Review: Blackmagic Design Audio Monitor

Fact Check

I corresponded with both Kaspar Ko and Bob Caniglia at Blackmagic Design about my findings to make sure I was assessing the Audio Monitor properly, based on the website’s description. I was told that the target market is using the SDI or AES inputs primarily and would be dealing with “professional” line-level audio with is at +4 dBu versus consumer -10 dBv. With a hotter source signal, the Blackmagic Audio Monitor does play louder.

Ko added, "Using a consumer-level source into the Audio Monitor is not the best utilization of the unit because it's expecting professional levels … We have people here who run Premiere at home and do exactly what you are doing, but they are not intent on making sure the levels are 100% accurate. They are using it for confidence monitoring ... The final mix and edit will be done by a sound engineer or someone using a mixing application with studio monitors, etc."

Further, Ko noted, “The broadcast engineer using [the Blackmagic] Audio Monitor in his control room to make sure that Spanish is being sent on channels 5 and 6 of his stream may not be so enraptured on how great it sounds, but that it’s accurately being sent on the correct channel that it’s being expected to be on."

Bob Caniglia reiterated that this is the intended market and usage, for which I admit it is more aptly suited.

In other words, audio fidelity is not the Audio Monitor’s key design point. This does accurately describe what I was hearing. With regard to the EQ, Ko said, “The Audio Monitor was designed without an internal EQ because the scope of the product is not to legalize your audio and allow tweaks to it during output.” Since there's no audio out of the BMD Audio Monitor except for the speakers, I disagree. I think that allowing the audio to be adjusted to sound better to the operator would be appropriate.

Conclusion

As an audio monitor, the Blackmagic Audio Monitor’s primary purpose is to monitor audio. This model adds several additional technical, video-related features that just aren't available elsewhere at this price point ($1420.25 at B&H). It adds video monitoring and even a bit of SDI-to-HDMI conversion as well. It handles the audio sources you have in a professional production environment and integrates well with racks of gear in a mobile or studio setup. But I feel that the one thing an Audio Monitor must do well, above all else, is to provide the best audio possible at the price point. The Blackmagic Audio Monitor falls short in this regard.

First of all, it needs better sound. Whether it achieves this through internal DSP and equalization, or better drivers, amps, and design, it needs to sound deeper, brighter, and a lot louder.

Second, it needs user customizability. The user should be able to adjust the audio “zero” level, change between VU and PPM metering (which the website touts, but the manual doesn’t mention), change the EQ, LED brightness, peaking, etc. And it should do all of this on the unit itself by leveraging the volume dial that can be pressed to “enter” and adjust things in a menu.

The channel buttons can be redone so a single Channel button cycles between the channels. The other button can then become Menu. This would take over the screen and the volume dial would change from volume to menu navigation with rotation and “press to enter” functions.

Currently, the USB connection’s function seems limited to enabling users to connect the device to a computer for updates. That’s fine, but it could have just as easily been a flat USB jack to load an update off of a USB stick, through the new menu system I just suggested.

All in all, the Blackmagic Audio Monitor is a solid bit of kit. It produces far better audio than a computer’s internal speakers. It provides metering, and a window to glimpse the video. But the level of sonic performance it provides falls short of what I expect from a Blackmagic Design product. Granted, the company maintains that the product was not designed to do what I expected it to do; if that’s the case, the description of the product on the company’s website needs to be revised to more accurately guide the buyer’s expectations to what the Blackmagic Audio Monitor is designed to do.

Blackmagic Design has a reputation of over-delivering capability at a given price point. Their ATEM video mixers and Cinema Cameras have dramatically stirred up their respective markets for the incredible amount of capability delivered to customers for the price. I expected the same of the sound quality, fidelity, and volume from the Blackmagic Audio Monitor. My expectations are based on Blackmagic Design's track record, their own lofty description of the product’s capabilities, and the price. I hope they look at this product’s documented shortcomings as an opportunity to strengthen a weak point in their vastly impressive product line.