19/12/2005
S8 IS THE MONITOR OF CHOICE FOR TOWNHOUSE REGULARS
The legendary Townhouse recording studios in west London are reverberating to the sound of Quested S8 monitors, as resident engineer Max Dingel and producer Alan Moulder, a Townhouse regular, have both bought a pair of the active nearfields. For 25 years the studios - owned by the Sanctuary Group since 2002 - have been infamous for being used by the very biggest artists, including Phil Collins, Elton John, Queen and Madonna. So nothing but the very best equipment is good enough for the producers and engineers who use the studios facilities. “Alan was looking for some new nearfield monitors and I had the task of sourcing some different models to try out,” relates Max Dingel. “I’ve found that a lot of manufacturers tend to under spec the power amps in active monitors, but when I saw an advert for the S8s in one of the trade magazines the power amp specification seemed to be just what we were looking for. “Quested has a very good reputation and the S8s sounded like just what we wanted,” he continues. “So we got hold of some from the UK distributor Sonic8 and did some A/B testing with other active monitors. All through the process, we kept coming back to the S8s. They sounded very natural and weren’t trying to give excessive bottom end.” So impressed was Max at the sonic qualities of the S8s that, as a result of the tests, he bought a pair himself! “They are good right across the board,” he continues. “I’ve tried them with rock, dance, electronica and they sound equally good with all those styles. Max is obviously very happy with the S8s, but what of Alan Moulder? Suffice to say that the twice Grammy-nominated producer was impressed enough to buy a pair and now carries his S8s to wherever he is working. Although a regular at Townhouse, they are most often found at Assault and Battery Studio, which Alan co-owns with fellow producer Flood. “I like the low end and the fact they have a big size sound on them,” he says. “The imaging is excellent and they sound great at low volume. They are not over flattering and still sound good." The first project to benefit from Alan’s S8s is the next album for The Secret Machines (Warner Brothers) mixed at Townhouse. Alan is currently using them at Assault and Battery where he is mixing New York trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs second album. --------- Notes The Quested S8 is a self-powered, 2-way active monitor. The 370 watts of power from the two integral amplifiers make it a powerful choice. The S8 is a finely tuned reflex port enclosure. It has been configured with an 8" bass driver and a 1" soft dome tweeter. Quested has been using this configuration in a passive design for nearly 20 years. This has given us the opportunity to consistently improve on its performance by design. Working closely with world leaders in amplifier design has allowed us to use nearly 400w of crystal clear linear class A-B amplification to drive each monitor. The result is a monitor that will work with you to achieve a reference across any genre of music. From low-level speech to rib rattling bass. The S8 is suited to a wide variety of applications. Typical applications include near to mid-field monitoring for recording/mixing, programming, post production suites, broadcast and surround sound. The high power output enables the monitors to be used in quite large rooms. The extended low frequency response make it a good choice for stereo and multi-channel applications that require greater bandwidth monitoring. Although the bandwidth of the S8 is more than adequate for most situations, the low-end performance can be further extended by combining it with an SB series sub bass. The two products make an ideal combination and extend the frequency response down to 20 Hz.