During the course of developing the monitors we asked a number of engineers and producers in multiple fields including film and audio and AES inputs were not a feature request. Since their release into the market, we have had them in some of the world's top studios and it has not been an issue. You are actually the first to ask about this.
The CPU inside each monitor handles a host of tasks, including matching the transducers at the factory level as well as allowing us to incorporate our “no-slope” crossover approach. There is a proprietary process taking place inside each monitors and in order to achieve maximum efficiency, we convert to digital.
One such task is our crossover approach. We reduce mid-range distortion commonly associated with coax designs. To accomplish this, we need serious DSP power allowing the CPU inside each monitor to calculate and make a series of adjustments throughout the crossover plain that starts around 900Hz and ends slightly above 2k. This reduces the frequency area in which both the HF and LF drivers are fighting to reproduce the same frequencies. In a traditional crossover, there are a large number of mid-range frequencies being reproduced by both the HF and LF drivers. The bigger the slope, the worse the condition. Traditional coaxial speaker designs have used a 2nd order cross-over (12dB/octave). Here at Equator, we recognized the problem of both drivers reproducing the same frequency as a major cause of mid-range distortion. From the onset, we intended to address this by applying our "no-slope" approach (applying a series of adjustments throughout the cross-over plain) through the use of DSP.
Also, the DSP helps the engineer make sure their room is optimized for accurate monitoring. We include a software application called Equator Control with every monitor. It enables you to manually compensate for acoustic anomalies such as issues created by speaker placement and boundary conditions. Along with the environmental compensation, it also provides great control over the monitors — including equalization, mute, solo, and phase, speaker-group select, and the ability to create “custom voicings,” all of which can be saved to your computer or flashed directly into each monitor.
