Recording - March 2015 - 63

Sonically sources like vocals, electric guitar, trumpet, and
snare pop right out to the forefront on the MixCubes, and it's
also very easy to hear where your kick drum and bass sit in the
mix. Not in a low-end rumble sort of way, but just in a pure
"how loud is it" sense.
One other thing I like about the
MixCubes is that they are also a
valuable mixing tool when used
simply as: MixCube! I know
many studios that have purchased just one to use as a mono
mixing source for checking
against phase issues as well as
nailing EQ placement. This is
wise because many of the abovementioned Bluetooth devices and
smartphone speakers are mono.
In my room
I used the MixCubes for a week or two, both checking mixes
as well as starting mixes on them from the ground up. Overall
they are a very valuable tool, and with them I was able to frame

my initial mixes faster and make better initial placement decisions, especially in mono.
The only thing the MixCubes did not help with was overall lowend EQ decisions in the bass guitar and kick drum from a tonal perspective, but they did help sort out
much of the placement between
the two. Other than sorting out the
final EQ of the extreme highs and
lows, I was surprised by how
close to done my mixes were after
mixing on just the MixCubes for a
few hours before switching over
to other monitors!
Of course these should not be
your only monitor and they were
never intended to replace a good
2- or 3-way system, but what they
do they do impeccably well and
there are very few other monitors on the market like them.
Price: $239 each
More from: Avantone Pro, www.avantonepro.com

BY MARTIN NESSI

Crane Song Avocet II Discrete Class A Studio Controller

It's been quite a while since Crane Song, maker of high-end audio signal processing and routing gear, has been featured in our pages. For this monitorthemed issue, I'm pleased to bring you a look at the Avocet II, a full-featured
monitor controller and D/A converter. Having worked with the original Avocet,
I was excited to try the new model and hear for myself if its new and improved
features meant a significant step up in quality and performance.
Technical characteristics
Like all Crane Song gear, the Avocet II was designed by Dave Hill and manufactured in Crane Song's factory in Superior, Wisconsin. It's a monitor controller and D/A converter that's built in two parts: a 2U rackmount chassis for
the D/A and all input and output connections, and a wired remote called the
Remote II that provides easy control of the Avocet II's functions from the mix position. A 24' cable is provided to connect the two, allowing the rack module to
be placed pretty much anywhere in a control room without restricting the user's
freedom of movement.
The main unit has three pairs of balanced XLR analog inputs, five digital inputs
(three AES on XLR plus Toslink optical and coaxial S/PDIF on RCA), three pairs
of balanced XLR analog outputs, and a headphone amplifier with two 1/4" outputs, one on the front of the rackmount module and one on the rear. There's also
an accessory port that allows multiple units to be interconnected and controlled
from a single remote; the Avocet II is a stereo unit on its own but can be networked for up to 7.1 surround control.

The Remote II has 24 buttons to control many
different functions: source selection, speaker
selection, 16-bit truncation, mono, phase invert,
mute, and adjustable dim. There's a lot of depth
here, with a Shift key offering access to extra routing and calibration functions... not to mention a
variety of customizations that can be performed
using internal jumpers; see the manual for the
gory details. The Remote II also features an LED
ladder meter and a level dial that can control
input gain, headphone level, and/or speaker
level, depending on chosen settings. There's a
built-in talkback function with an XLR jack to
attach a mic to the Remote II (no phantom power).
Dave Hill reports that the primary improvement in
the Avocet II over its predecessor is in the D/A conversion, particularly in reduction of jitter (clocking
instability) that can compromise playback. The clock
is now so accurate that it has a phase noise of -115
dBC/Hz at 10 Hz; that results in a jitter value of
under 1 picosecond-that's a trillionth of a second!
In use
Installing and setting up the Avocet II is easy,
especially for stereo monitor systems with or without one or two subwoofers. As is clearly explained
in the manual, the only tricky part is to make sure
that levels are calibrated upon setup so that your
results will be consistent thereafter.
Once your connections are in place, using the
Avocet II is very straightforward, with all of the
usual monitor control functions for a pro control
room near at hand. Being able to set up and
remember separate levels for the (very loud) headphone amplifier and the main outs is quite handy,
and the talkback functions work just as advertised.
So if it's easy to set up and transparent to use,
what's left to discuss? The incredible sound! The
Avocet II is completely uncolored with respect to routing analog input signals, but the real revelation for
me was the amazing clarity of the D/A converter.
RECORDING March 2015

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Recording - March 2015

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