UPDATE 2024: I finally broke down and bought some auratones and there is no comparison. They blow the Avantones and Behritones out of the water. UPDATE 8/3/2017: After using the Avantone (studio) and Behritone (home) for the last three months, I have noticed my mixes using the Behritone are far superior and translatable—and that's coming from my home studio which is an acoustical nightmare. To be scientific about it, I swapped them out and started using the Behritone in the studio and, sure enough, MUCH better. So if you're trying to decide between the two, I'd say go for the Behritone instead. (I bought the one w/ the woodgrain cabinets, not sure if that matters.)INITIAL REVIEW:The package arrived and the speaker was halfway detached from the cabinet and the chrome border was cracked and bent (see attached pics). And the paint was chipped.After paying what I feel is a pretty exhorbitant amount of money for a single reference monitor, it was disappointing to open the package to find it in such rough shape. After putting it back together, I plugged it in to see if it would work. It did. And since I needed it for a project I'm working on and didn't have time to wait for a replacement, I decided to live w/ the cosmetic (and hopefully not performance) blemishes. In pictures, the Avantones appear to be well-constructed, but up-close-and-personal they're kinda disappointing.I anticipated that the speaker would sound crappy—that's kinda the point. It definitely delivers there. It's the worst sounding speaker I've ever heard.In the end, all I really care about is having a lowest-common-denominator mono reference source, and the Avantones seem to nail that.

I'm now purchasing a second MixCube to use as my new stereo mains, replacing my much bigger M-Audio M3-8 3 way speakers, after thoroughly enjoying using it as a dedicated mono speaker for six months. What led me to this decision is as follows:As a producer/mixer just starting out the past two years, I've come to realize that the pro audio world is extremely expensive and full of companies trying to sell me snake oil hardware and plugins that I don't need to be successful. I (with some skepticism and doubt, which my suspicions turned out to become reality) originally bought some M-Audio M3-8's two years ago, which seem awesome on paper (they're a 3 way speaker!) at a decent price and sound great (if overhyped a bit) one was a lemon (had significant buzzing) on arrival, then its replacement began suffering intermittent static randomly then now has a persistent high pitch sequel. Funny thing is, M-Audio warranty is only a year, that's right, ONE YEAR, which I think is absurd for something marketed as professional audio. So I'm going to have to figure out what's wrong with the m-audio and fix it myself, they're being nice enough to sell me whatever needed part I need once I figure that out though, but haven't yet provided me an electrical diagram to remotely help me for troubleshooting.Anyways, given the failures of the M-Audios and realizing that they were hyping up my mix a bit too much mentally, and how the MixCube ultimately made my mix translate better, I decided to just replace the working M3-8 and put another MixCube in to use them as my stereo mains (Maybe I'll use the M3-8 as my new mono check speaker or as a buzzy boombox for my tv). I realize that these aren't nearly as 'fun' to listen to, but with how much they translate better to the real world for what consumers listen to, they can't be beat.What really sold me on it was the 5 year warranty and their ethics in approach to making, pricing, and selling their products (they rely on word of mouth instead of blowing a bunch of money on marketing). It's extremely refreshing to come across a company that seems a lot more genuine than the BS companies out there pandering to recording studios with unlimited budgets or to novice producers (like me) that are more easily persuaded by flashy specs of cheap hardware when just starting out but won't stand by their products. Again, M-Audio only has a (very upsetting to find out the hard way) 1 year warranty.What further gives me confidence is the oversized industrial type power supply that looks like it could survive anything, it's the biggest I've seen of any consumer electronics, and I've been working in IT for 16 years. The MixCube is also small enough to easily place anywhere (especially with the built in mic thread, which works awesome), and the lack of bass response makes acoustic decoupling less important than a more bassy speaker. Having only one speaker and one amp means less to go wrongIt's about as smooth and flat as you can get for the midrange and is very revealing, Not going to hear bass or high end on this thing, and it's definitely not as 'fun' to listen to, but to me mixes translating better is more important. Looking forward to my new workflow with these in stereo. Also found a picture today with Skrillex using one of these and figured if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

First of all, if you know what this is and you're doing research to try to decide if you should buy this, the answer is yes, buy it now!I built a studio in my basement four years ago. I spent a lot of time and other stuff on effective sound treatment, equipment, etc. I also bought a few pairs of monitors. The first were KRK Rokit 5 1st gen. I didn't know squat about monitoring and figured those would be good enough. They weren't. I couldn't get anything to translate well without a lot of CD burning and playing around the house, car, etc. When I did manage to get a song right I couldn't ever pinpoint what I'd done so that I could do it again on another song. Each song had a seemingly random tone problem if I took it away from my mixing desk.Next I bought a Yamaha HS10W to use with the KRKs because I always had trouble with the low end. I went with Yamaha because I intended to upgrade my monitors later. KRKs + sub was only a little better. I still had the same tone problems. Finally, I found a used BlueSky MediaDesk and that seems to be much better. But I was *still* missing something and it was driving me crazy. I decided not to spend any more time or money until I had researched this problem to the best of my ability. I got a lot of guidance from Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior, available here on Amazon.I was missing the Mixcube. I think I read about these three or four months ago but put off getting one. I was very skeptical that something like this could help so much. I had already spent so much time and money that I thought this was the ultimate snake-oil sucker's bait.Well, I was wrong! The Mixcube has made all of the difference in my studio. I also picked up a HOSA Audio Signal Selector so I can A/B/C my monitors. My mixing experience is like night-and-day right away. I started over with my previous mixes and brought up one track at a time A/B ing with the Mixcube and BlueSkys. It's *so easy* to get bass levels and vocals to right in the mix, and with a fraction of the time I was spending before.This is a pretty gushy review and I've only had this for two days. However, I mixed two songs and both translated everywhere immediately. Did I mention that I've been struggling with this issue for years!?!If you've been having similar issues buy this now! Your only regret will be that you didn't do it sooner. In the end maybe the KRKs and sub would've been "good enough" to deliver to mastering if I had had the Mixcube from the beginning.I went back and forth between a Mixcube and a Behritone. Maybe the Behritones would give you similar or good-enough results. However, I finally decided that after everything I've put into this studio and all of the time I spent fighting my mixes, I didn't want to blow it trying to save $100. No regrets here. I'll post back if anything noteworthy happens.EDIT September 22, 2013: Still love it, and still nailing it every time. I'm not saying that I don't decide I need a little more of this or that, but the tonal agony I wrote about earlier vanished when I plugged this in and hasn't come back. In addition, I am a better "mixing engineer" because this has really helped train my ears to what is important in a mix. I put that in quotes because I'm a hardcore hobbyist, and though I've recorded and mixed legit albums for other bands, I'm not in the major or minor leagues. However, about a month ago I spent two days in the local holy-of-holies recording studio, and was jazzed to see that they have two Avantones in their monitoring setup. It was thrilling because I'll never spend the kind of money they spend on their monitoring setup ($100+k?), but when we mix for crap-speakers we're going for the same sound. Since 90% of our customers will be playing our mixes through speakers this bad or worse (e.g. the little speaker on a iPhone, etc.) it's no surprise that many big-shot engineers rely on this speaker to do a great deal of their work.