Dangerous Music - Monitor ST
- Signal Chain
- Dangerous Music MONITOR ST
An audiophile-grade, multi-purpose monitor controller for tracking, mixing and mastering that won’t color your sound.
$2,499.00
Designed by the renowned Chris Muth, the MONITOR ST handles all of your input sources, speaker switching, cue, talkback and headphone needs, all in a 1U package with crystal clarity. With its stepped attenuator, five input sources, three speaker outputs, programmable I/O levels, dedicated subwoofer out and more – all accessed via the elegant remote control – you won’t leave the sweet spot while handling all your studio routing effortlessly. the MONITOR ST is so accurate, clear and flexible that you’ll see its remote atop even the world’s best consoles!
True craftsmanship is in the details. If you can’t hear the nuances of what you’re working on, then you simply can’t make informed decisions. Everything from placing a mic, to turning a knob on an EQ, to coaching a singer though a delicate passage depends on being able to hear exactly what’s going on. With the advent of “prosumer” gear, the monitoring path is typically sacrificed to meet a price-point, and even some of the world’s most revered and expensive large-format consoles have less-than-accurate center sections that obscure the sound. To solve these problems, we’ve made zero compromises in the MONITOR ST, employing audiophile-grade components in an unconditionally transparent design. Whether you’re working in a project studio or managing the complex monitor routing in a multi-room studio, the MONITOR ST will provide the most accurate and reliable monitoring available anywhere.
If the studio were a car, the volume knob is the steering wheel, your connection to the whole mechanism through which all important feedback is routed. Not all volume controls are created equal – some affect frequency response at different levels, some introduce noise, some rely on tone-snatching digital level controls. the MONITOR ST’s volume control is a relay-actuated stepped analog attenuator made from top-shelf audiophile-grade components, expertly implemented into Chris Muth’s no-compromise analog signal path. From the remote’s elegantly-shaped knob, you’ll get crystal clear sonics with dead-accurate volume level recalls and better than 0.01dB gain tracking between channels. Whether you’re blasting playback through the mains or squinting at your small monitors at whisper volumes, the MONITOR ST will never color your sound or skew your stereo image. And because all the switching within the MONITOR ST is handled by relays, your audio signals are delivered to your speakers unadulterated, removing all the guesswork while tracking, mixing or mastering.
As the centerpiece of your studio, the MONITOR ST handles complex routing elegantly. There are four analog inputs, three speaker outputs, plus a stereo subwoofer output with programmable level offset and filter that can be assigned to any of the three speaker pairs (or used for a 4th pair of studio monitors). All of these ins and outs can be custom calibrated with onboard, programmable level offsets that you can recall instantly for different devices and configurations. Need to monitor a -10dBV commercial source like a CD player with levels perfectly matched? No problem. The on-board talkback mic, slate output, and the robust 20w/channel headphone amplifier – which can receive the Main Mix or the Aux In for custom artist mixes – round out all the routing needs for any studio. And the Aux Input can be layered with any of the four main inputs, offering up even more routing solutions.
Main monitors louder than your near-fields? No problem. Just switch between them and adjust the MONITOR ST’s level offsets in Setup mode until they’re matched, and then store. Now every time you switch between speakers they are matched for apparent loudness. You can do the same with the inputs, and with the Subwoofer Output, getting all of your studio’s gear in perfect balance for seamless monitoring.
Stay in the sweet spot while managing every signal in your studio. the MONITOR ST’s award-winning design is centered around an ergonomic, intuitive and indestructible remote control that hosts access to all of the MONITOR ST’s features. Connected with a single shielded Cat-5 cable, this remote is equally at home on a desk or the armrest of a big console – wherever your listening sweet spot is. The illuminated switches give you instant visual feedback of all your settings, while the stepped volume knob triggers the audiophile-grade relays in the main unit. Get this remote under your hands to find out why the MONITOR ST has won a TEC Nomination, A Future Music Ace Award and was crowned a Certified Hit by Mix Magazine.
Require 5.1, 7.1, 10.2 or greater? Just add the MONITOR SR to your ST system. The SR modules allow you to add as many channels as you need to handle all of your surround monitoring tasks, all with the world-class sound and control that the ST has to offer. And with the Dangerous Music CONVERT-2, you can connect the ST’s remote and control a number of essential switching functions.
The company’s mission is to solve the problems of the ‘hybrid studio’ by leveraging the best of both worlds: seamless integration of analog and digital equipment’s strengths and eliminating their weaknesses. Since product designer Chris Muth’s time has been spent almost exclusively designing custom equipment for many of the world’s preeminent mastering engineers and facilities, the combination of a mastering quality audio path with an intuitive feature set became the company’s baseline. It is worth noting that these designs evolved not in a vacuum but with input from some of the best ears in the business, refined in a working mastering environment instead of on paper. In the end, listening makes all the difference.
Born out of the shop at Dangerous Music recording studios, the equipment company was officially founded in 2001 with the commercial release of the Dangerous 2-Bus analog summing amplifier. Dangerous Music product designs were created to answer the sonic and ergonomic challenges presented by the changing studio environment as it moved from analog consoles and analog multi-track tape recorders to hard-disk recording and software-based digital mixer/editors, collectively known as digital audio workstations, or DAWs.
The process of recording and mixing without an analog console or tape deck created the opportunity to develop products that allowed engineers to embrace all the power and convenience of a DAWs automation, editing and recall, while continuing to work as they had, with console-style tone and headroom, hardware monitor control, metering, speaker and input source switching, and the ability to insert analog processors into the signal path easily and with the highest quality results.
Company co-founder Bob Muller says, “The ideas behind Dangerous Music products are driven by the needs of the music community, who continuously finds new ways to work in the studio. Early on we concluded that once the smoke cleared it was not going to be an all-analog or all-digital studio, but a hybrid environment. We all embrace the benefits of new technologies, but the inevitable problems that arise need to be solved. As the analog console yielded to the DAW mixer as the focal point of the control room we recognized that certain equipment was now missing that is required to actually make a studio fully functional, sonically pleasing and ergonomically sensible. When you aren’t spending all your time clicking around computer menus, you can actually concentrate on the performance, the music, and the other creative elements of what recording and mixing is supposed to be.”
Gain Tracking Accuracy: better than 0.05dB for 6 channels THD+N: 0.002% IMD: 0.003%
Frequency Response: 1Hz-100kHz -0.1dB Crosstalk Rejection: >96dB Nominal Input Level: +4dBu or -10dBV Crossover: -3dB @ 57Hz 18dB/octave modified Butterworth/Chebyshev
Headphone amp: 0.002% THD+N
Headroom: +25dBu to main outputs
Remote Dimensions:
Warranty: Free 2 year extended warranty with online registration.Standard warranty: 90 days parts and labor, subject to inspection. Does not include damage incurred through abusive operation or modifications/attempted repair by unauthorized technicians.