What's your favorite monitor manager?

I'm looking for something that's going to have a pure signal path, and also has some flexibility with a couple of headphone outs and inputs for other sources such as tape, phono, etc...

I've looked at:

1) Coleman

2) Mackie Big Knob

3) Presonus Channel Station

The Coleman looks great but it's only got one headphone and I'm not sure if it will take a phono source...

Any ideas?

Grace M904!

Or Crane Song Avocet

i used the mackie BK, and ditched it..
now on SPL MTC 2381 and love it..

Former happy Central Station owner.

Didn't like the Knob... The DA was handy, so the choice was pretty simple.

But yeah... If you can get the Avocet...

If you don't need the digital ins, there's the Furman. And there's a nice little Hafler 915 on ebay right now that has a phono stage. I have a central station and personally can't wait to upgrade. It gets the job done but the poor quality is a concern. I pressed one of the buttons the other day and it popped out of the front. heh Stuck it back in there and laughed. What else can you do.

I have a central station. One of my 3 worst purchases of the decade. Get the spl.

I can see the quality of the Coleman, but if I like the features of the Mackie, what's the downside of "active" electronics? I would guess in theory it might color the sound, but the published reviews give it a glowing report in terms of having a "transparent" sound FWIW...

Anybody here try or like/dislike the Mackie?

I'm a little biased, but I like this one.
Peter Reardon

I think the central station is one of the best values for the flexibility that it has. It is OBVIOUSLY not a avocet, marting sound, or grace. It also doesn't carry the same price tag by a long shot. If you need quick routing, switching, talk back, metering, it's a fantastic deal.

If you simply need a passive monitor attenuator and monitor switch there may be better options, as mentioned. But if you need flexible routing, cue routing, headphone outputs and don't want to spend $2k plus....then.....

I'm not going on a rant, I just don't think anyone should expect shallco quality attenuators in sub $500 boxes.

cheers

or flux capacitors for that matter

there´s a new Dangerous monitor unit w/ remote coming up soon for about 1,5k...
do a search here.... heard the prototype --> great !!

fwiw, i find the Mackie very coloured, somehow the stereo image seems to collapse. also the material sounded flat and 2d. also the signal on one of the channels dropped out at low monitoring levels. all in all i wasn't sure of the accuracy of the signal it spits out.
the features are nice though, i just feel it's not a pro piece of gear. they tried to cut on the price in the wrong areas..

i do find the SPL MTC a lot better. it doesn't add anything(...) to the audio running through it. i'm sure theres better options at a different price level. but for 600 euro's it does the job..

for $20 I picked up a gemini sp-1...

nothing special, doesn't color the sound, and provides a big
volume knob, has output for subwoofer, and has a circle
surround decoding function.

Trim pots for the outputs, and a white noise generator...

I wasn't expecting much from a $20 discontinued "dJ" product,
but it fits the bill, and does what I need it to...

and for $20 I could afford to experiment

tomdarude-
I took your tip awhile back....called them...the box will be in the 1800 range and is due in sept...from what a was last told by them....I got that presonus for the meantime...what a piece of crap......and the music store is hastling me about the return...after spending 30 g's in 5 years there..........ahh

TML - sorry, forgot ...that 1,5k was €´s ......

I´ll probably see & hear it again today..... I´m going to stefan heger´s studio this afternoon, who´s the german distributor for dangerous....

cheers tom

Does anyone have experience with the Heritage Audio RAM System 2000?

I currently have the Presonus Monitor Station v2 and am looking for an upgrade. Can't quite afford the Dangerous or Avocet...

RAM System 2000 | Heritage Audio

We bought one for our recording studio. its solid construction and quality, but it has some serious design problems very elementary apart from very basic functions that other products of lower cost have, I do not know if I have not seen it in the manual but I did not see it.
1. It has no shutdown button.
2. The 3 outputs can not be used simultaneously.
3. You can not calibrate the volume of each of the 3 outputs independently.
4.The LFE output should have a configurable LPF and it does not have it, the bass that I have is a FOCAL has its own cut but connected by the LFE input of the bass the cut does not work.
5. It does not have RCA inputs, most have.
6. A click sound when using the talk back very annoying for the artist.
It is a very expensive product and I think these functions are very basic and should have them. I think I'll have to return it to the store.

It's fine but it's not enough

(Sorry for my bad english)

There is a serious void in this market for the correct product.

Check out the Dangerous though. Lots of capabilities.

Thank you for your input! I ordered one last week, hopefully I can find workarounds for a couple of these issues. The only ones that I'm worried about are the LFE output not having any parameter controls and the lack of ability to calibrate the 3 outputs independently. I'm pretty surprised that for the price tag it has so many little quirks, that's very disappointing.

#1 , #2 , #4 , #5 are not the least bit expected or required of monitor controllers.
For instance, the Dangerous ST/SR does not have any of those.

LFE is not bass management (also). It is not the same thing as a sub output. And bass management for a sub is not expected to happen via the monitor controller in most cases.
LFE is a specific/discrete film output channel.
(#3 should be done at the speaker if output trim is not available at the controller. Theoretically, a monitor controller is sending the same signal level to any output. The problem is the speaker sensitivity so it should be adjusted there at the speaker verses changing the signal being sent.)

The Eldred Grendel might fit your needs.

I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned the Drawmer boxes. The MC 3.1 is excellent.

They have several different models, depending on what you need.

I A/Bed the Central Station with the Dangerous ST by having the right speaker hooked up to one and the left the other. I was expecting to hear no difference and thought a more expensive monitor controller might have been a waste of money. I was dead wrong. The difference was not subtle. The Central Station was cloudy and undefined in comparison. It was a difference anyone could hear, not fairy dust stuff. I thought maybe it was the speaker or something else so I switched sides the only difference being the monitor controller. It was the same thing again in reverse. The Central Station sucks. Stay away. You're introducing serious cloudiness into your monitoring path. the best thing about that unit is the meters...and that's about it.

I love and have been using the Coleman SPK5+1 monitor switcher fro about 8 years now. So yea, its my favorite out the the few others i have used