Studio monitors are almost entirely about taste. No one has been able to agree on the subjective meaning of ’flat’ for the past 50 years but nevertheless, that term gets thrown around indiscriminately in the marketing literature of almost all studio speakers. In truth it’s very difficult to make a loudspeaker with a ruler flat response and even if there was such a thing, it is at mercy of your room’s acoustics. Never mind that the frequency response of a speaker is measured in an anechoic chamber.
In real life we work in the real world with real challenges, not anechoic chambers. So before we get on with this review I would like to point out that auditioning speakers in an unfamiliar environment is for the most part futile. It might give you a fairly general idea of the differences between models but it will never give you an accurate view of how they will perform in your studio.
So before you go out and buy the latest, greatest pair of studio monitors because you read about them on a forum, it might be a good idea to request a trial period from your local retailer before you buy them. If they’re serious about selling speakers, they’ll oblige and it might save you money and a huge hassle in the long run.
One company that was more than happy to lend me a pair of studio monitors to review was Viva Afrika, one of our market-leading distributors of loudspeaker systems and DJ equipment. The studio monitors in question are the Monkey Banana Turbo 8s but do not be vexed by the name; these monitors are German-designed and are actually quite serious. So without any further monkeying about, let’s check them out.
Construction and features
The Turbo 8s have a unique shape and the overall look is like an elongated hexagon. Apparently after much research and development Monkey Banana came to the conclusion that the ’non-regular hexagonal” shape of the enclosure was most effective in eliminating internal standing waves. Standing waves cause resonances within the enclosures of speakers and are generally undesirable as they cause distortion and erratic frequency responses.
The bass-reflex box is made from custom-shaped MDF and, according to Monkey Banana: “…employs serious engineering to achieve the best possible acoustic performance,’ and that “…the MDF material ensures proper damping vibrations from the drivers that can create audible distortion in the enclosure.’
The rest is pretty straight forward. The LF driver is an eight-inch magnetically shielded polypropylene/ceramic membrane. The HF driver is a one-inch silk dome tweeter that is protected by a dome of black metallic mesh. The front baffle also includes an LED backlit Monkey Banana logo that illuminates when the monitors are turned on.
The rear panel consists of a variety of inputs that includes a XLR/TRS combo jack for +4dBu balanced line level inputs, a RCA input for -10dBV unbalanced inputs, and an S/PDIF RCA digital input. This means that the monitors can be fed from either an RCA or AES/EBU output (using an adapter) directly from your interface. Logically, this also means that they have built-in digital to analogue converters so you’ll have to decide whether they sound better being fed via analogue from your converters/interface or digitally. Since stereo digital signals are sent down a single cable, the Turbo 8s also include an RCA S/PDIF output for linking the monitors in digital mode. You can assign each monitor to left or right via a toggle switch on the back panel.
The crossover of the Turbo 8s is set at 3Khz which is pretty standard. The LF driver receives 80W while the HF tweeter receives 30W for a total enclosure power handling of 110W. There are HF and LF EQ pots available as well which give you a range of +6dB to -6dB at 10kHz and 100Hz respectively. They have a frequency response of 45Hz to 30kHz, which is quite a broad range for most studio monitors.
Lastly, the monitors come in two colours; red and black, and have a gross weight of 15kg. We were supplied the black version for this review so let’s see how they fared.
Sound
I took the Turbo 8s to my current studio in Johannesburg, Pan Music, to take a listen to some selected source material on the monitors and compare them to the monitors we have there. The goal here was to compare them to monitors in similar price range; in this case a pair of Yamaha HS80s.
The music we used to audition the music was selected from the albums Adele, 19 and Lady Antebellum, Need You Now. These were both high resolution versions played through Lynx Aurora 8 high end converters.
Of course, we started with the Turbo 8s. My first impression was they have quite a bit of bottom end, particularly in the 100 to 200Hz region, which gave them a lot of punch. The mid-range seemed forward enough but had a slight dip in the upper midrange region of 1.2kHz to 3kHz. The top end seemed a little bit lacklustre but thanks to a slight HF adjustment I was able to get them to sparkle a little more.
Turning to the HS80s, the low end subdued somewhat, but the mid- and top ranges seemed to open up. I had spent a lot of time level matching the two speakers and this is crucial because without it it’s impossible to form an accurate impression. The HS80s seemed to have more in the upper mid-range region and, being that they are quite bright speakers to begin with, that gave the impression of a more open sound stage. Switching back and forth between the Turbo 8s and the HS80s gave the impression of shrinkage in overall bandwidth. However, the Yamahas lacked the low end punch of the Turbo 8s, so it’s up to you to decide what you prefer.
The wrap
The Monkey Banana Turbo 8s are good, solid monitors. While they’re somewhat in the same price range as the Yamahas they sound vastly different and given the impression they made on me, I would wager that they are aimed at the DJ market where bass is a priority. However, they are by no means bad monitors as the overall construction is robust and the inputs options are flexible and, after all, there is also the option of EQing them to your liking via the tone controls on the rear panel.
