PRESONUS Eris Series E5 Manual

A stupendous compendium
of recent magazine reviews.
Why you should buy
Eris™Series High-Definition
Studio Monitors.

PreSonus Eris E5 & E8
By Paul White
It’s no secret that, as the process of
recording and mixing music has been
increasingly taken over by software,
audio hardware manufacturers are
looking more to the start and end
of the audio chain to provide them
with an income. at’s why there’s
so much choice these days when
it comes to mics, preamps, audio
interfaces and studio monitors.
Based in Baton Rouge, in the extreme
south of the US,
PreSonus are well
established in the
preamp and audio
interface market,
and in recent
years, they’ve
made their mark with their Studio-
Live digital mixing consoles. Now
they’ve added loudspeakers to their
portfolio, with the new Eris range
aiming for the aordable studio mon-
itor market. e Eris E5 is the smallest
of the new speakers, while if you need
something a little larger, there’s the
Eris E8. Both models are designed in
the US and assembled in China —a
common scenario these days.
Gimme Five!
Taking the E5 rst, its outwardly
conventional two-way front-ported
box houses a 5.25-inch Kevlar-coned
woofer and a one-inch silk-dome
tweeter, protected behind its own
metal grille. Powered by a 45W and
35W Class-AB amplier for the lows
and highs, respectively, the speakers
cross over at 3 kHz. e specs give a
useable frequency response of 53Hz
to 22kHz, and a surprisingly loud
maximum SPL of 102dB at one metre.
Built from vinyl-nished MDF, the
internally braced cabinets measure
a compact 178 x 195 x 260 mm and
weigh a reassuring 4.63kg each. e
slot-shaped port is located on the
bae below the woofer while the
bae is curved and slightly sculpted
around the drivers to smooth out
any sharp angles that might other-
wise result in diraction. A discrete
Presonus logo illuminates when the
speakers are switched on.
Audio input is via a choice of bal-
anced XLR, balanced quarter-inch
TRS jack or unbalanced RCA phono
socket, and power is on the usual
IEC socket. A red slide switch selects
the appropriate mains voltage. Many
small monitors lose out on rear-pan-
el adjustment, but the Eris E5s are
particularly well appointed in that
department. In addition to the usual
gain control, there’s an acoustic space
switch that may be used to optimize
the bass response to compensate for
placement near to walls or corners.
is oers a choice of at, -2dB or
-4dB responses below 800 Hz. en
there’s a low cut-o switch with
settings for at, 80Hz and 100Hz,
the last two engaging a 12dB/octave
high-pass lter. Finally, both the mid-
range and high end are separately ad-
justable — a pair of centre-detented
rotary controls gives —6dB of adjust-
ment for each range. What you don’t
see is that the amplier pack also
includes ltering to reject RF inter-
ference and damaging subsonic lows.
Output current limiting, over-tem-
perature and transient protection are
also present.
Crazy Eights
With exactly
the same con-
nectivity op-
tions, frequency
response tailor-
ing and design
ethos, the E8 goes down to 35Hz
and has more power in the amplier
department, with 75W available to
the woofer and 65W to the tweeter,
adding another 3dB to the maximum
SPL of the E5. e crossover frequen-
cy is lower, at 2.2kHz, and the cabinet
work is larger and heavier to take
the eight-inch woofer and 1.25-inch
tweeter. Measuring 250 x 299 x 384
mm, these speakers are more than
twice the weight of the E5s at a hair
over 10kg each, but follow the same
style and general construction.
Switching on the E5 speakers
doesn’t result in any unwanted pops
or bangs as the circuitry is designed
to have a ‘soft start-up’. I made sure
all the controls were centred and set
the environment bass switch to at,
as the speakers weren’t particularly
close to either the side or rear walls.
In comparison with a couple of other
sets of monitors costing around
three times the price, the sound was
extremely revealing and not at all
what I’d expected from such small
and inexpensive speakers. Other
than the larger speakers having more
“I’ve heard speakers costing
twice as much that don’t deliver
nearly such ‘adult’ results.”
SOUND on SOUND November 2013
The Eris™Monitor Phenomenon
We didn’t set out to create a stir.
We just wanted to make monitors
that would go with our aordable
USB and FireWire interfaces; moni-
tors that would be a comfortable fit
for our StudioLive AI digital mixers.
On the high end, we uncorked our
CoActual™Sceptre™s. And if you
have the money, you should drop
this brochure, forget about Eris, and
immediately buy a pair of Sceptres.
But what if you’re on a budget?
When we surveyed the competition,
we discovered that entry-level-
priced monitors were also inflexible
monitors. They have a “sound” —
usually designed to impress you in
the show room with a lot of bonk
and wheeze. But they lacked the
adjustments needed to tailor them
to your studio’s room acoustics.
Without these controls, you’re
going to be fooling yourself — and
creating mixes that don’t travel well.
So we created Eris. Powerful.
Musical. Accurate. And aordable.
Critics have given them a warm
welcome. Several competitors have
panicked and slashed the prices of
their small monitors. But at the end
of the day, it’s about which monitor
sounds best.
Don’t take our word for it. Read
on and see why top editors and
reviewers like Eris.
Beware of “monitors”
that have VOLUME
controls that only
change the output level
of the speaker. Eris’
INPUT GAIN control
lets you optimize the
level and signal-to-
noise ratio coming
into each Eris speaker,
much like you do when
you set gain levels on a
mixer channel.
What happens if you
add a subwoofer but
don’t have this control?
You hear lots of bass.
You style your mixes
accordingly. Then,
when the mix is played
on another system, it
lacks low-end punch.
The LOW CUTOFF
switch helps coordi-
nate the bass output
of your Eris monitor
system.
Depending on the size
of the subwoofer, you
can eliminate Eris
output below either 80
or 100 Hz, where the
subwoofer takes over.
Are you mixing in a “live”room
with a lot of reflective surfaces?
In a room with lots of acoustic
treatment? Is your mid- and
high-frequency hearing starting
to falter after playing in loud
bands for 20 years? MIDRANGE
and HIGH frequency controls
are designed to address these
situations. They balance your
monitors’ sound to your ears,
your room, and your musical
preferences.
Where you place your monitors
in your control room has a huge
eect on the amount of bass
you hear (and add or don’t
add to your tracks and mixes).
Room corners act as amplifying
“horns” that exaggerate bass.
If you don’t compensate for this
with the -4 dB ACOUSTIC SPACE
setting, you’ll hear a lot of bass
— but you’ll probably end up
with bass-shy mixes.
Monitors placed on each side of
a computer monitor, with a wall
behind them, also boost bass,
although to a lesser extent
(-2 dB setting).
Only if you’re lucky enough to
be able to place your monitors
toward the middle of a room will
you hear accurate bass without
having to compensate (0 dB
setting).
That is why Eris’ E8 and E5
Acoustic Space adjustment is
so important. It lets you control
bass output so that the monitor
is working with your studio
layout.

Eris E5 / Eris E8
Active Studio Monitor
By Eli Crews
e rst outboard mic preamp I ever
shelled out for was the PreSonus
MP20 [Tape Op #35], back toward
the close of the previous century. I
only sold it last year to help nance a
cross-country move, and I honestly
kinda regret selling it. For its price, it
really couldn’t be beat. It had solid
build quality and a clean sound; no
frills but a clear aesthetic; and good
ergonomics. All of that praise could
equally apply to the new Eris line of
studio monitors that PreSonus un-
veiled this year.
ere are two models - the E5 has
a 5.25’’ Kevlar woofer that charts
down to 53 Hz, and the E8 has an 8’’
woofer that extends down to 35 Hz
on the spec sheet. Both models sport
silk-dome tweeters that reach up to
22 kHz. e speakers are bi-amped
by onboard power ampliers (35+45
watts for the E5, 65+75 watts for the
E8). Both models also possess the
same sleek, incognito look; every-
thing on the front face is completely
black aside from the small glowing
blue logo (no name, just logo) near
the bottom right corner. ey both
have slotted bass ports on the front,
and inputs (RCA, TRS, and XLR) as
well as volume and EQ controls on
the back. e Gain control provides
up to 35 dB of boost for the unbal-
anced input and 31 dB for either bal-
anced input. e High control gives
you a ±6 dB shelf at 10 kHz. e Mid
control gives ±6 dB centered around
1 kHz. And the Low Cuto provides a
12 dB/octave lter at either 80 or 100
Hz, for use with a subwoofer. ere
is also an “Acoustic Space” setting,
which compensates for bound-
ary (wall or corner) bass boosts. A
cute little diagram on the rear of
the speaker shows which setting
should be used based on how your
speakers are set up. is attenua-
tion starts surprisingly (to me) high,
at 800 Hz. All in all, this is a very
impressive amount of control for a
powered speaker in this price range.
Having started mixing primarily at
home just this year, I had set up a pair
of KRK Rokit 5 powered monitors
temporarily, not thinking about them
as a long-term solution. But I started
to really get used to them, and now
that I’ve gured out their quirks, I
really like mixing on them. Since the
Eris E5 is exactly the same price and
roughly the same size, I jumped at
the chance to audition it next to the
Rokit.
e Rokit’s main aw is that it
is pretty tubby in the low-mids. It
accentuates an area around 130 Hz,
at least in my room, that I’ve learned
to work around. I also feel that the
high-end denition is a little lacking,
so I have come to rely on my three
sets of high-quality headphones to
ne-tune the highs. On both of those
counts, I feel like the E5 one-ups the
KRK. Even with the Acoustic Space
control at, the E5 has tighter bass
response. It doesn’t seem to go down
as far — on paper, the KRK goes one
cycle lower to 52 Hz — but there is
more denition around the thud part
of a kick drum’s attack on the E5. In
the high-mid to treble region, I feel
like the E5 exhibits quite a bit more
energy (again at the at position on
the EQ), which can reveal harshness
in cym-
bals and
sibilance
that the Rokit tends to gloss over.
One thing that I did notice is that
the E5 seems to have just a hint of a
smiley-face curve, with a perceived
dip around 1 kHz. Since that’s exactly
where the Mid control is centered, I
boosted it just a bit so as not to acci-
dentally over-emphasize the mid-
range in my mixes.
As expected, the E8 oers a lot
more low end than the E5. It’s been
a treat to hear quite a bit lower than I
was able to with the Rokit pair alone;
authority in the deep bass, there was
actually nothing small-sounding
about the Eris E5s at all. Everything
came over smoothly yet with plenty
of detail; vocals sounded absolutely
pristine, and though the bass lacked
the depths of a larger monitor it still
managed to sound tight and solid.
You can hear right away whether a
pair of monitors is going to tell you
what you need to know while still
being comfortable to work with for
long periods, and it took me only a
few moments to recognise that the
Eris E5s would do the job very nicely.
e imaging was great, the mid-range
clear and well-focussed, and the
highs were detailed without being ag-
gressive — which is often a problem
with cheaper monitors.
In the smaller studio where
monitors capable of too much bass
extension would only provoke the
inevitable room problems, the Eris
E5s would appear to be a great choice
— and I’ve heard speakers costing
twice as much that don’t deliver
nearly such ‘adult’ results. ey ben-
et from being raised above the desk
rather than sitting directly on it, so
some good-quality speaker platforms
(or some cheap foam ones with a
heavy oor tile on top) would make
a worthwhile improvement to their
bass tightness and general focus,
but then this advice applies to most
desktop speakers.
Switching to the E8s reveals, as
expected, greater bass extension and
a little more headroom. ey have
a very similar sound, and, as with
the E5s, the bass is reasonably tight
sounding rather than being boomy
and abby. e larger tweeter still
manages to deliver detailed but
smooth highs, while the mid-range
carries vocals well and provides a
detailed window into instrument
sounds.
Conclusion
Given their pricing, both monitors
deliver great quality, and though
spending more might give you a little
more in the way of delity, the law of
diminishing returns most denitely
applies — and being realistic, unless
you have a really well-treated studio
space, the dierences might well be
lost anyway. e E5s are ideal for
the smaller room where more bass
extension would simply stir up room
problems, while the E8s would be
well suited to a garage-sized studio.
ese are the rst monitors from
Presonus but it would seem that, as
with everything else they build, they
did their homework rst. ■
PROS
• Affordably priced.
• Well-balanced sound that, in the case
of the E5, belies both the price and
physical size.
CONS
• Given the size and cost I can’t find
anything not to like.
SUMMARY
• These are the first PreSonus monitors
I’ve listened to under studio condi-
tions and I have to say that I’m very
impressed by what their designers
have achieved.
TAPE OP
ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN
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of magazine if print
or screenshot of web
page
I’d been relying on headphones and
my hi- system to get down into the
30s and 40s and below. I nd the
overall characteristics of the E8 very
similar to the E5, with ample high
end, tight bottom, and a slightly
scooped-sounding midrange. For my
situation, they sounded best with the
full 4 dB of Acoustic Space attenu-
ation, even though they weren’t in
the corners. I still felt robust low-end
energy and could clearly make out
the relationship between the funda-
mentals of the bass guitar and kick
drum.
In the end, I found both of these
monitor models very useful tools for
the imperfect art of home-studio mix-
ing. I wager if you were to put them
up in a very controlled environment,
next to speakers you paid a bunch of
money for, you would probably nd
things here and there about them you
didn’t like - although you may be sur-
prised. Setting them up in my hum-
ble (yet eective) home studio for a
few months helped me hear things I
wasn’t hearing previously and helped
me to provide better mixes for my
clients. At the end of the day, that
matters much more than the price
tag of the speaker or the label on the
front. Job well done, PreSonus. ■
“Job well done, PreSonus.”
PreSonus Eris Monitor Speakers
By Craig Anderton
Eris targets price point—but adds
some novel twists.
My rst car was a used 1966 Beetle,
and it refused to die. But in 2000 it
became almost impossible to nd
certain parts, and guring I owed
Volkswagen some brand loyalty, I
bought a used 2000 Beetle. (I did get
a diesel model, though.) What does
this have to do with speakers? e
Eris is PreSonus’s Volkspeaker. Yes,
they have their Porsche equivalent—
the pricier Sceptre monitors, which
got the buzz at Winter NAMM. But
you don’t need a Porsche to get from
point A to point B, and you don’t
need to spend a bunch o’ bucks for
speakers that let you create solid
mixes.
Sound e E5 has a slight bump
around 100Hz, while the E8 has a
smoother bass and extends down
further. For studio monitors, the E8
is worth the extra bucks (and bigger
footprint). e bass is tight and de-
ned, with solid transient response,
and the highs are accurate. If you’re
really tight for space, the E5 will do
the job; as long as you’re aware of
the E5’s bump, you’ll nd the mixes
translate well to other environments.
But also note the various rear-panel
controls make it easy to emulate car
August 2013
April 2013

speakers or desktop speakers. If you
have a monitor control system just
itching to switch between your “big
speakers” and smaller, real-world
speakers, the E5 could be an excellent
choice. Compared to more expensive
speakers, the main dierence is the
“character” of the highs; Eris doesn’t
have the sort of airiness I associate
with, for example, ribbon tweeters.
But accuracy is paramount in the
studio, because transportability is
crucial—and the E8 scores high in
that regard.
Conclusions Like mic pres, speak-
ers have reached a pretty consistent
level of quality for a given price point.
PreSonus’s “special sauce” is the set
of controls, but listen carefully to the
E8: e sound is even, projects well,
and lets you reference accurate mixes
at a reasonable price. Like I said—a
Volkspeaker. ■
probably double-check other parts of
your listening chain, or the room it-
self, as a very large boost or cut that’s
set within the speakers is applying a
bandage to a much larger problem.
e Acoustic Space switch is a low
shelving control that can either be
set at or to 2 or 4 dB of attenuation
with a corner frequency of 800 Hz.
is switch is specically designed
for situations where you can’t place
the speakers suciently far away
from walls or corners to prevent bass
buildup; ideally the -2 dB setting
would work for speakers near a back
wall, and the -4 dB setting would help
compensate in situations where the
speakers need to be set in the corners
of a room.
e last switch, Low Cuto, allows
you to engage a 12 dB/octave high-
pass lter with a corner frequency
of 80 or 100 Hz. is is specically
intended to allow the Eris speakers
to work with a separate subwoofer,
if you feel your monitoring situation
needs the stronger extended bass
of a sub; our listening sessions were
based entirely on listening to the Eris
speakers by themselves.
Speaking of listening sessions, we
set up the two Eris speakers under
very dierent sets of conditions,
based on their likely areas of use.
e E5 monitors were tested in a
desktop-audio setup with IsoAcous-
tics ISO-L8R155 isolation stands on
conventional shelves, as one might
use when working with a DAW in a
home studio. e E8 speakers were
mounted on speaker stands in the
listening/mix room at Music Maker
Publications, which is treated with
GIK Acoustics paneling to control
reections at the listening position. In
both cases, the speakers were set up
as closely as possible to an equilateral
triangle with the tweeters level with
our ears—4 feet on a side for the E5
monitors and more like 6 feet on a
side for the E8 speakers.
Per PreSonus’s advice, we did not
burn in either set of speakers before
beginning our critical listening; our
rst impressions came (literally)
straight out of the box. As usual, our
listening materials included well-
known and very simply recorded
rock, jazz, acoustic singer/songwriter
pop featuring guitar and piano, and
classical music, with excursions into
world music, electronica of various
sorts, and of course the infamous
mistakes and missteps of albums
we’d recorded in comparatively prim-
itive recording setups in the 1980s
and 1990s.
Listening to the E5
Our rst impression upon ring up
the E5 was, “Whoa, that’s loud!” Our
second impression was, “Whoa, that’s
kinda harsh.” Our third impression
was, “Ah... when in doubt, make sure
you’ve set your input levels properly!”
ese little speakers are very
ecient and get loud pretty quickly,
but they have a convincing way to
keep you listening at safe/sane levels;
while they’re rated to 102 dB peak
SPL at 1 meter, the woofers start to
sound brittle and unpleasant when
you get close to that level. Our ideal
“loud listening” level for the E5 was
a much more
reasonable 85
to 90 dBA SPL
at the listening
position, and
for most styles
of music we got
great results in
the very ear-friendly range of 75 to 80
dBA SPL.
We tweaked the controls around a
bit and determined that the High and
Mid EQ can in fact get really extreme
if overused; we ended up setting
them Flat for the serious listening.
Our listening setup was rather close
to a rear wall, and in our initial listen-
ing we went back and forth between
having the Acoustic Space controls
set to Flat or to -2dB. In the end, we
felt that the bass we were getting
when the Acoustic Space control was
set Flat wasn’t overhyped or thumpy,
so we left the control there. We didn’t
use the Low Cut at all, since our
system doesn’t include or need a sub-
woofer; if you’re keeping score, that
means our reported results were all
from having the adjustment controls
set at (and the Input Gain set to
unity as well).
Starting at the bottom, the one
place where the laws of physics
will get you every time is in a small
woofer’s ability to reproduce bass
accurately; the E5’s low end of 53 Hz
is usable but you’ll have to check your
results on larger speakers before you
consider your mixes “done”. e roll-
o in the bass was polite and smooth,
and there was a lot of thump in kick
drums and solid harmonic structure
in bass guitars and low piano notes,
even if the very lowest fundamentals
couldn’t be heard fully. Mids were
forward and rockin’, with vocals and
guitars prominent and detailed; on
A new name for two impressive
new entries in the active-speaker
market.
By Mike Metlay
PreSonus has gotten into the
speaker game, and its rst models
to market are the Eris Series. Why
“Eris”? No clue. Eris was the Greek
goddess of chaos (she helped start
the Trojan War, but that’s another sto-
ry); her name’s been attached to the
anarchist Erisians from the famous
Illuminatus!
novels, and
to the distant
dwarf planet
Eris that circles our sun every 557
years. But studio monitors?
ere’s nothing particularly chaotic
about the new Eris speakers... in fact,
PreSonus’ rst studio monitors pres-
ent very neat solutions to the prob-
lem of aordable, good-sounding
monitoring for small studios. We got
to work with both new Eris models
for some extended listening sessions,
and here’s what we learned.
RECORDING May 2013
In common and dierent
e two Eris models are the E5
and E8. Both are biamplied 2-way
speakers in front-ported cabinets of
vinyl-laminated MDF, with silk dome
tweeters and long-throw woven Kev-
lar woofers in a nicely curved fascia
with tweeter waveguide.
e E5 has a 1” tweeter and 5.25”
woofer, with a 35W high-frequen-
cy amplier, a 45W low-frequency
amplier, and a 3 kHz crossover
frequency. It claims a frequency
response (no ±dB tolerances given)
of 53 Hz to 22 kHz. e E8 has a 1.25”
tweeter and an 8” woofer with a 65W
high-frequency amp, a 75W low-fre-
quency amp, and a 2.2 kHz cross-
over frequency. Its rated frequency
response is 35 Hz to 22 kHz.
Both oer a variety of audio tweaks
on the rear panel, letting the user cus-
tomize the speakers’ sound for best
results in a variety of placements.
Inputs are on unbalanced RCA,
balanced ¼” TRS, and XLR. ere are
center-detented controls for Input
Gain, High and Mid frequency tun-
ing, and switches for Low Cuto and
Acoustic Space adjustment. Power
is via standard IEC cable, and the
rear-panel power switch is comple-
mented by a bright blue front-fascia
LED sporting the PreSonus logo.
Tuning for the space
e E5 is small enough to be used
on a computer desktop, while the E8
is better suited to mounting on stands,
and both oer useful tweaks to better
match the speakers to your room. With
the exception of the Low Cuto, all
the provided controls are intended to
help you correct for specic, common
problems with room acoustics.
e High EQ is a shelving band
with ±6 dB of boost/cut and a corner
frequency at 4.5 kHz, and the Mid EQ
is a broad (roughly two octaves, ac-
cording the manual) peaking EQ with
a center frequency of 1 kHz and ±6
dB of boost/cut. I recommend using
these EQ controls with great cau-
tion; they oer a wide range of tonal
tweaks that are very musical to the
ears—that makes them tempting to
play with in order to get your speak-
ers to sound “good”, when what you
actually want
is accuracy.
e High
shelf acts as
a “tilt” control to mellow or sharpen
the high end of what you’re hearing;
it’s best used very subtly in situations
where a room has partial acoustic
treatment like foam panels, which
tend to preferentially damp the high
end. e Mid EQ lets you compensate
for oddnesses that happen in the low
mids, most commonly the reinforce-
ment you get from audio bouncing
up to your ears from your mixing
desk. If you feel you need more than
a dB or two of correction, you should
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of magazine if print
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page
“The E5 costs a bit more per
pair than a set of cheap-ass
desktop computer speakers
and a thumpy little one-note
sub, but for your money you
get monitors you can actually
use for real engineering.”
“Highs were extended and smooth.”
©2013 PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. Eris, Sceptre, CoActual and StudioLive are trademarks of PreSonus.

acoustic tracks, details like nger
squeaks on strings and breaths for
phrasing were clear and evident. I
didn’t notice any radical jumps in
level or character around the cross-
over point. Highs were extended and
smooth, without any edgy spikiness
or resonances that leaped out; nger
cymbals and hi-hats were clear and
bright, and when an artist substituted
a sample for the real thing, you could
often tell. Similarly, the edgy artifact-
ing that comes from heavily com-
pressed MP3 encoding was clearly
audible... and annoying, when it was
supposed to be.
I found I enjoyed the E5s most
when working with predominantly
acoustic music at lower listening lev-
els; they do well with rock and dance
music when cranked up loud (if not
too loud, as discussed above), but the
forward midrange did lead to some
very complex rock mixes sounding
cluttered—especially stu that relied
a lot on layered loops for its structure.
Acoustic jazz and country were a
delight, with ngerstyle guitar, hand
percussion, mandolin, violin, and
brush-style drumming standing out
sweet and clear.
Could I mix on these speakers?
Absolutely. And if I was primarily
an acoustic recording engineer who
worked with small groups, I would
appreciate the privilege. It’s true that
for larger rooms, and/or for heavy
rock or electronic music with more
bass, there might be better choices
out there—which leads me to...
Listening to the E8
Our listening setup for the E8 was on
speaker stands well away from walls
and corners in a well-treated room; we
weren’t expecting to need any of the
rear-panel acoustic tweaks, and quick
tests conrmed that fact. As with the
E5, we ended up doing all of our listen-
ing with all rear-panel controls set at.
e highs and mids on the E8
were very similar to the E5; vocals
and midrange instruments tended
to be very far forward, and there was
that tendency for really dense mixes
to sound congested, but not to the
extent we heard in the E5. What truly
distinguished the E8 was its power
handling—it could get very loud
without any of the brittleness of the
E5—and its bass, which was solid,
learnable, and most important, nicely
extended down to where you’re not
missing a whole lot for practical
purposes.
My sentiments about the E8 are
similar to those for the E5 but a bit
more so, if that makes sense; I could
learn these speakers and mix happily
on them in most genres of music,
with no more than the usual recourse
to check-mixes. Perhaps
their greatest value is in let-
ting a starter studio hear real
bass without a subwoofer; a cheap
sub is way worse than no sub, and
for a less-than-optimal room and/
or an engineer who’s inexperienced
at dialing in a sub properly, a pair of
speakers that can deliver the lows on
their own will win every time.
Hail Eris!
Let’s talk price. e E5 costs a bit
more per pair than a set of cheap-ass
desktop computer speakers and a
thumpy little one-note sub, but for
your money you get monitors you
can actually use for real engineering.
e E8 is even more of a no-brainer:
it basically allows recording musi-
cians who want proper full-range
studio monitors, but don’t yet have
the budget for high-end products,
to get into the game without hurting
themselves.
Later this year, PreSonus will ship
the Sceptre monitors, DSP-assisted
coaxial designs. We’ll be very curious
to give them a try when they’re ready,
but in the meantime, the Eris speak-
ers make for a very auspicious debut.
ey bring honest-to-gosh studio
monitoring into the price range of
just about any studio, and they do it
with class. ■
Aordable Upgrades: 5 Studio
Monitoring Improvements Under
$500 — PreSonus Eris Series E8
By Strother Bullins
Over the past year, overachieving
pro audio manufacturer PreSonus
has rolled out some impressive-look-
ing studio monitors, like the bud-
get-priced Eris and premium coaxial
Sceptre lines. Recently received for
review and approximately $250 street
each, the E8 is Eris’ largest oering,
providing what I’d categorize as a
standard two-way powered monitor
with mideld performance in a rela-
tively compact cabinet.
e E8 features an 8-inch Kevlar LF
driver, 1.25-inch silk dome tweeter,
140W of bi-amped power, and RCA,
¼-inch TRS and XLR input options.
Notably, the Eris Series provides
comprehensive frequency-based
parameter adjustments, variable
HF and MF (-6 to +6 dB) “acoustic
tuning,” Flat, 80 Hz and 100 Hz low
cut settings, plus -4, -2 and 0 dB bass
attenuation settings (cutting frequen-
cies below 800 Hz). Specs include a
frequency response of a low 35 Hz
through 22 kHz; 105 dB peak SPL (at
1m); and a 2.2 kHz crossover fre-
quency point. e Eris E8’s cabinet
is sturdily built and relatively free of
cosmetic accoutrements.
Where users may often desire a
subwoofer, especially those work-
ing on bass-heavy material, I found
the E8 to provide notable low-end
response sans sub—full and detailed,
yet punchy. e adjustable HF and
MF parameters are especially help-
ful; considering their lower price
point, these monitors will likely nd
themselves in minimally (or non-)
ducer is driven by a 75 watt class AB
amp while the 1.25-inch silk-dome
high-frequency tweeter gets 65W of
class AB amplication. Besides the
woofer and tweeter there’s a hori-
zontal front port. All connections
and controls reside on the rear panel.
You should have no trouble getting
a signal into the E8 as there are XLR,
balanced TRS jack and unbalanced
RCA (phono) sockets.
E8 EQ
Besides the necessary input gain
knob, the E8 has a range of controls
for tweaking the sound. A pragmatic
approach is taken by a three-position
‘Acoustic Space’ switch to compen-
sate for any increase in bass response
if you have no option but to place
your monitors in corner positions or
too close to a wall. is takes the form
of a second-order low-shelving lter
PRO AUDIO REVIEW
FUTURE MUSIC
Placeholder for cover
of magazine if print
or screenshot of web
page
September 2013
July 2013
treated residential rooms, where the
tweakability will come in particu-
larly handy. Overall, the monitors
are impressively frequency neutral
with great imaging; I nd them to
be an extreme bargain for what they
provide the listener at under $500 per
pair.
PreSonus may have just entered
the studio monitor market, but it’s
doing it with the style and grace of
a veteran. If I needed an eight-inch
powered monitor, I’d be quite happy
with the Eris E8—and even happier
with the money I saved. ■
PreSonus Eris E8 & E5 monitors
PreSonus’ first studio monitors
have plenty of added ingredients.
Trevor Curwen checks out the E
numbers.
PreSonus have been known for
their mixers, audio interfaces and
even monitor controllers but sur-
prisingly monitors have not been in
their roster. at’s all changed now
as the Louisiana-based company
unveiled two distinct new studio
monitor ranges at the NAMM show
back in January. One of those was
the Sceptre, a high-tech oering
that combines a coaxial design with
heavy-duty DSP. e other is the Eris,
their entry level powered monitor for
home and project studios, available
in two versions, the E8 and the small-
er E5. We are taking a look at the E8
but have also checked out the E5 (see
The Jive on the Five at right).
e E8 is quite a large neareld
monitor. Nice-looking in an under-
stated way, the cabinet is vinyl-lam-
inated MDF, all in black but with a
touch of blue in the woven pattern of
the Low Frequency driver’s cone and
with a PreSonus waveform logo that
lights up blue when you turn on the
power.
As is the norm for two-way studio
monitors, the E8 is bi-amped. e
8-inch Kevlar low-frequency trans-
“…notable low end res ponse– sans sub.”
The Jive on the Five
If you’ve put all that eort into design-
ing a monitor, you might as well make
dierent-sized versions of it and in this
case PreSonus have also released the
E5 (£129 each), which comes equipped
with all of the same rear panel inputs and
tone-tweaking possibilities as its larger
sibling but has a smaller footprint.
At 178 x 260 x 195 mm and weighing
in at just over ten pounds (4.63kg), the
E5 will suit smaller studio spaces and
could be ideally placed on a desktop next
to your computer. A 5.25-inch LF driver
driven by a 45W amp and a 1-inch tweet-
er with a 35W amp is quoted as putting
out a 102 dB SPL peak sound level and
it’s true that these can push out quite a
lot of volume if you want them to.
The overall sound character is pretty
much the same as the E8 although, as
might be expected from a quoted
frequency response of 53Hz to 22kHz,
the bottom end is much lighter. That
being said, once you get familiar with the
E5s, there’s enough there to give you a
reasonable indication of what’s going on
for some types of music but if you are
making bass-heavy dance music, you’ll
probably want to check your mixes on a
bigger system.

that can cut the level of frequencies
below 800Hz by either 2dB or 4dB.
e rest of the controls, which
PreSonus call the ‘Acoustic Tuning’
controls, enable you to tweak the
response to your taste or to emulate the
sounds of dierent types of speaker.
e High control is a high-frequency
shelving lter that oers up to 6dB of
boost or cut for all frequencies above
4.5 kHz, while the Mid control is a
mid-frequency peak lter that boosts or
cuts frequencies centred on 1 kHz with
a bandwidth from an octave above to
an octave below. PreSonus’ own choice
is a at setting for both, so the rotary
knobs for each are detented at OdB.
If you want to tweak the bottom
end you get the ‘Low Cuto’ three-
way switch, which oers, besides a
at response, a low frequency roll o
at a slope of -12 dB/octave below a
frequency of either 80Hz or 100Hz —
useful if you want to add a subwoofer to
the system.
WB E8’s or a dirty limerick?
Listening to a variety of com-
mercially released tracks, mixes in
progress and individual instruments
through the E8 the impression was
that here is a speaker that could easily
take care of all recording and mixing
possibilities if it was the sole monitor
in a small studio. Clarity is good and
the overall balance of frequencies is
one that you can work with, the top
end coming through prominently
and clearly revealing the detail, while
the bottom end is tight and focussed
and extends down far enough to
allow you to make those important
mix decisions.
As for the Acoustic Tuning controls,
the at sound worked just ne for us,
but we could appreciate how a small
cut or boost of the High control might
appeal to some tastes or be useful
to compensate for room conditions,
although we’d have preferred switch-
ing rather than a small rotary control
to keep left and right consistent.
PreSonus propose that use of the Mid
control can emulate other speaker
systems. ey say that turning it
down will emulate the smiley face
curve of a car stereo while turning
it up (in combination with the low
Cuto switch) will emulate a cheap
portable radio. It’s an unusual feature
to add to a studio monitor and it’s
probably no bad thing to have an
extra tool in the box... as long as you
remember to reset it. e thing about
having your own set of studio mon-
itors is familiarity, letting you make
sound mixing decisions based on the
consistency of your listening experi-
ence. e E8 will let you do that but
we’d just set the EQ at or tweak it to
taste, leave it and get used to it.
God, planet or dog?
OK, so we looked up what Eris
meant. ere are a couple of things,
one being the Greek goddess of
chaos, strife and discord, which
doesn’t sound quite right for a studio
monitor, although it is designed to
help you transmute the chaos and
discord of an unmixed track into a
thing of beau-
ty. en there’s
Eris, the most
massive known
dwarf planet in
the Solar System.
Massive dwarf?
Big sound from a
little speaker, perhaps? Or maybe the
designer named it after his dog...
Our view favours the rst two
over the latter. e Eris E8s are no
dogs, we’d be very happy to use
them to mix our tracks and yes they
can sound quite massive for such
a compact cabinet. What you are
getting here is a monitor that should
t tidily into most rooms and will let
you hear the detail in your mixes. At
a street price of around £400 a pair it
has quite a lot of competition, but is a
valid choice in that price range.
BONEDO.DE
September 2013
By Felix Klostermann
(translated from German)
e PreSonus Eris 5 and 8 are quality
made, well-equipped and good-
natured active speakers for near eld.
e fairly linear tuning of the boxes
allows an amazingly balanced and
transparent sound reproduction, and
for a very attractive price.
RESIDENT ADVISOR
SEPTEMBER 2013
By Phil Moa
[Eris monitors] denitely sound
comparable to or better than other
speakers in their class and also have
plenty of useful features. Being able
to tune them is a huge plus, and
they’re equipped to be connected to
pretty much any setup…ese are
certainly worthy of consideration for
anyone on a budget.
PreSonus Eris E5 Studio Monitors
By Paul Lau
e PreSonus Eris monitors are part
of a new initiative for a company gen-
erally known for its stellar hardware
interfaces. I was pleasantly surprised
when I got the call to review these
new near eld monitors. I have been
on the tail end of nishing a lm
score and mixing and mastering a
separate album, so test-driving these
monitors with my PreSonus Studio-
Live was certainly an appealing idea.
So what are these Eris E5s? ey
are billed as individually powered
“high denition active studio mon-
itors,” weigh in at about 10 lbs, and
denitely have a bit of a kick with a
5.25-in. Kevlar low-frequency driver
and 45 W Class AB amp. ey also
have a 1-in. silk dome tweeter pow-
ered by a 35 W Class AB amp. eir
peak is at 102 dB SPL with a frequen-
cy response from 53 Hz-22 kHz.
All of the speakers in the Eris series
have front-ported enclosures made
of vinyl-laminated, medium-density
berboard, which also helps with
proximity to walls.
e E5s welcome three types of
inputs: balanced XLR, balanced ¼-in.
TRS, and unbalanced RCA line-level
inputs. When both balanced connec-
tions are in use, the TRS input will
supersede the XLR input. e RCA
input is summed into the signal path.
So what is it that makes the E5 a good
monitor? Actually, what makes any
monitor good or bad? My philosophy
is that most monitors intrinsically
serve a purpose; the question lies
with the listener and whether or not
you’ve learned what your monitors
sound like in reference to other play-
back sources.
Many monitors on the market
are celebrated for a very particular
sound, but the E5 can easily be set
up to have dierent sound charac-
teristics thanks to its selection of
controls. e rst control is the input
gain stage, which allows you to set
the signal level and, in that, set a
clean signal level. You have to be able
to produce a natural, non-distorted
sound between dierent frequencies
at dierent volumes. e E5 sounds
very clean and generally round to me.
Next, the E5 provides three EQ
controls in its Acoustic Tuning sec-
tion: high, mid, and low cuto. With
these controls, you can adjust the
settings into dierent frequencies
and produce dierent characteristics
for playback. A simple example is to
make the monitors sound really at
— easy enough to do with the E5 — to
give a trueness of sound, say for the
mixing process.
In mixing and mastering sessions,
you also really want to get referenc-
es from multiple sources - laptop
speakers, car speakers, etc. I found it
quite convenient simply dialing those
tones up through one set of monitors
like the E5s. ese varied EQ settings
not only give you a at/linear sound,
but can also give a more boomy,
much rounder response, too. You can
also detail with the bass control if you
are using a subwoofer.
e E5 also has a three-position
Acoustic Space switch. is switch
controls a second order for frequency
control. e low shelving lter cuts
the levels below 800 Hz by a specied
amount (-2 or -4dB) to compensate
for the boundary bass boost that
occurs when the monitor is placed
near a wall or corner. Hence, you can
control the bass response relative to
the proximity of your speakers to a
nearby wall. e E5s are also light-
weight and can be used in various
situations and locations. e controls
allow you to give a great sounding
playback in just about any situation.
On my
own proj-
ects, I have
been using
the E5s and
then refer-
encing back
over to larger
boxes and
it’s impres-
sive how the
“…a monitor that should fit
tidily into most rooms and
will let you hear the detail
in your mixes.”
“Overall, the E5s pack a punch,
yet have subtle qualities akin
to those of more expensive
oerings. The depth of control
allows the Eris E5 to act as a
‘monitor chameleon’.”
CANADIAN MUSICIAN September 2013
E5 translates — very true in sound
colours and contours.
e E5 also has built-in current
output limiting and over-tempera-
ture protection to avoid heat-related
issues and also prevent any damage
from a short circuit. ere is also a
current output limiting and subson-
ic protection to lter out extremely
low-frequency vibrations that could
interfere with the woofer’s perfor-
mance. Another feature to mention is
that the power ampliers have a “soft
startup” so that you don’t get any
damaging pops in the speakers when
you power them up.
Overall, the E5s pack a punch, yet
have subtle qualities akin to those of
more expensive oerings. e depth
of control allows the E5 to act as a
“monitor chameleon.” All monitors
serve a purpose, especially if you
learn how they operate. I mix to
sound good and the PreSonus Eris
E5s make me sound great.

ere’s a dirty little secret:
Most monitors in Eris’ price range
are designed so that they sound
impressive in the store — lots of
bonky bass and tizzy treble — but
they aren’t accurate when you’re try-
ing to do a serious mix in your studio.
Eris™E5 and E8 are true pro mon-
itors with the precise back-panel
acoustic-tuning tools you need to
tailor their sound to your room en-
vironment and musical genre. You’ll
end up with mixes that sound good
everywhere
(including iTunes and CDs), not just
in your control room.
Eris monitors pack long-throw
Kevlar® K100 low-frequency trans-
ducers and low-mass, silk dome,
high-frequency transducers with
separate, butt-kicking Class A/B
amps for each.
Above all, Eris are musical, pow-
erful, and excruciatingly accurate.
Get the whole story of Eris on our
Web site. Or ask the PreSonus dealer
where you got this brochure for
an earfull of Eris.
Baton Rouge • USA • www.presonus.com
H
HIGH frequency
continuously
variable ±6 dB
INPUT GAIN
optimizes signal
to noise ratio
LOW CUTOFF lets
you match Eris to a
subwoofer without
screwing up the bass.
3-position ACOUSTIC
SPACE switch lets
you control Eris’ bass
output. Which setting
you should choose
depends on whether
you’re placing your
speakers in corners,
or on each side of a
video monitor but
close to the back wall,
or farther out toward
the middle of your
control room.
MID frequency
continuously
variable ±6 dB
Eris™ . Affordable studio monitors
that don’t treat you like a kid.
available from: