May, 2001

Review by Bob Ross

Evaluating studio monitors is a bitch.

And I don't just mean for Recording magazine product reviewers! I mean for manufacturers and end users too. Ideally a monitor speaker should be sonically invisible, revealing only what is being recorded and contributing nothing to the sound that isn't. The problem with this ideal is twofold: it's really difficult and/or expensive to achieve complete sonic neutrality, especially given the vast varieties of rooms that a monitor may wind up in; and it's really difficult to sell a monitor that doesn't sound conspicuously "good." Consumer hi-fi manufacturers have it relatively easy. Their goal is to build a speaker that listeners will think sounds "good" and that they will enjoy hearing music through, and hence that they will want to buy. In theory at least, a well-designed studio monitor only sounds "good" if the material you play through it already sounds "good." If you play music that sounds "bad" (i.e. noisy, distorted, spectrally unbalanced, dynamically flat, limited bandwidth, etc.) through an ideal neutral monitor, you should be able to readily perceive those defects and determine that indeed, yes, this recording sounds "bad" and it needs to be fixed. A studio monitor should be a tool, not an entertainment device. If your monitors make those noisy, distorted, unbalanced, flat recordings sound "better" than they really are ("Yo, but that bass sounds phat!"), it's doing you a disservice. It's the wrong tool for the job of recording and mixing. But is there a compromise? Can a studio monitor be sonically neutral (or at least neutral enough to allow you to make reliable evaluations) and still sound "good?" While I was mulling that question (and deciding if I should swear off scare quotes in all future articles) a pair of Truth Audio TA-1PProfessional Studio Monitors arrived for review.

No lies

The TA-1P is a compact close-field 2-way passive monitor, the first product from the recently formed Truth Audio Inc. of Dothan, Alabama. Several other monitors, including a mid-field, a large soffit-mountable 3-way, and a subwoofer for 5.1 use, are apparently in the works. (This is according to the sparse Truth Audio web site.)

The monitors arrived with no documentation of any kind, just two corrugated cardboard cartons with a single speaker in each. From the web site I gleaned that the TA-1P has a frequency response of 48 Hz-20 kHz (no deviation specified), a power handling of 165 watts (which clearly contradicts the "125 watts" printed on the back of the monitors), and that the dual 5" mineral-filled polycone woofers have 14.6 oz. magnets. After lifting the monitors out of their shipping cartons I saw no reason to doubt that last specification. And that's basically all the information supplied in any form by the manufacturer. (Not that printed specs often matter that much with speakersSit's all about sound.)

It wasn't necessary to read the web site to confirm that the tweeter is a 1" soft dome type. I can tell you that the black wood boxes measure 14.5" w x 10" h x 10" d. The front baffle is over 3/4" thick, with gracefully rounded edges. There is a single tuned port on the rear panel, and signal input is via heavy-duty gold-plated 5-way binding posts; these had a satisfyingly snug fit on dual banana plugs, and are drilled large enough to accept bare Monster Cable, 10 gauge stranded speaker wire, or anything equally large. With the dual woofers and landscape orientation, they somewhat resemble the Westlake BBSM-5 or the Quested VS2205. It's certainly a professional looking package, with nothing visually ostentatious or superfluous.

And we're off

Being between projects when the TA-1Ps arrived, I hooked them up to the stereo in my living room, figuring I'd just listen to a few CDs and get a general impression of their performance before taking them into the studio. Well, what I expected to be an abbreviated evening of disc surfing turned into two weeks of re-discovering my entire CD collection! In short, these Truth Audio TA-1P monitors sound fantastic.On every disc I listened to I was hearing spatial information and midrange details that had previously escaped notice. Ambiences came across with stunning realism and a 3-dimensional cohesion that conveyed actual or synthesized soundstages with unmistakable clarity. Imaging, especially front-to-back placement, was more stable and vivid than any monitor remotely near this price I have ever heard. Richly complex textures became lucid, and instruments with similar timbres were easily distinguished. The low end was impressively full yet tight; neither fullness nor tightness are qualities I've come to expect from the low end of close-field monitors, but both together is practically unheard of in a box this compact. And the TA-1Ps will definitely play loud. Connected to a modest 85 watt/channel Yamaha receiver, they were easily achieving rock 'n' roll control room levels in my 20' x 15' living room without straining, without sounding strangled, and without showing any signs of crapping out. On one recording, the hall in which it was recorded was obvious without even reading the liner notes. On another you can hear individual reverb decays, inner voices, and backgrounds without their being uncharacteristically forward. On yet another it was possible to pinpoint where the 1st violinist sat, that the French horns were sitting behind the flute, the delicate distinction between low oboe and high English horn without reading along with the score. The fact that I was captivated by six hour listening sessions for 13 days in a row should answer any questions about listener fatigue. I could go on, describing the enthusiasm with which I delved into discs I thought I knew intimately, only to have the TA-1Ps repeatedly reveal sonic minutiae and timbral fine points that simply were not evident on lesser speakers.

Control

Enjoying my CD collection was such a gratifying experience that I almost forgot that these were designed primarily to be studio monitors until I remembered that I had some rough mixes from an unfinished project lying around, and I proceeded to listen to them over the Truth monitors.

???Yuck.

Well, clearly that wasn't the reaction I was expecting! During my listening orgy I had auditioned commercial CDs of my own engineering work with positive results, so I knew this wasn't indicative of any overall shortcoming in my ears or engineering chops. (Whew!) But these rough mixes were the most recent project I had worked on, so there was ample reason for concern. Unlike the finished works in my CD collection, these rough mixes sounded cloudy, constricted, very tubby in the lower midrange, and without any air or sense of space around the notes. I quickly arranged to get back into the studio where the tunes were mixed to check out these issues. I brought the TA-1Ps along with me. Playing back my rough mixes in the control room over the monitors I had originally mixed on (Mackie HR824s) didn't help. They sounded fine, just as I had remembered them sounding when I mixed them. I set the TA-1Ps atop the Mackies, connected them to a 275 watt/channel Crown power amp, and listened again. They still sounded fine! Not cloudy, not constricted, not tubby or airless. In fact, they sounded pretty darn good! Wait a minute, what's going on here?Well, to make a long story short, after much auditioning of various mixes over various speakers, and moving said speakers around the room, and much tearing out of hair etc. etc. etc., it eventually turned out that it was that control room that sounded awful! No matter which speakers were used, as long as they were placed in that particular location in the room, the mixes sounded fine only in that control room; when listening elsewhere it became painfully obvious that they were bass-heavy, over-compressed, and ambience-shy. (Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks the monitoring system consists solely of speakers and amps; the room is a major part of that equation.)

Fortunately this was a brand new non-commercial project studio, so the learning experience came at no great loss for anyone. And it only required some surprisingly simple redistribution of equipment and relocation of the monitors to overcome this seemingly daunting problem. Soon enough (er, if three days is considered soon enough) I had both the Mackies and the TA-1Ps sounding accurate and trustworthy in the control room.

Truth be told?

Ah, much nicer! At this point I was no longer listening for how "good" the TA-1Ps sounded; I was listening for how well I could rely on them for my decision-making. Is there too much sibilance on the voice? Is the compressor pumping when the bassist plays those staccato passages? Is the snare drum reverb burying the rhythm guitar? The choices one makes in the studio are moot if the listening environment negates them once the music gets out of the studio. You have to be able to trust that what the monitor tells you is accurate. You also have to be able to trust that what the monitor sounds like is reasonably similar to what any other speakers will sound like. (David Moulton refers to these two demands as "looking backward in time" and "looking forward in time.") I'm happy to report the TA-1Ps excelled at both tasks. Sonic elements I focused on while monitoring over the Truth Audio speakers were easily discernible when I switched over to the Mackies, and vice-versa. Proportions remained consistent, balances and imaging remained stable, minute level changes translated effectively (none of that "why did I spend eight hours automating the lead vocal level when I can't hear the difference in my car?" syndrome). Speaking of which, mixes done on the TA-1Ps translated quite nicely to my car stereo No simple feat, considering it's a 10-year-old Honda factory job that's suffered the ravages of at least one crowbar-wielding would-be thief. Comparing the Truth Audio monitors directly to the Mackie HR824s wouldn't be entirely fair - for one thing, the Mackie is biamplified and self-powered, whereas the passive TA-1P is at the mercy of whatever power amp is driving it- but it may provide a broad reference for readers familiar with that popular speaker. In general, the TA-1P sounds "bigger" than the HR824; its cloth dome tweeter yields a more enveloping sense of spaciousness and air than the Mackie's metal dome/waveguide, and the bottom end, while lacking the extension of the Mackie, has more weight. The TA-1P seems to offer far better resolution in the lower-midrange; it unveils lots of useful information in the 250-800Hz range, whereas the Mackie sounds somewhat scooped or distant in that register. Conversely, the Mackie's upper midrange (1-4 kHz) provides far more microscopic detail than the TA-1P, though I must confess this is one area of that monitor that I feel doesn't always translate well to other speakers. (Just so you don't think I'm slagging Mackie, I have the same complaint about most Genelec monitors. And I own a pair of Mackies, so obviously I don't believe it's an unworkable defect.) Note that these comparisons are relative, grossly out of context, and should in no way be construed as qualitative observations. Having now mixed on the TA-1Ps for several weeks and Mackies for considerably longer, I can confidently say that one could rely on either speaker to make important decisions and craft durable mixes. I also spent a lot of time referencing the TA-1Ps to my pair of Tannoy System 800s. This is perhaps a more equitable comparison-the Tannoys are also passive 2-way monitors, so both pairs of speakers could be driven by the same amplifier during my auditions. Coincidentally, the System 800s list for exactly the same price as the TA-1Ps ($999/pair), so anyone considering a purchase of one would be a smart shopper to check out the other. I've been a fan of Tannoy 8" Dual Concentric close-field monitors ever since working with a pair of their NFM 8s back in 1986; I bought the System 800s because after all these years I've learned to trust them. I know that when I get a mix sounding right on the Tannoys it will sound right anywhere else. I am pleased to say the TA-1P held up very well compared to my old standby reference monitor. Details that seemed to be revealed when listening on one pair were equally evident on the other. Mixes translated effortlessly back and forth between speakers, and from either pair to the plethora of consumer playback systems I usually check mixes on: car stereo, boombox, Walkman®, etc. Mixes that sounded right on the Tannoys sounded right on the TA-1Ps and vice-versa; decisions made while listening on the TA-1Ps were verified on the Tannoys, and of course vice-versa. While the two monitors actually sound nothing alike, they both proved to be extremely reliable as listening tools. Oh, perhaps the TA-1Ps are slightly better at portraying front-to-back imaging (soundstage depth), while the Tannoys are a bit more stable with left-to-right imaging. And the TA-1Ps certainly put out a punchier, deeper bass. I was struck by how effortless it was to mix on the Truth Audio speakers and how those mixes held up and translated as well as mixes done on monitors I have used for almost 15 years. In fact the TA-1Ps were also a lot more fun to mix on than my old standbys.

Bottom, middle, and top lines

The thing that most struck me during these listening sessions was that the Truth Audio TA-1Ps really do sound "good!" In addition to all their strengths as a reliable, accurate evaluation tool, the TA-1Ps are surprisingly pleasant to listen to. All the positive experiences I had kicking back with my CD collection in the living room were not lost when I brought the Truth Audio monitors into the control room and began working. They're a tool and a toy! You can craft killer mixes on these monitors and have a blast listening to them at the same time.