Recording - May 2014 - 44

BY LORENZ RYCHNER

Equator makes two distinct monitor
series, the mid-field/far-field Q series (to
date consisting of models Q10 and
Q12), and the near-field/mid-field D
series-models D5 and D8. We reviewed
the smaller D5 in the December 2011
issue, when its introductory price per pair
was $299.99, available direct from
equator.com. Now a pair of D5 monitors
costs $399.99-still a great deal.
A good two years later we've now had
a chance to evaluate the newer and larger D8-a pair costs $749, also from
equator.com. At almost double the price
of the D5, is it a worthwhile deal? Let's
investigate.
D8 design principles
Equator states that "the D8 was
designed specifically to deliver a much
bigger sound while maintaining the
extreme level of detail that the D5 has
been proven to provide."
The Equator D8 is a bass-reflex design,
with the 2.5" porthole sitting low in front.
That front location of the porthole means
that the user can expect less boominess
from walls or corners behind the cabinet
than could be the case with a rear-firing
port. The wood cabinet, with its grey finish and black front baffle, measures 14"
x 10" x 12" and weighs 22 lbs.

Equator Audio Research D8 Studio Monitors
Coaxial precision in a powerful, affordable near field monitor
What catches the eye immediately is the
fact that there is not a woofer and a separate tweeter; instead the 1" silk tweeter is
mounted in the center of the 8" polypropylene woofer. Let's spend a moment on this
topic of "coaxial", shall we?
Coaxial speaker design aims at delivering the entire sound output of the speakers
in a time-aligned manner, meaning that our
ears receive the full range of frequencies
emitted at any time by both speaker elements at once and from the identical pinpoint source. Manufacturers of such coaxial speaker designs have long stated that the
result for the listener is increased accuracy.
Phase shifts and cancellations that may
arise from a tweeter and woofer that each
have their own location on a cabinet are
largely omitted when the tweeter speaks
from the center of the woofer.
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RECORDING May 2014

But it's not quite that simple, so there are DSP-aided group delay filters inside the D8
for phase-accurate response, expecially in the critical midrange-hence the technical
verbiage from Equator, "Zero-Point Reference™ custom designed coaxial DigitallyControlled Transducers™ along with internal DSP...". Equator states that a further
design principle was "unobstructed clarity in that complex 900 Hz-3 kHz range,
something that was already noticeable in the D5."
More specs
The D8 is bi-amped, with a total of 100 W (60W LF / 40W HF), and it is listed with
a frequency response of 44 Hz-20 kHz (±3 dB) and an SPL of 106 dB.
Inputs (around back) are balanced XLR and balanced/unbalanced 1/4". A
"Sensitivity" knob acts as a volume control of sorts, to better match input signals-it is
not designed to attenuate down to silence but has a much more restricted range.
A three-position "Boundary" switch allows for some response correction depending
on speaker location. As on the D5, setting 2 is the flat setting, used for positioning near
a rear wall. Setting 1 has less bass-a rolloff that starts at 1 kHz and is 2.5 dB down
by 44 Hz, for very bass-heavy positioning such as in the corner of a room.
However, Boundary Setting 3 is quite different than the D5's "freestanding" curve (1
dB boost from 1 kHz-15 kHz and 2 dB shelf boost below 1 kHz). As Ted Keffalo of
Equator Audio Research explains it, "We did the final tweaking [of the D8 voicing] at

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Recording - May 2014

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