Equator D5

If you're looking for that perfect set of small footprint monitors to add to your room OR as your main set of speakers then you need to give these a try. I was blown away by the huge open sound (once broken in), detailed mids, punchy low end, and silky highs and with a phantom center image that will make you swear the vocalist was sitting a few feet in front of you.

They are supposedly DSP tuned at the factory to ensure consistency should you want to use more than two for surround or one single monitor for mono. Honestly, I have had a few sets, and while I stand by them as worth the money, I did find that they are slightly different despite the DSP tuning. However, having said that, when I listened to them both together, they are pretty accurate.

Being that they are only 5.25" coaxials, their frequency response is only 53Hz-20kHz, but as I've mentioned earlier, they sound huge regardless.

I was especially thrilled to see the D5s ported in the front, as with speakers this size, they most often tend to get placed close to a wall due to room constraints. The D5s have 3 boundary selections (which Equator calls voicings) to fit most most mix rooms as well as a rotary input sensitivity adjustment...+4dB, -10dB or whatever. Connections are via a balanced 1/4 TRS or XLR, and outputs a modest 100watts (RMS).

When listening to various genres of music, the D5s performed beautifully. Nothing jumped out and everything was in it's place. I ended up remixing a few old songs that were done in a big name studio in my untreated bedroom and they were actually pretty close. I am not going to suggest that these will replace a pair of your favorite $3000/pr monitors, but for $299 you'd be hard pressed to find anything that comes remotely close. Also, if you are worried about the extended lows, you can always add a sub.

As a side note worth mentioning, when dealing directly with the manufacturer instead of a third party vendor, you end up getting excellent customer service as I've had to deal with them for over a month to get mine corrected, but worth it.

Unfortunately they're not sold at any retailer, but they offer a 60 day money back guarantee...not sure how much longer the $299 offer will stand, they said it's an "introductory" price.