PreSonus

I've been hesitantly dipping my toes into the speaker world, wary of diving in properly because I know I'll spend infinity dollars and be unable to use them throughout most of my normal music listening time (my son sleeps right on the other side of the wall).

Because I also use speakers for guitar playing and didn't want to have to get any fancy new amps other than what I have, I wanted to go simple and get powered monitors.

I started with Emotiva Airmotiv 4S monitors. These were very good but got nuked in one of my gear purges and I sold them to a coworker.

Later, I picked up the often-recommended JBL LSR305 monitors. Also very good, and a better value than the Emotiva if you can find them for $200 (which isn't terribly uncommon). Those got sold off when I sold my Kemper amp (fancy expensive guitar amp "profiler." Very good, but having $1500 in one piece of guitar gear that will be obsolete at some point since it's digital always bugs me).

I missed speakers after getting rid of the JBLs and decided to get another flavor yet.

PreSonus Eris 4.5 are what I ended up with in large part because they're inexpensive and they work nicely as simple computer desktop speakers with front panel volume and power. I found them for under $150.

What do you get for that? A 4.5 inch Kevlar woofer, silk dome tweeter, 3 inputs (TRS, RCA, and 3.5mm in front), mid and high controls, a low cutoff, and an acoustic space switch to tune against the position of your monitors.

And the sound? Dare I say it, outstanding.

The setup I'm using at the moment:

JRiver -> Schiit Eitr -> MHDT Labs Frankenorchid* -> Garage1217 Project Horizon III -> Eris 4.5

With how easy they are to tune to taste, I actually think these are my favorite of the three powered monitor pairs I've owned and they're the cheapest by a chunk.

Anyone else have PreSonus monitors?

* Frankenorchid: The Orchid I first received had some issues with one channel cutting out seemingly at random so I was sent a replacement board. I also acquired a broken Pagoda a while back that I tried to repair but ultimately gave up fixing. This is the original Orchid board in the Pagoda chassis with replacement input transformers, output caps, a couple of resistors swapped out, re-soldered parts, and an upgraded TDA1541A chip.

 

I believe there was a PreSonus discussion somewhere in this thread: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...rfields-for-audiophile-listening.1466/page-34

The thread flip flops between brands rapidly, I'll try link to some relevant comments if the search turns them out.

 

I got a set of the Elis 4.5s after the great experience I've had with the Eris 8s I use in my home theater. I'm a fan of powered monitors since I also do music production. So, when I began to put together a new HT system, I looked to powered speakers. I've used a variety of powered speakers due to my years as a music producer - Mackies, Tannoys, Genelecs, JBLs, Yamahas.

After spending several hours auditioning speakers, I walked out with the Presonus Eris 8s which I didn't even know existed prior to that auditioning. Frankly, I was very impressed with them. The didn't exhibit the upper mid honkiness that so many monitors do. They had the most pleasant FR of anything I heard short of expensive Genelecs. Plus, they had the best sound stage. Several of the other monitors had absolutely no sound stage to speak of. It was like listening to a mono source.

Now, I'm interested in their co-axial speakers, but that will have to wait. For the money, I find the Eris line of speakers very hard to beat.

 

i've been looking into getting a pair of active monitors for desktop use and to ease into the speaker world... Pairing with Gungnir Multibit/Freya... At first i was interested in the Yamaha HS8's then became interested in the LSR308's until i stumbled onto the PreSonus Eris E8's. Still sort of taking my time deciding between the jbl and presonus but leaning towards the eris e8's... They both seem to be well liked and each has a good list of pro/cons with lots of pros... i like that the eris e8's appear to be front ported (which might help based on where i'd like too locate them) and have more inputs (xlr, 1/4 trs, and rca)

Would be interested in hearing more impressions on presonus active monitors, especially the Eris E8's if anyone has some words of wisdom based on experience to share.

 

I REALLY liked the Sceptre S6, which is an active speaker with dsp crossover and correction, they only thing that I've find odd is that is has analog inputs instead of digital inputs...if they put a Dante/Ravenna input it would be golden.