While studio monitors strive to achieve a flat frequency response, hi-fi speakers continue to put their own interpretation on how music should sound. Peavey's 308S monitors attempt to cover both bases.

HAS IT EVER occurred to you that you'll probably never know exactly what your keyboards or drum machine sound like? After deciding that you can't do with anything less than a 16-bit sampler, have you thought that you're unlikely to ever hear the full potential of the machine? (Unless you get the chance to take it into the control room of one of the country's state-of-the-art recording studios.) I refer, of course, to the fact that the quality of an instrument's sound is ultimately determined by the monitoring system. This is not, admittedly, something which crosses most people's minds when shelling out for the latest and best technology has to offer. But far from being some mildly irritating idiosyncrasy of playing hi-tech instruments, it puts electric/electronic musicians at a real disadvantage alongside their acoustic counterparts.

Without access to a "reference" system, you have no yardstick with which to measure the performance of the individual components that serve to turn the electrical signals present at the output jacks of your keyboard(s) into acoustic signals arriving at your ears. When you consider that these components act as a filter for many hundreds, if not thousands of pounds worth of gear, the importance of making an informed decision about what to use becomes rather more critical.

Possibly the most intractable problem is that of colouration in speaker systems. Limited frequency response, can, to a considerable extent, be compensated for in the imagination. It's not usually difficult to mentally extend the response of one of the smaller nearfield monitor systems, provided the frequency range covered is accurate and well-detailed. Indeed, this has been the thinking behind a number of the better designs which have emerged over the past few years. Suppress the frequencies which are limited by cabinet size, and you're free to concentrate on the rest of the audio spectrum. And of course, smaller cabinets also have the advantage of more closely resembling domestic hi-fi speakers.

When it comes to colouration, however, things start to get more problematic. The main difficulty arises from the fact that keyboard players - as all users of all hi-tech equipment - don't integrate their sound systems into the equipment chain in the way that, for example guitarists do. The amp and speaker chosen by a guitarist forms a fundamental part of his overall sound and has to be given as much consideration as the guitar itself. Take a guitarist into the studio - and his amp and speaker has to go with him.

This is one of the ways in which colouration (often, extreme colouration) is used positively. Clearly, it's not a solution for those manipulating sound through the synthesis, sampling and recording tape. For us the system should provide an accurate, well-balanced sound capable of reproducing the highest trill of a digital synth to the lowest rumble of a bassline - often simultaneously. Not only that but it should be capable of performing at high SPLs (sound pressure levels) and without adding its own character to the music.

Realistically, few of us have access to systems which even come close to this ideal. Instead, we use monitors which though flawed, are flawed in a predictable way and have the advantage of being a known quantity amongst others in the music industry. Hence the popularity of Yamaha's NS10s and the JBL Control series. Purely in numerical terms, these must be amongst the most popular speakers ever produced outside the hi-fi market - and that's no mean achievement given the proliferation of nearfield designs over recent years.

Given the inflated size of the market, and the depressed state of the economy, you may ask if we actually need any more monitors to choose from. But as you'll know if you're familiar with the hi-tech side of the music business, Peavey aren't the kind of company to let things like this bother them. Over the past couple of years they have flown in the face of a recession-torn industry and released a wealth of new equipment including effects processors, mixing desks and, of course, their DPM3 keyboard (reviewed last month) - all well away from what has been their best-known area of operation: guitar, PA and back-line equipment.

So it is with their monitor speakers - the PRMs, or Phased Reference Monitors - represented here by the 308S model, in which they present a three-way design with switchable Equalised or Reference response modes. That's right, a three-way nearfield design which can be adjusted for different acoustic environments. Clearly, Peavey have a trick or two up their sleeves when it comes to monitor design, and these they fully intend to use to get a hold on this crowded market.

IN THE FIELD

AS YOU MIGHT imagine, with three drivers to house, the 308Ss are pretty large. Although the tag "nearfield" doesn't dictate a limit on size, it's fair to say these speakers fall outside most people's idea of the space nearfield monitors should occupy. With a recommended positioning of only five feet from the listener, however, they're unequivocally nearfield in operation, and should be directly compared with those other nearfield units.

The 308S is a ported enclosure, approximately 12" high x 17.5" long and 11.5" deep, weighing in at a hefty 26lbs. Removing the clip-on front grilles reveals an 8" low-frequency and a 5" midrange driver, together with a 1" soft-dome tweeter. Surrounding the mid- and high-frequency units is a foam blanket recessed into the front baffle, claimed to provide more accurate imaging and transparency. We shall see. The switch for selecting Reference or Equalised operation is conveniently positioned near the bottom of the front panel. Around the back we have a pair of (recessed) connection terminals of the "press down and push in" variety which obviate the need for plugs.

Surprisingly for such substantial speakers, power handling is only quoted as 40 watts RMS, and with a (nominal) impedance of four ohms it would seem prudent to keep a watchful eye on amplifier levels. However, as any acoustic engineer will tell you, speaker power ratings can be extremely ambiguous and certainly give you no indication of how loud the damn things sound. Better by far to look at the sensitivity rating - which is quoted as a rather more encouraging 88dB (1W/1m).

"Unlike reviewers of hi-fi speakers, I was armed with the kind of equipment which makes it easy to determine low-and high-frequency performance - the synthesiser."

Listening tests were carried out in a medium-sized room with panelled walls and little in the way of soft furnishings. I suppose it would be what most people would identify as a traditional study, except that it's crammed with equipment and shelves which help break up a lot of the reflections that would ordinarily be created by the hard walls. Nevertheless, it is fairly live, and in some ways an unpredictable acoustic environment. It's certainly one that benefits from the use of nearfield monitors.

VERDICT

RATHER THAN SIT down and carry out specific listening tests, I decided to replace my existing monitors with the 308S and use them for a few weeks to see what arose. I've never been convinced that listening to a pair of speakers and then forcing yourself to arrive at a conclusion is the correct way to make an appraisal. Far better to forget that they're there and wait to see what impressions present themselves.

Seldom, in the time I used the 308Ss, was I struck by any lasting impression of their character. Even after some three weeks use, I could think of no single adjective (or combination of adjectives) to describe them. I was getting worried. A review to write, and nothing to say. Then the folly of the situation began to dawn on me; it's a trap that reviewers often fall into - having to say something which doesn't have to be said.

The fact is that like all better speaker designs (no matter what their size), the 308Ss impart little or none of their own character to the music, and in that sense are virtually transparent in operation. You're left with the smooth, effortless clarity and depth of a speaker well on top of its job.

How about the more nuts and bolts questions like how low, how high and how loud? Well, unlike reviewers of hi-fi speakers, I was armed with the kind of equipment which makes it easy to determine low-and high-frequency performance - the synthesiser. And after some exhaustive sessions running through patch after patch, I concluded that there was effectively no limit to the audibly useful information which the 308Ss could reproduce. This would seem to bear out the quoted response in the manual which puts them only 3dBs down at 45Hz and 18kHz, and certainly, at the lower end, makes them the finest pair of nearfield monitors I've ever heard.

As regards how loud they are, well, positioned at the recommended distance from my ears, it soon became apparent that my ears would reach a state of distress long before the 308Ss showed any sign of doing so. Though these speakers are perhaps a little under-powered on paper, this is not a problem in any way in practice.

What of the intriguing Reference/Equalized switch? Well, it seems to me that in providing us with a choice of responses, Peavey have attempted to offer us both the speakers we ought to use (Reference) and those we would like to use (Equalised). And to a certain extent, how successful they have been in fulfilling this criteria is overshadowed by the question of whether they should have attempted to do this in the first place. There is an argument to suggest that deliberately "engineering" the frequency response of a pair of speakers in this way is not something that should be encouraged. And having sold off a considerable amount of equipment in the last few months in order to cut down the number of variables I'm confronted with each time I sit down to write or record, I'm not sure I welcome the prospect of being presented with yet another. On a number of occasions I found myself wondering what a particular song would sound like with the 308s switched to their other position - knowing I wouldn't have given it a second thought had my eye not just come to rest on one of the switches.

On balance, however, you have to welcome any move which engenders a greater awareness amongst musicians (and certain recording engineers) of the loudspeaker's role within the audio chain. And anyway, it has to be said that the difference between the two settings isn't that extreme - we're only talking about a slight lift in the region between approximately 300Hz and 4kHz (when switched to Equalised). Peavey refer to it as "voiced" response, and though rather vague on paper, this does make sense when you hear it in use.

Up against better-known nearfield monitors, I don't think Peavey have anything to worry about. Though those extra few inches of cabinet space might pose a problem for anyone working in a limited space, the resultant sound more than justifies the decision to opt for a bigger enclosure. With the 308Ss I see no reason for adding a sub-woofer of any kind. This is a full-range monitor in its own right.

I couldn't, as a reviewer, say to anybody, go out and buy a pair of speakers without first listening to them. But neither could I possibly end this review by issuing one of those statements along the lines of 'if you're in the market for a pair of monitors, it might be worth checking these out'. The PRM308Ss positively demand your attention and I can guarantee they will hold it.

Price £242.66 each including VAT.

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