M-Audio Studiophile AV30: In which I continue to search for great, cheap desktop speakers

In the basement of my house, I have a recording studio. It's not the best recording studio in the world. Some might not even call it a recording studio at all, but it's mine and I make some recordings down there I'm pretty proud of.

The command center of the studio

The Dynaudio BM5A, a lava lamp, a grenade, and my first driver's license

The center of that recording studio, and the most expensive piece of gear aside from the iMac (by a little) and my Les Paul Traditional (by a lot), is my set of monitors, the Dynaudio BM5As. These monitors cost me $1000 and they are really great. there are better, more expensive monitors out there, but I've learned to hear on them very well and the mixes from my studio sound like what I intend them to. That's the ultimate test of studio monitors: how do they translate mixes to other systems.

Recently, we got a new desktop computer for the family to share upstairs. This is first time I've had access to all my digital music in one spot upstairs and I wanted to be able to listen while working on that computer or while I puttered around the house in the morning and not have to suffer from cheapo desktop speakers that aren't worth a damn. I've been through them all, it seemed over the years, a set of Klipsch that sounded pretty darn good, but one of the jacks went bad after a year or so, an iPod boom box that sounded great, but the power supply died two years in, some Bose Companion 2s that were so awful I took them back less than a week after I brought them home (in a later expose I want to discover how Bose makes their stuff sound so good in the store and then perform so damn poorly in the home.).

No matter what, consumer desktop speakers have always disappointed. We have a nice set of Polk speakers in the living room hooked up to the TV, but the TV is often being used for TV watching, so I'd have to retreat downstairs and listen to music in the studio. And the TV's not hooked up to the network, so I have to plug in my phone. Oh, the humanity! Going downstairs is not a bad thing, but what if I wanted to be social and spend some time with the family while also listening to the computer and doing some work on the computer? Well, I had to suffer. Poor me, right?

Well, this past weekend, Mom sent money for Christmas (Thanks, Mom!) and I was determined to take a chunk of it and find some decent speakers for the computer. And there was no way I wanted to spend more than $100 on them. I went to Best Buy and looked at all the computer speakers in the computer section. There were all the usual suspects, Klipsch, Logitech, Creative, and fools gold of all fools gold, Bose. And I listened to them all. The stuff with a sub was way too thumpy and mushy on the bottom. The stuff without was too nasally and thin. Again, the Bose sounded best, but I wasn't going down that primrose path again, even if the Companion 2s were on sale at $89. I have to admit. I was weakening and walked around the store with the Bose under my arm for fifteen minutes, wandering aimlessly, reluctant to go to the checkout. There had to be another way.

Then I remembered that M-Audio, a purveyor of pro-sumer studio gear, also had a line of desktop monitors. Now, in the recording world, M-audio is kind of like Hyundai. They make decent stuff that almost keeps pace with the big boys, but is just a shade to the cheaper side. But they get the job done. So I set out, with poor, cranky daughter in tow, back across the store to Best Buy's pathetic little recording section. And there they were the M-Audio Studiophile AV30s. And they were exactly $99.

Have I chosen wisey?

So, like any gadget addict I toted them to the check out mumbling the mantra of all gadget hounds: "I can return them within 30 days. I can return them within 30 days." I must apologize to the nice older lady who was looking at the Sex in the City boxed sets as I passed in a fever of gear lust. I know I must have seemed threatening, mumbling in that way, unshowered and be-sweatedpanted as I was. I think it was only the cute little girl with me that kept her from macing the me right then and there.

I got the things home and tore into the box with abandon. This was going to be it, the moment I walk into the promised land of acceptable budget desktop audio. Early signs were promising. These monitors were hefty. They are self-powered and sturdy. The casing is not made of plastic, it's more of a nice, black vinyl covering over pressed wood, like real speakers. Not the best, but they certainly don't feel or look cheap.

Back at the family manse, Studiophiles in place.

The left speaker, which has all the controls.

M-Audio brought the price point down by waving RCA connectors instead of TRS, which would be a non-starter in the studio world, but here, an acceptable trade off. And the new computer has an audio out on the back, so I plugged them in and was ready to go. In a moment of enthusiasm I flipped on the bass boost switch on the back before firing up a tune (Black Sabbath's War Pigs. I've been in a proto-metal mood lately). Ugh. Thirty seconds in, I flipped the bass boost off. I don't know why folks like that much bass in their music. I understand that dance and hip hop are predicated on bass, but to me, if it throws of the balance of the overall piece. I generally don't use EQ or hype anything when I listen to music. There are engineers in the studio and at the mastering house who have fretted over the right balance for everything. Who am I to say they're wrong?

Look, no bigger than a couple of cool box sets.

Bass boost canceled, I sat back and listened for a few minutes. Very nice. No wait, VERY nice. What I was hearing was music, a wide range of frequencies, nice separation, good detail in the mids and highs. The bass was still a little untamed for my taste, but I can also chalk that up to sympathetic reverberation through the metal Steelcase desk (some Auralex monitor isolators would fix that). And this was just the first play. All speakers and headphones need a break-in period to really sound like they're intended to sound. I'm very excited to see how these sound when that happens.

Conclusion!
All in all, these are the best, by far, desktop speakers I have ever come across. I'm sure there are other, more expensive, monitors out there that would blow them away, but when I have $1000 monitors downstairs, how could I justify anything more upstairs. Well, I'm sure I could, but I'm trying to be reasonable. They have a smallish footprint, quality craftsmanship, very good sound (especially when compared with their competition), and they won't break the bank. If you're looking for great desktop speakers, go this route.