Blast from my past – In pro audio, active monitors are the rule. Executing them with outboard amplification is an exception but not that exciting. Executing their DSP to linearize not just the frequency but also impulse response across the bandwidth? Here the DMAX Super Cube [€690/pr] from recording engineer Andrew Startsev was the lone blip on my radar when I reviewed it in 2022. This exciting concept has since been duplicated in the PH61 which I'll review later this year but the SC5 was first. Using a quality SB Acoustics 5-incher as widebander, its unique selling point was a proprietary FIR filter which like feed-forward error correction overlaid the signal with an inverse of the speaker's impulse response deviations to cancel out at the ear. In short, the DMAX concept cleans up the time domain behaviour of its driver whose inertia of moving mass can't mechanically start and stop instantly but like other drivers with mass so not ion tweeters, creates delays and overshoot. Correcting for it goes well beyond physical time alignment or minimized phase shift from 1st-order filters. Writing the digital filter code apparently was a real challenge but one DMAX's software experience has met. Hearing the DMAX Super Cube was my first introduction to this novel approach to speaker design so deserves a parking spot on my memory lane.
