APS IO Studio Monitors

I won APS IO in a competition. Previously I wanted to switch from old KRK RP5 + SUB to KRK VXT 6 or 8, using the money from selling APS IO or so, but I must say that my plans have changed. I've heard APS IO before in some music shop when we were looking for some good monitors for a friend of mine (a producer too) and APS IO lost with VXT 6 in my opinion if its about musicality, they sounded like serious studio gear, as flat as possible, but its not always what producers really want yeah.. but it was only a shop, now they're in my acoustically treated (mineral wool broadband absorbers) room and I must say they're really good monitors, both for music producers and just sound engineers(consider them also if u want some accurate home speakers). I own them for 3 months now and I did a lot of track on them and here is what can I say about them.

- They got stereo image of unbelivable depth, width and most important - accuracy!
- Their dynamics is amazing(140W power seems to make the thing), even pushed to the limiter levels they still got great transient response and you don't feel they're so loud than, becouse they probably don't create much distortion... once you push them really hard, you feel the bass, and the air from BR tunnels, but everything is clear and thats great. They tend to resonate a bit when the signal of the bassy mix almost meets the limiters, hey! but its only 7'' woofer!
- the freq response is really that flat, 44-20000Hz +/-2dB indeed. However, for me that was too flat, I like to hear the bass well, so I checked out the bass controler in them. With that thing on (just at 0dB it adds a bit of bottom) I can recommend it for producers, its easier to feel the music with more bass I think ;-). With BC on they got more that "bass reflex sound" and if u switch it off, its just clear and fast. I hooked up a subwoofer with them (RP 10), but thats only becouse I'm used to that sound and like to hear the subs below 40Hz(Im making a lot of electronic club music). I must admit that the bass from IO is so much real and gets really low without the feeling of a lot of bass. I think they'd work great for rock, pop and so on. If you listen them for the 1st time you can say 'theres no bass man!' Actually, there is... its just flat, low, and dynamic. What I also like about them is a nice midrange (wow, I finally got a midrange after RP5 - just kiddin' ). Its very detailed. There's something I dont like about the highs, but I can't say what exactly. I think I just prefer more like HiFi smile sound, but I end up with 0.5dB gain up of the tweeter level and Im satisfied! The fabric tweeter is really ear friendly too... if u know what I mean ;-) You can work really long on them.

Whats missing? Hmmm... if I must find some disadvantages I would say that the sensitivity knob should have more steps than 30, 22, 15, 9, 4, 0, -3, -10dBV. Sometimes its not enough.

They're not in orange colour in standard, but its really nice to have something diffirent than others I think!

So to sum up, I recommend taking them to your studio for a week or more to test it. I especially recommend them for the "flat response school" users, but you can make them sound more modern with the bass controler what I tend to do ;-) Mixing on IO is quite fast and easy. They show problems quite well, and you can hear every EQ movement. Anyway, they're one of most detailed and accurate speakers I've heard from that price range... and they're not so expensive. Good studio tool and great speakers. Good work APS!

Sorry for my HD photos! ;-)