Barefoot MM-27 / MM-35
Generally speaking
From the website:
1″ soft dome tweeter, dual 5″ midbass drivers and dual 10″ subs housed in compact sealed enclosures yield high linearity and outstanding impulse response. With 500 Watts of power in the subwoofer channel alone, the dual 10″ drivers cross over seamlessly from the midbass, reaching down to 30Hz and rolling off at 1/4 the rate of ported designs to reveal much more deep bass information. Since the sub motor structures are locked together the opposing forces cancel out and the cabinet remains rock steady even at very high output levels. There is no need for bass management in 5.1 systems because the MicroMain27 is truly a full-range monitor. The speaker can be placed either vertically or horizontally using the included pedestal.
The MM-27 are loud. Trust me. I monitor superloud from time to time and the MM-27 rock. no need for an additional subwoofer.
Problems & other technicalities
We had a broken input attenuator potentiometer when we opened one case. It seemed to be a mounting/shipping failure. You were not able to turn the pot. Simple as that. We emailed Thomas barefoot about this issue and got a replacement amp (that’s the full backplane of the speaker including the input board/amplifier board/metal frame) within one week. We exchanged the backplane and everything worked as expected. I call that customer support. I know from a friend who had a blown woofer and he recivied it also within one week including mounting instructions and a personal phonecall from Thomas to make sure everything works as expected. Great stuff!
Except the extraordinary support, I do not have much to complain, so I will start with the details:
– Extremly rugged design
– Input attenuator on the back
– Separate switch for activate/deactivate the woofer/mids/tweeters
– Sound change button (seems to be that when the button is in, the midrange is not as forward sounding as without the switch)
– Stands: we got the stands from Soundanchor USA. The shipping costs as much as the stands but it’s really worth it (I think I paid 600$ for the overseas shipping). The speakers gain impuls response, tightness and overall clarity with those superheavy stands
– The manual is very primitive but explains what you need to know
Sound
I used to sell them and noted some customer comments: impressive, wow, incredible, transparent, where is the subwoofer (customer looks under the desk), highend clarity, even at low volumes you have the full sound, they still sound good at high volumes, big sound, good stereo image, incredible depth.
That are some adjective that describe it very well. Coming from ADAM S3a, I am used to a muddy lower midrange/bassarea. If you switch between S3a’s and the barefoot it’s like night and day in the lower midrange/lowend. The Barefoots are tight, punchy, clear midrange, a lot of defined highend.. tasty. On the other hand the Adam revealed everything in the midrange (which is the key to great metal guitars). The Barefoots are more even balanced (which is not a bad thing) and tend to be a bit conservative in the midrange. That’s just the comparison oto the pretty extreme S3a’s so it’s just an obersavation of facts, rather then qualify the speaker for this.
The impulse response is incredible. If you ever wondered why it’s not the same beeing in the live room in front of the snare drum and in your control room it’s not different anymore. The MM-27 deliver what you record no matter what it is. You hear tiny nuances and also a very detailed instrument information (like Cello strings.. you really hear how they breath)
Conclusion
I had a bit problems first with all the information delivered in the soundfield of the speakers. It’s really too much at the beginning. No compromise. Lovely, but you need to get into it. They are not every mans workhorse as it somethimes gets a bit annyoing listening to many details. You hear your bad converter (if it is bad), you can hear cabling differences, you can hear your ventilation system, you can even hear cutting errors on professional recordings (as well as on your own of course).
One of the main problems I discovered is, that they show how bad your room sounds. They do not work in all rooms. If you have an acoustical problem, those speakers reveal it. No prisoners! 🙂
If you are classic or rock, if you are hiphop or electro, give them a try. They are worth every penny. They translate well (if you get your acoustics right), still there is the need to get a smaller monitor because they are more like a main-monitoring rather then a near-field.
MM-35 (additional info):
I have not worked a lot on the MM-35 but had both speakers side by side. The MM-35 are not as loud as the MM-27, do have a different mid-range and overall they are smaller then the MM-27 both in construction and in sound. I do not like them very much but maybe I would if I invested more time mixing on them. Go for the MM-27 if your budget allows.