Behringer Behritone C50A Active 30 Watt Full Range Reference Studio Monitor

I just love this POS. It's been used in mono here for a year. It was such a surprising relief to have a speaker that is ultimate contrast to hi-fi, super detailed, full range studio monitors. Honky, no bass whatsoever, no extended hi end, like the rest of the world listens to music on. Mixing got easier. It is helpful because nothing sounds impressive on it, so it is easier to concentrate on the music, and hear if a performance or arrangement is worth listening to or not. Originally I had a couple nice sets of KRK monitors, this, an 80's boombox, and some little altec computer speakers that sounded kinda good, in order to preview songs on a variety of systems. I realized this behritone made the other lo fi speakers redundant, and had some strengths (the right weaknesses?) the other speakers didn't have. Now it's just a pair of the big monitors, some headphones, and this. It is helpful for things like deciding the level of vocals (including compression setting on vocals). It is really easy to hear when a vocal is jumping out/peaky with this speaker's frequency response. It is good to check if you can hear the kick and bass on gutless systems, so as to not rely solely on sub frequencies. Also it is good for checking the lower end of the treble range, and making sure things are bright enough.It is great it has an amp inside, which is probably similar to many class D amplifiers in modern consumer stereo systems. No detectable noise with the balanced connections. It's also nice it is threaded for a microphone stand on the bottom, here it is on a straight stand, peeking over the top of the computer.This has proven to be an oddly useful piece of equipment, irrelevant of the price.

This meets my needs perfectly for a secondary check on my mixes in mono and on on smaller speaker. It has excellent clarity and consistency which I attribute to the non-ported design, which I absolutely was looking for! It lacks the bass of a ported speaker of the same size but makes up for this in terms of sound accuracy. As a secondary speaker, I move it around a lot and it's not as well protected as my main monitors. For this reason, I wish it came with a detachable protective speaker grill. Interestingly, I'm finding it to be a fun little speaker for my iPhone. I use a dual-to-single RCA cable attached to a 3.5 mm to RCA cable attached to my phone. I'm intrigued about the sonic differences between sealed and ported speakers--it would be very interesting to try two of these speakers together with a subwoofer (in comparison to my 8-inch ported monitors)...

Giving this a five star rating might seem excessive, but I think a product that does what it is advertised to do without any issues deserves it. This "grot box" is such an outstanding mixing tool. I ripped a journey song from a cd and put it in my DAW as a reference track along side of the song I was working on that I have written and recorded. That straight up mono, honking midrange sound absolutely reveals the balance of the tracks of a song. No phase issues, just beautiful mono. I listened to the reference track and heard an incredible mix; no wonder Journey has sold a ton of product. After that I muted that track and started the balance mix of my own song and this box made it so I could immediately hear any phase cancelation (a whole synth track, which is not untypical) and could just hear how well things were placed, eq'd, and if the reverbs swallowed anything up. If you are serious about mixing get one of these. before I started throwing plugins at the tracks I ran through this box and got a great volume balance mix. Working from there was just chipping away at small eq and compression changes. And then back through the box for review. While my track was playing I was walking around my studio, just cleaning and straightening things up and it was clearly audible no matter where I was in the room, and it gave me a real sense of what my song would sound like at the almost lowest common denominator.

Took it out of the box and noticed the foam around the woofer was pushed in about 1/4 of the way around.. Plugged it in, turned it on and the mid highs in the frequency range seemed a little distorted.. After about 5 minutes of listening the blue light started blinking and no more sound.. So I will be sending it back. This product was used listed in very good condition.

I still don't know if I like this yet. The treble cokes out super loud on this one -- I know the purpose is to flatten my mixes so I can put them on any system but this is a little overboard. Otherwise I do really like it. The case is attractive and it serves it's purpose.

It does what many engineers say it will do. This is NOT a high-end super full spectrum solution for people looking for a great sounding stereo speaker. Nor is it intended to be. This is like a TSA musical screening device... it displays your music and mixes in their brutally honest form for all to see. Today's headphones come in many sonic flavors, most over emphasize bass frequencies. Many affordable monitors are optimized to tweak the EQ to make things sizzle and boom. This speaker provides the audio truth about your mixes.I use just one speaker positioned in the center of my music desk, some people use two as a pair. The goal is to send your mix out of a mid-rangey speaker to show you what you need more and less of in the mix. You will be surprised at what you hear, and when you adjust track levels based on this speaker your true stereo mixes will sound much better. People often harken back to a loved pair of Yamaha NS-10s... they did the same thing. They sounded like crap for a reason. If your mix sounds good on this speaker, it will sound great on a true stereo system.I just wish I bought one of these when I started writing and mixing.