I don´t know what too say, i guess this is the kind of equipment we all want to try before buying, you know... I have too say, Holge is absolutely 1 of the best programmers in Denmark (and europe) so having this guy doing a tutorial on this subject intrigues me..very interesting endeed. I will check up on this monitor controller later on :-)
Very, very satrisfying on all levels. Great review, great production. Excellent audio. This is how to do it, youtubers! Ill guess the lack of more videos on the channel is due to the fact, that this level of production takes carefull planning and time? 😘. Ill take quality over quantity any day!
This is the most detailed review of any monitor controller I've seen of any monitor controller. Is it possible for you to do a similar review of Mackie's Big Knob Passive? I ask because it gets really great reviews and is affordable for even amateur producers/mixers, but consensus seems to be a bit split. Some users say it colours the sound (which it shouldn't), while others say it doesn't. Thanks.
5:41 - I am pretty sure the "most popular in the world" product he mentions is the big knob. If you have a limited budget I'd recommend checking out the drawmer monitor controllers eg MC2.1 , it's top notch for the price.
What a fantastic review. Thanks so much! If you don’t mind, I have a question about this unit. If I need to run 3 stereo pairs of monitors, along with a 2 subwoofers and a single/mono Auratone, can this unit support them all?
Thanks, glad you like it! This particular version of the Imperium supports 3 pairs of stereo monitors and 1 parallel output. However, I don't recommend using the parallel output for a subwoofer, unless you have to, since the crossover bit can be tricky to implement. Instead, it's usually better to have a serial setup where the signal passes thorugh the subwoofer's own crossover filter and into the stereo monitors. Based on your current setup, you'd need the larger 2U Imperium with an output expansion, which should cover all your needs. 3 sets of monitors + an Auratone sounds like a lot of monitoring, though - maybe you could live without one set?
Gear Grotto Wow! Thank you for the quick and helpful response. I’m going to look into those units right now. Also have my eyes on the Antelope Satori, but not 100% clear if that unit alone would suit my needs. Yes, I do realize that I would have a lot of monitoring. Currently, I have an old pair of M-Audios, NS10ms, and a mono Auratone. No subs. I’m in the process of building a studio and we are going to flush mount a pair of ATC SCM50ASLs as the mains, with one sub flush mounted below each speaker. I’d also like to replace my m-audios with the Eve audio sc307 as my midfields. Then I’d keep my NS10s and Auratone as my nearfields. I realize that the NS10s are probably the ones I could get rid of, but I don’t think I could bring myself to do it 😅
Thanks for the video, I am looking into upgrading my monitor situation and all the high options are around 2000$, this unit looks like a great value, sad that it has no headphone amp or talkback function
Right, you'll have to add an external headphone amp for that. Talkback can pretty easily be integrated, though. It's definitely a case of focusing on the the core functionality and sound quality, they didn't want to include anything internal that could affect sound quality.
I can see some problems with your measurement demos, where is the noise from the test equipment as it must be there ? You don't specify the monitor controller gain or loss for any of the noise tests and you don't say if the inputs are terminated or not, non terminated inputs will be noisy for anything active and less so for passive. If the monitor controller is terminated by the DAC output then we should see some noise from the DAC. I repair pro audio equipment for a living and rarely see channel tracking errors in quality stereo pots as large as the ones that you show. The cable length drive test showing the frequency response does not specify where the attenuation was set, a passive system will be like a straight wire for 0dB of attenuation and should get worse with attenuation applied. A low impedance passive system is highly dependant on the drive abilities of the the source that is plugged into it, you mention it but we don't see examples of this in any of the demos, a high impedance passive system is less dependant of the source impedance but will suffer from cable capacitance more as more attenuation is applied, you don't really state the impedance of this system. I can see that this unit is a quality item but I am sceptical when tests appear to be carefully constructed to skew the results one way or another.
The only competitor of 2400 audio imperium is the audiolinear axis who is passive and almost the same price. Now I wonder which one has the best sound transparency.
The Axis has worse noise measurements and due to a different design is more susceptible to impedance induced roll-off. Not necessarily an audible problem, but if transparency is important then the Imperium is better spec'ed.
In my chain: Sound Card > Dangerous Liaison > Outboard Gear > Dangerous Liaison > Sound Card > Imperium > Amp > Speakers It's possible to switch between two inputs on the Imperium, e.g. between a processed and unprocessed chain coming from separate outputs on the sound card and/or a switch/router like the Dangerous Liaison, in any combination. This requires either: A) A sound card with enough outputs (at least 3 x stereo outputs: 1 stereo output for sending to the analog processing chain, 1 stereo output for processed monitoring, and 1 stereo output for additional unprocessed monitoring). or B) A router like the Dangerous Liaison, which has additional taps on the back from which you can monitor the signal without the (analog) processing chain or with analog processing, but before final digital processing. You then connect this directly to the Imperium on a separate input. Alternatively you don't use any of these methods and instead have an unprocessed and level matched channel or pre-processing bus/aux available in your DAW, that you can switch to on the fly. This requires that your internal processing and routing is set up without any processing on the stereo output. This is always a good idea since you can't automate a master fader without ruining any inserted third party dither. If you don't use third party dither then it shouldn't matter, but you can't monitor anything else through the stereo output.
Blueroom Minipods with a Marantz PM7000 Pro amp. Mostly just for show, I don't really use them. www.onlinemastering.dk/mastering-studio They were also called Scandyna Podspeakers and now just Podspeakers.
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