Samson Resolv 65a

Good evening Gearheads

I was trying to decide what to write about today when I realized I haven't written anything about my most used piece of equipment.
Studio monitors along with a great audio interface, are the most important part of any digital recording or post-production facility. If you can't accurately hear what you're working on, how will it ever turn out decent?! Being a small studio/production room, I rely upon active near-field monitors exclusively.
For the past 2 years I have been using the Samson Resolv 65a bi-amplified active monitors. They consist of a 75 watt powered 6.5" woofer coupled with 1" titanium tweeter (25 watts), with a crossover near 2.3khz. It's got a ported MDF cabinet with a sleek black with blue trim design. The speakers also come with rubber foot pads. Mine also have a feature where if they aren't used for 10 minutes, they hibernate. A very cool feature, but I believe that the newer models don't have this feature.
These monitors are billed to be "clinically accurate" by Samson and they nearly are. The mid-range is more pronounced than I would expect from "clinically accurate" speakers, but Samson has covered this by building in a mid-range contour control. This comes in the form of a rotary on the back of each speaker that increases or decreases the mid-range (around 1.7khz) from -3db to +6db in 3db increments. A nice feature for those who are used to other classic near-fields. I personally don't use this feature. When I first set these bad boys up, I fiddled with this until I got a sound I was comfortable with which just happened to be in the 0db position. They are spec'ed with a frequency response of 45hz-20khz. They have a very tight low-end response that sounds great, but this can often lead to "boomy" mixes for those not experienced with them.
Joining the mid-range control on the back of each speaker are 3 input options: balanced XLR, balanced 1/4" TRS, and unbalanced RCA. Very handy for running multiple sources. And of course there's an on/off switch, volume knob, and AC input.
In use, it really took me almost 6 months to really get used to these speakers, but now I'm locked in. So much so that a few months ago when one of them stopped working in the middle of me trying to meet a looming deadline, I went out and purchased another pair as a backup. Luckily these speakers come with a 3-year manufacturer's warranty and after a few weeks and a replaced driver amp, I had it back in my hands and back to work. Thank goodness for the warranty!
So I'm very happy with them. I listened to quite a few others in the same price range when I was comparison shopping (Alesis MKII, Behringer TRUTH, M-Audio BX5, Event TR-5) and obviously these were my favorite. They can be had for $299/pair.

Right now I'm listening to the new Dashboard Confessional album, Dusk and Summer. This is surprisingly a very cool album. They were way too emo for me until now. But this is a well written and nicely produced record.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com