SPL 2Control black

bra enhet med finkontroll över monitorvolym. känns mycket robust och en klar uppgradering över mpatch. det jag kan störa mig på är att ljudet sänks när man aktiverar crossfeed, vilket gör a/b monitoring med denna funktion svår. dessutom är volymkontrollen för hörlur stegad och i mitt fall upplever jag att hoppen blir för stora. rekommenderas fortfarande.

edit 2020: sänker betyget då priset på dessa gått upp rejält. köpte min 2013 för strax under 400 eur.

In my home studio it's a must have device. There's pretty much only two things I would like to comment:

1, The Crossfeed function is a great feature. It really does what it is supposed to do i.e. imitate the sound of speakers in your headphones, which is great for home studio use if you don't want make your neighbors go crazy when you listen to the same thing over and over again.

2, I would so much more like to see one pairs of outputs being unbalanced RCA jack outputs instead of three pairs of XLR outs. Who uses three pairs of studio monitors anyway?
Wouldn't we all like to play our mixes through our regular hifi-stereo just to see how it sounds?
Well, you can forget about it, because there are no RCA outputs!
I had to build myself a separate box to convert the balanced XLR signal to unbalanced RCA.

I have this hooked up from my Metric Halo LIO-8, going out to my PSI A25s, Avantone MixCubes and two pairs of headphones. Soundwise, it's very transparent on the monitors, but does unfortunately add a bit of noise on the headphone outputs, causing me to deduct one point each for Handling and Quality. As I use the (phenomenal) headphone output on the LIO-8 for my main phones, this doesn't bother me too much, and the additional pairs are only used for quick reference purposes, so it's not a deal breaker for me.

My Avantone MixCubes have a slight humming issue (quite common, unfortunately) which the ground lift feature doesn't eliminate, but again, it's not a deal breaker and can't really be blamed on the 2Control.

The 2Control features and overall build quality are excellent. I can't understand why all controllers don't have Mono and Dim buttons, especially the former, as it's such a necessary feature for working quickly when you want to listen back to your mixes with the computer screen turned off, checking for mono playback compatibility. The main volume knob has a wonderful feel to it, it's big and travels smoothly, keeping the stereo image intact across the whole range, something that e.g. the SM Audio MPatch 2 doesn't handle as well.

The two headphone outputs are controlled by individual volume knobs (woohoo!), and shares a Crossfeed feature, enabling the user to simulate the interchannel bleed when listening to speakers in a room, as opposed to the 100% left/100% right stereo representation of standard headphones.

Noise issues on the headphone outputs aside, I found this to be a great monitor controller with all the features I need in my mixing and mastering studio.

Before I bough this unit I was using Presonus Central Staton Plus. I know it is not the subject of thie review but let me explain something. Presonus is very cool except one thing: being passive controller it introduces come audible phase distortion. I cannot explain it proffessionally but someone explained me that in passive coircut long cables can affect the sound by creating electric induction (coil - like effect). In my studio this effect was clearely audible - sometimes one of monitors sounded "out of phase".
This was the main reason why I bought SPL. It sounds absolutely great and it is not true that passive controllers are better ! What it lacks is some functionality. No talkback, no digital input. But the sound kills. I recommend it.