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I just bought a new monitor controller as my old became bad in time. I had a cheap ESI passive controller. Now I bought the PreSonus Monitor Station V2.

It has two sets of TSR stereo inputs, One S/P Dif coaxial input and aux Unbalanced RCA/ 1/8 inch stereo input. You can connect three sets of monitors and four headphones. The monitor outs have adjusments pots, so you can equal the volume of each set of speaker to each other.

On the headphone side you can choose either the main source or selectable cue source. Volume is adjustable per headphone out.

Of course there are dim, mono, mute and talkback buttons. An back electret mic is in internal for talkback functions. If you press talkback shortly it acts like on/off, if you hold it longer it acts like momentary switch, whereby dI'm is automaticly engaged. The dI'm and talkback functions have a potentiometer to adjust the levels of it.

All main connctors are on balanced TSR 1/4 inch jacks. 

The unit has a dedicated powersupply and happily enough an on/off switch.

In terms of soundquality: for my homestudio it might be overkill, but I like the way it sounds nutral and natural. I have a small room to work in, and fairly large monitors - PreSonus Eris E8 with 8 inch woofers. Not so long ago, I also bought the ISO Acoustics ISO 200 monitor stands, and man what a difference it made compared to the Auralex MoPads Foam pads! Now with the new controller my sound is as best it can get for a budget homestudio. 

As I use use a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen audio interface - I have five stereo outputs. The first two pairs are used for stereo 1 (DAW only) and stereo 2 (DAW plus all my connected instruments/mics). So while tracking, I select stereo 2 on the controller to hear directly without latency what I'm recording, and for listening back and mixing I use stereo 1 to only hear the sound of the DAW.

All in all it set me back € 275,= for the PreSonus Monitor Station V2, and € 159,= for the ISO Acoustics ISO 200 monitor stands.

Verdict: The PreSonus is a good choice for budget concious homestudio owners, and the ISO Acoustics ISO 200 stands are much better then foam pads!

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