Until recently I was using an old Denon Hifi as my main monitoring solution in my home studio alongside a variety of headphones. The system was proving unreliable, so I looked around for a compact and budget monitor speaker solution, and the name PreSonus Eris 3.5 kept coming up in the searches. I knew that budget speakers are never going to have the greatest sound quality, but If I want to do detailed listening for mixing I use headphones, the speakers just needed to be practicle, small in stature and have adequate enough sound quality for jamming and musical tinkering. But I was not expecting what would happen next…
Audio Realms
“I unboxed the low budget PreSonus Eris 3.5 speakers and wired them into my setup. A soft blue light eminating from the left speaker that houses the amplifier and connections signified that we were ready to begin testing. I nudged the volume control to just over halfway and fired off a simple arpeggio from the equally low budget Behringer Crave in my Dawless rig and as the notes were released from the cones of the speakers I began to feel a shift in the underlying cosmos! My whole level of conciousness was being elevated by the sounds, I glanced over to the corner of the room and witnessed the houeplants starting to photosynthesize at an alarming rate, as the unadulterated tones struck their leaves. I masterfully adjusted the cutoff and resonance of the Craves filter to increase the sonic bliss that the speaker created, but I needed more. Without pausing for breath, I setup a repetative and yet somehow meaningful bassline on the TD-3 to complement the arpeggio, the clarity and depth that was unleashed was so profound a portal to the Gods began to form on the ceiling of the studio whilst the Bass frequencies emerging from the miniscule 3.5″ speakers belied their size and they started to generate their own gravitational pull, that made my chair levetate off the ground. I quickly completed the musical trifector by unleashing some powerful beats from a Roland TR-8, the usual green glow of the drum machine radiated more luminously than ever before as the speakers delivered firm, crisp beats directly to my cerebal cortex. I sensed movement and looked across to the window where I witnessed scores of animals that were gathering outside of the studio, driven and compelled by the music eminating from the budget speakers and dawless setup to their calling, and by now the whole room was vibrating at a steady 128bpm in time with the celestial beats. The vortex of light and sound being created by the dawless trio was now simply unfathonable to mortals. The entire whole universe began to jive to the uncompromising sounds generated, the green light of the Roland TR-8 was now so bright I could barely see, but I managed to reach a hand through the shuddering musical power to the MIDI controller and just seconds before the entire known galaxy imploded in on itself in musical harmony, I stretched out to hit the controllers stop button, sending a digital signal of the venerable MIDI 2.0 protocol through the 5pin cables to the Synthesizer, Bass and Drum Machine to terminate the euphoric dawless session just in time to prevent a full cosmic collapse. Relieved I leant back on the office chair to contemplate both the wonderous sound and meaning of existance that had been generated by the Presonus Eris 3.5 (Gen 2, excluding bluetooth version) speakers.”
Features
PreSonus Eris 3.5 Gen 2, Studio Monitor 50W Speakers. 140 x 200 x 160mm
Handy Aux in, phones connection, power switch and volume control all on the front of the speaker.
On the rear are a choice of inputs 6.35mm or phono, alongside some EQ controls.
Summary
Well with cheap speakers and monitors you get what you pay for. Audiophiles will absolutley hate them, but they are not the target audience.
If all you need is some small, low volume sounds on a home studio setup these can be a good place to start. Also you could add a subwoofer such as the Presonus Eris Sub8 to complement the small speakers. If you really care about being a true monitor reference and a more detailed sonic response and more than a tickling of bass frequenccies, then a 3.5inch speaker is not going to deliver and you will need to up your budget! But for now these suit me just fine and I will be mindful to ensure to keep the volume under 50% to prevent the universe disappearing inside the blackhole they would otherwise create, when building dawless jams.