Review: Presonus Monitor Station

Haven’t the developers at Presonus been busy beavers! It seems that almost every issue we review another one of their units – it’s the most prolific manufacturing period since the company’s inception in 1995.

In the recording market, ‘monitoring units’ are a relatively recent phenomenon. Before then, of course, it was the job of analogue consoles to perform the task of turning speakers up and down and communicating with performers over talkback. Yet when consoles fell out of favour, something had to replace them if monitoring and talkback still counted for something… and for a while there, some people were beginning to regret their hasty removal of the big old hunks of analogue circuitry.

Around that time I was making do with a single passive potentiometer – a solitary large black knob sitting alongside my computer keyboard. This was eventually replaced with a Mackie Big Knob; one of the first ‘affordable’ units available for monitoring and speaker selection duties. To my disappointment, Presonus, a matter of days later, released the Central Station. Had I known this release was imminent, I would have held out for the Presonus unit for sure; the Central Station has superior specifications, an S/PDIF input and a separate remote unit that allows cables to be kept in the rack where I’d argue they belong, rather than snaking their way onto my (physical) desktop.

Clearly the new Presonus Monitor Station owes its genealogy to the Central Station, but in a design sense, it’s more or less a hybrid of both it and the Mackie Big Knob. Like the Big Knob, the Presonus Monitor Station is a desktop unit, with all connections made on the rear of its sloping case. I’ll say this now to perhaps allow you to abandon the rest of this article if you hate the look of leads all over your desktop – if you’re attempting to keep your desk largely free of cabling, perhaps the Monitor Station isn’t for you. Save your bikkies for the Central Station, or better. Having said that, the Monitor Station does provide a host of features for a very reasonable price. Let’s investigate.

ALL ABOARD

To begin with the Monitor Station is quite sturdy. The casing is entirely constructed with 1.5mm thick steel plate that neither flexes nor bends when giving the buttons a hefty prod or inserting and extracting headphones. The rear panel jacks are attached to the main body and will likely stand the test of continued use. The rear panel includes balanced TRS inputs for two sets of sources, along with a pair of RCA inputs for either phono or standard line level auxiliary devices. Instigating the RIAA EQ [The Recording Industry Association of America standard equalisation curve for ‘re-EQing’ the signal that plays back from vinyl records] into the Aux input simply involves pressing and holding the front panel ‘Phono’ button for a few seconds. Switching it out again requires only a quick press of the button. The remaining jacks on the rear panel allow for three sets of monitor outputs, ostensibly for 5.1 setups should the need arise, and a main and cue output. An XLR input is further included on the rear panel for connecting an external (dynamic) talkback mic, or you could just stick with the perfectly useful internal talkback option.

The upper panel of the Monitor Station is replete with comprehensive knobbage, and of these, the volume control is indeed quite big. Across the top section of the unit are no less than seven identical knobs. The first three of these (from the left) adjust the levels going to each of the three speaker outputs. Personally, I would have preferred these to be recessed potentiometers requiring a screwdriver to adjust – others, I’m sure, would disagree. For mine, this easy access to the speaker trims will inevitably lead to the inadvertent bumping of the pots while fumbling for the four headphone level knobs situated right beside them. Even if you’re careful, I can easily envisage someone connected to one of these four headphone points eventually reaching over and changing your carefully balanced monitor levels – it’s gonna happen at some point with the Monitor Station. Alternatively, perhaps these would have been better off with different coloured (or sized) knobs to distinguish speaker trims from headphone levels.

Besides that, there’s a lot to like about the Monitor Station. To begin with, it has a proper ‘momentary’ talkback button that will latch on if pressed quickly, or disengage only once you’ve removed an insistent finger that’s been held there during your conversation with a performer. It’s a proper talkback controller that feels just right. The dim level is also readily adjustable via a knob over on the right-hand side of the unit, which adds a sense of professionalism to the feature list. This dim level control sets the amount of attenuation in the Cue/headphone send, correlating with the dim level for the ‘dim’ button. What’s also very cool is the option to switch each of the headphones between the main monitor mix and the cue output.

The centre of the Monitor Station houses the monitoring matrix buttons, mute and dim buttons, followed by a modestly proportioned – I’m sure you’ll agree – knob. (Hey, it does the job). The eight segment LED meters are a nice touch too, and flash at all the appropriate times. Don’t get me wrong, for the dollar value and for its size, the Monitor Station offers a great deal of functionality. Moreover, the actual operation of the unit is silky smooth and the talkback mic sounds very good. But for some reason I just can’t help thinking the Central Station to be a more elegant solution – maybe I’ve been scarred from my past experience with the Big Knob. The Central Station has a significantly better spec, a digital input and doesn’t clutter your desktop with cables. But of course, it also carries a much higher price tag than the desktop-only Monitor Station. So the two obvious issues are simply price and where you’d want your leads to connect. If indeed you’d prefer the cables within easy reach so things can be patched and unplugged without sticking your head under the racks, or if the budget is constrained well below four figures, the Monitor Station is the obvious solution.

There are a few issues to consider if you’re auditioning the Monitor Station. If you’ve been looking for a cheaper alternative to the Central Station or you want an all-in-one monitoring solution, the Monitor Station provides solid operation and a talkback section that functions beautifully – a feature that is often poorly setup or entirely lacking on other desktop units. The bottom line, is of course, the price. You won’t get this kind of functionality in a master section from other manufacturers until you shell out a lot more of your hard earned.