate the fact that the Monitor Station has a built-in talk-back microphone. If you're working at ridiculous levels and, as a result, no one can make out the signal coming through the mic, you can plug a dynamic microphone into the Monitor Station. But this device lacks phantom power, and as I say, the internal mic will be more than adequate for most situations. Other handy features include Mute, Dim, and Mono buttons.

Following the manual's instructions, I dutifully set out to calibrate the Monitor Station's inputs and outputs. Running a sine wave from Steinberg WaveLab 6 through the outputs of my Fireface 800 and into the Control Station, I was able to get the meters to sit comfortably. I also had success calibrating my Adam Audio A7 and Mackie HR824mk2 loudspeakers on the output side. In reality, you should be able to dispense with this calibration exercise and trust your ears to help you determine and set proper levels.

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I have only one problem with the Monitor Station. Passive circuitry, which Presonus uses in its more expensive Central Station, does not color audio. Active circuitry, which is incorporated into the Monitor Station, does affect the sound. The slight loss of detail and clouding of the low end would deter me from using the Monitor Station. In fairness, however, many project studio owners will not notice, or be disturbed by, the effect.

If you're working live audio sessions with multiple musicians and/or actors, have several sets of loudspeakers that you need to switch between, and need to connect record players or DAT machines into your studio, you would do well to investigate the Monitor Station. It offers a big bang for the buck.

Company: Presonus Audio Electronics
www.presonus.com
Product: Monitor Station
Assets: Lots of connections; easy to integrate into a DAW; attractively priced.
Caveats: Active circuitry imparts a slight coloration to the audio path; no phantom power.
Demographic: Audio professionals working with multiple inputs and outputs.
Price: $299.97 (street)