Avantone, the New York-based pro audio company, has built a reputation on meeting the needs of working engineers—offering must-have studio equipment at reasonable prices. Last week, ahead of Summer NAMM, the company released its take on a discontinued studio classic.
Avantone’s latest is the CLA-10, a Chris Lord-Alge signature model that seeks to cover the same sonic territory of Yamaha’s NS-10M. Like Avantone’s MixCubes—which give engineers reference monitors that are equivalent to the small wireless speakers many listeners use everyday—the CLA10 fulfills a similar role.
"In the newly developing age of High Definition Audio, there is still a need to hear what your mix will sound like when played back over smaller consumer systems such as home theater, desktop monitors, soundbars, and lower-fidelity equipment," Avantone says in its release. "The result is a very accurate recreation of an iconic studio monitor."
Yamaha’s NS-10M speakers have long been a recording industry standard and remain so today, despite having almost as many detractors as fans (and despite the fact that Yamaha stopped manufacturing them more than 15 years ago).
Before launching the CLA-10s, Avantone had been manufacturing replacement parts for the NS-10M. Seeing a continued desire for the speakers, Avantone decided to design its own take. (Yamaha, for its part, does continue to sell the NS-10-inspired HS8.)
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