Eve Audio SC2070

Eve’s new compact monitors borrow more than a little tech from their premium designs.

While it might look familiar from the outside, Eve’s new two‑way active SC2070 monitor incorporates some significant advances over the company’s previous models. In this case, Eve have allowed for a higher cost compared with their standard two‑way range to enable them to produce a really high‑quality design in a very compact footprint. Priced individually rather than in pairs, the SC2070 features the familiar folded‑ribbon tweeter, aka Air Motion Transformer (AMT), but the RS7 version used here is the largest Eve have ever put in a two‑way monitor. Its diaphragm area is 1.5 times bigger than those of Eve’s other two‑way models, and only slightly smaller than the AMT RS6 used in Eve’s large SC3010 and SC3012 monitors. This crosses over at 1800Hz, which is unusually low, with the aim of providing midrange coverage equivalent to a three‑way design.

The pleated construction of the AMT’s diaphragm, which is located in a strong magnetic field, presents a much larger surface area than a flat ribbon, and the air motion is generated by adjacent folds alternately attracting or repeling each other as an audio signal current is passed through the conductive metal coating of a very light polyethylene terephthalate (PET) membrane. This is in contrast to a conventional ribbon tweeter, where the whole ribbon moves backwards and forwards. This motion actually occurs over a very small distance, but the folded structure still moves more air than a conventional tweeter of the same diameter.

Handling the lows is a 6.5‑inch SilverCone woofer, also used in Eve’s SC3070 and SC4070 monitors. This employs a copper‑cap magnet system and a 1.5‑inch voice coil. Its cone has a light but stiff honeycomb construction for low distortion, and is supported in a roll surround. Power comes from a pair of Class‑D amplifiers with a combined power of 250 Watts and, as with other Eve monitors, the analogue input signal is converted to digital so that a DSP can provide additional optimisations as well as handling crossover, limiter and protection duties.

When the speakers are powered up, the volume level rises slowly to give the operator time to...