Presonus Eris E8, pair 8" active Studiomonitor

The PreSonus Eris E8 Pair is a pair of professional studio monitors with an 8" woofer and a 1" tweeter.  Cheap computer speakers and home-stereo speakers are designed to make music sound good and hide the flaws, while most low-cost studio monitors are hyped to sound good in the store showroom. If you mix on those speakers, you won’t hear problems that can show up in your final production.

Not so with PreSonus Eris-series active studio monitors. Thanks to well-designed Kevlar low frequency transducers, low-mass silk-dome tweeters, responsive Class AB amplification, and professional acoustic-adjustment controls, Eris delivers the goods.

As you expect from PreSonus, they use quality components, are well constructed, and deliver professional audio quality. They’re lightweight and compact and look as professional as they sound.

But what really sets them apart from comparably priced systems are pro features such as user controls that allow you to tailor the speakers’ response to your needs.

Yet Eris-series speakers are ultra-affordable, making them a terrific value. And with three models, you can easily find the Eris monitor that best suits your studio needs. 

Today’s music producers deal with a wide variety of musical genres and often work in more than one location. That’s why Eris-series studio monitors offer extensive user controls not usually found in their price class.

The most basic control is the Input Gain, which determines the signal level before it reaches the power amp. This is part of gain-staging your overall system—that is, setting the levels for every part of the recording chain in order to get the optimal level of clean audio all the way through. Once you’ve gain-staged your system, you can leave this control alone.

The Acoustic Space Control

All Eris speakers provide three EQ controls in their Acoustic Tuning section: High, Mid, and Low Cutoff. These controls enable you to fine-tune the monitors and even to broadly approximate the sounds of different types of speakers so you can hear what your mix might sound like, for instance, on a car stereo or portable radio. The Low control also is useful when using the Eris with a subwoofer.

In addition to the Acoustic Tuning controls, Eris speakers offer a three-position Acoustic Space switch. This switch controls a second-order, low shelving filter that cuts the level of all frequencies below 800 Hz by a specified amount (-2 or -4 dB) to compensate for the boundary bass boost that occurs when the monitor is placed near a wall or corner. If you don’t want to roll off those lows, set it to 0 dB.

This combination of controls lets you create a linear response for accurate monitoring and enables you to simulate different listening environments, so you don’t have to listen to mixes on your car, consumer computer speakers, and home stereo to check how the music sounds with different systems. Instead, you can adjust the Eris monitors’ response and test your mixes without leaving your studio. No other monitors in this price class offer this degree of control.

Safety Matters

Any loudspeaker is subject to an assortment of environmental and performance problems, and Eris monitors offer protection from most common of these.

No, we’re not going to go on about how each bear had its own jambalaya pot: a small one, a medium one, and a large one. But PreSonus does indeed offer small, medium, and large Eris-series monitors: the E4.5, E5, and E8.

If space is at a premium, or if you want the ultimate in portability, consider the ultra-compact Eris E4.5. It may be the size of a computer speaker, but this mighty mite delivers professional audio quality, thanks to a 4.5-inch, Kevlar low-frequency driver; a low-mass, 1 inch, silk-dome tweeter with protective grille; and Class AB amplification. Each speaker is powered by a 25W Class AB amplifier—plenty of juice for a small speaker. The E4.5 ranges from 70 Hz up to 20 kHz, and at 6.42 x 9.45 x 7.09 inches (163 x 241 x 180 mm), you can shoehorn this little beauty into almost any studio space.

The next step up in size and power is the Eris E5, which takes up just 7 x 10.24 x 7.68 inches (178 x 260 x 195 mm). The E5 sports a 5.25-inch, Kevlar low-frequency driver, mated with a 45W, Class AB amplifier; and a 1-inch (25 mm), silk-dome tweeter powered by a 35W, Class AB amplifier. It can crank out a clean 102 dB SPL, peak. Frequency response is rated at 53 Hz to 22 kHz. For a studio monitor in its size and price class, that’s impressive.

For an extended low-frequency response and a bit more muscle, step up to the Eris E8. With its 8-inch, Kevlar low-frequency transducer, driven by a 75 watt, Class AB power amplifier, it can range down to 35 Hz. Like the E5, the E8 can reach all the way to 22 kHz, thanks to a 1.25-inch (32 mm), silk-dome, high-frequency tweeter. However, the E8’s tweeter is driven by a heftier 65W, Class AB amplifier. With its extra juice, the E8 can deliver up to 105 dB SPL, peak.

All Eris speakers have front-ported enclosures made of vinyl-laminated, medium-density fiberboard (MDF). 

With three different types of audio inputs, it’s easy to feed audio to your Eris monitors from a mixer, an interface, a media player, or almost any other line-level source.

The Eris E5 and E8 provide balanced XLR, balanced ¼” TRS, and unbalanced RCA line-level inputs. When both balanced connections are in use, the TRS input will supersede the XLR input. The RCA input is summed into the signal path.

With this selection, you’ll have no problem hooking your Eris speakers up with virtually any line-level source. (If your signal source has unbalanced, ¼” TS outputs, simply use a ¼”-to-RCA adapter or adapter cable.)

The E4.5 has balanced ¼” TRS and unbalanced RCA inputs, as well as unbalanced 1/8” inputs for your smart phone or MP3 player, giving you all the flexibility you need when replacing computer speakers or those old studio monitors that have misled your ears for the last time.

Take a moment, if you will, to consider the E4.5’s balanced TRS inputs; balanced inputs help you minimize noise—a pro feature you won’t find on competing speakers in this class. 

The main features of the PreSonus Eris E8 Pair include:

Components and construction

• 4.5-inch (E 4.5) / 5.25-inch (E5) / 8-inch (E8) Kevlar® low-frequency transducer
• 1-inch (25 mm), ultra-low-mass, silk-dome, high-frequency transducer
• Front-firing acoustic port for superior bass-frequency reproduction
• Optimized, resonance-suppressing internal bracing
• 100 dB (E4.5) / 102 dB (E5) /105 dB (E8) maximum continuous SPL

User controls

• HF Driver Adjust (±6 dB, continuously variable)
• Midrange Driver Adjust (±6 dB, continuously variable)
• Acoustic Space settings (flat, -2, -4 dB) for accurate mixing contour
• Highpass filter (Off, 80 Hz, 100 Hz)

Power and safety

• 50 (E4.5) / 70 (E5) /130 watt (E8), Class AB biamplification
• RF interference, output current limiting, over-temperature, transient, and subsonic protection
• Amplifier “soft start” feature eliminates popping on power-up
• Internal power supply with IEC connector
• Power switch with on/off LED

Inputs and outputs

• Balanced XLR/¼-inch and unbalanced RCA inputs (E5/E8)
• Balanced ¼-inch TRS and unbalanced 1/8-inch TS, RCA inputs (E4.5)

1/8-inch stereo headphone output (E4.5)