M-Audio BX5 D2

M-Audio first began producing studio monitors about a decade ago. Its early efforts showed the company's inexperience, as the first Studiophile line of monitors sounded overly bright and lacked detail. But M-Audio has come a long way since then. The BX5 D2 ($399.95 direct), the third version of its popular 5-inch BX line of powered monitor speakers, is just about as good as it can be. Aside from a lack of adjustment options on the speakers themselves, and as long as you're not expecting deep bass extension, they?can handle just about any task you throw at them. And they sound great?if relentlessly revealing?when listening to music, too.

Design and Controls
In the realm of two-way monitors with 5-inch woofers?a particularly crowded category?the BX5 D2 is on the small side. Each speaker measures 10 by 7 by 7.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 11 pounds. We've seen models from KRK and Mackie that exceed the BX5 D2's dimensions by several inches in each direction. That helps with bass response, thanks to the larger enclosure, but it also makes the monitors somewhat unwieldy in comparison. The enclosures themselves are made of vinyl-laminated MDF, with nicely rounded edges and a textured finish that should prove scratch-resistant over the long term. The enclosures are vented from the rear, with a pair of ports facing the back. The speakers are also magnetically shielded, but precious few of us are still using CRTs at this point, so it probably doesn't matter for most.

You get balanced XLR and ?-inch balanced and unbalanced inputs, but no stereo RCA or 3.5mm auxiliary inputs; these are proper studio monitors, after all. On the back panel, you'll also find a meaty volume knob. It lacks a center detent, though, which makes it tough to match both monitors up exactly unless they're cranked. There are no decibel adjustments for the tweeter or woofer, like you'd find on Yamaha HS50M or more expensive Mackie speakers, and no "half space" or "quarter space" style adjustments for compensating for against-the-wall or in-a-corner positioning. On the plus side, M-Audio includes a pair of adhesive pads to help decouple the speakers from a desk; I also used Auralex MoPads ($49), which helped isolate the BX5 D2 further from unwanted reflections. M-Audio lines up the tiny blue power LEDs on the front so that they're at their brightest when you've aimed the speakers properly at the listening position, a brilliant idea other manufacturers should copy immediately.

Drivers, Amplifiers, and Performance
Each BX5 D2 monitor contains a 5-inch Kevlar cone and a 1-inch silk dome tweeter; the latter also features an integrated waveguide for smoother dispersion. The drivers are biamplified, with a 40-watt low-frequency amplifier powering the woofer and a 30-watt high-frequency amplifier for the tweeter, along with a crossover point of 3KHz. M-Audio rates the total system at 53Hz to 22KHz, but without +/- decibel figures, there's not much to do with those numbers. It claims the system can exceed 100 decibels without audible distortion, and based on our testing, I have no reason to doubt that.

The BX5 D2 sound about exactly the way they should?which is to say, they don't add noticeable color to the sound. Put in a well mixed, well mastered recording, and they sound phenomenal. Listen to something that's overly compressed?which describes much of today's brick wall-limited pop recordings?and the BX5 D2 will reveal all its shortcomings.

Sticking with good recordings, Queens of the Stonge Age's "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" sounds clear and punchy on the BX5 D2, with a prominent shaker that never becomes harsh, and a nice sense of air around the vibes and the distorted guitar during the verses. Josh Homme's vocal sits nicely in the center and sounds natural.

In Ludovico Einaudi's "A Fuoco," the piano sounded warm and full-bodied, and the violin sits a bit further back in the soundstage and is color-free. The BX5 D2's bass end is tight and surprisingly punchy, with a beautifully defined, tuned 808 kick in The Knife's "Silent Shout" that was cleanly separated from the low synthesized bass. Turning the monitors up?way up?produced zero distortion and an impressive level of punch. I also tested the BX5 D2 with the Mastered For iTunes version of Metallica's Beyond Magnetic EP; despite what Apple says, you can still easily pick up the excessive limiting and lossy compression through the speakers.

If I could critique the BX5 D2's sound, it's just in two places. The first is in a slightly forward presentation, which you can pick up in the upper midrange. It adds a little extra presence to cymbals and female vocals, and can brighten the sound of electric guitars ever so slightly. But you can easily learn to compensate for this when mixing, and thankfully, it's not at all harsh. The other is true of all small monitors: The bass reflex, or vented enclosure, means that you'll get extra bass oomph considering the size of the enclosure and the driver, but at a slight expense of speed and overall accuracy at the low end of its range. Again, it's something you can compensate for when mixing. But if you're mixing a lot of dance music or film soundtracks with earth-shaking bass tones, you'll still want a sub, or you'll want to check your mixes on larger monitors, just to make sure there aren't any stray tones and that the sub bass is as locked with the drums as it should be. M-Audio also sells the BX8 D2, which features an 8-inch cone in a larger enclosure, for $599.95 for the pair; that's another option if you have the room.

Conclusions
There's precious little to fault with the BX5 D2. They hold up well against the veterans in the category, from Alesis, Mackie (with their lower cost MR5 line), KRK, Fostex, and Event (which has since retreated back upmarket, and no longer sells a direct competitor to the BX5 D2). If you're thinking more in terms of listening to music, with occasional studio monitoring, take a look at the Audioengine 5+ ($399.99, 4.5 stars), our current Editors' Choice for high-end PC speakers. The Audioengine 5+ costs the same and offers more in the way of controls, and also has a slightly more consumer-friendly response curve than the relentlessly flat BX5 D2. The NHT SuperPower (With PVC-PC) ($497, 4 stars) is another contender, with beautifully transparent sound and slightly smaller enclosures, although it doesn't quite approach the BX5 D2's bass extension and costs almost $100 more.

If you're after bass impact and don't need a proper studio monitor, check out the smaller M-Audio AV 40 ($229.99, 3.5 stars), which lacks the BX5 D2's transparency and sheer volume, but acquits itself well as a miniature monitor suitable for music listening and audio post, if not outright home studio mixing. Also look at 2.1 systems like the Antec Soundscience Rockus 3D ($199.99, 4 stars) and the Harman Kardon SoundSticks III ($169.99, 4.5 stars). Both offer more low-end volume and also sound a bit fuller at lower volumes, thanks to their powered subwoofers, although neither can approach the monitoring accuracy, flat response, and ultimate transparency the BX5 D2 offers.

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