Whether you are someone casually into music, using a DAW, or working towards a home recording studio monitors for professional use, you are going to need a good pair of studio monitors.
And while these can greatly vary in terms of quality and price, you can find some entry-level options that can bridge the gap between cheap junk and prohibitively expensive.
There are a few options on the market today that make this claim.
Today, we’re going to review the PreSonus Eris E4.5 speakers. The Eris studio monitor is used all over the world by audio engineers, music producers, content creators and gamers, and content creators so we are always looking forward to testing Presonus studio monitors out!
This compact beginner-friendly speaker set promises to offer buyers incredible affordability while also giving them studio-quality sound, a wide sweet spot, a strong build, as well as a host of different features and options.
The E4.5s is potentially an ideal solution for home use.
In this review, we’ll put the Eris E4.5 through its paces and see if it can deliver on that promise for us music lovers.
Are PreSonus Eris E4.5 any good?
If you’re at a beginner level or on a budget but want some very well-built speakers that have good neutrality and an excellent level of refined sound quality, you should definitely put these on your list to check out.
First Impressions – The Physical Build
Taking the PreSonus Eris E4.5 speakers out of the box, I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t all that impressed. As far as the design goes (we’ll get into the design), I was kind of annoyed that I would have to waste my time reviewing this speaker set.
But then I started playing with them! I soon uncovered their clean overall quality sound, smooth and refined sound, tight bass, so you can safely say my opinions changed wildly.
The first thing you’ll notice after their design is just how light they are when held. Now, you might think this only compact and powerful design makes them seem cheaper.
However, despite their lightweight feel, the monitor speakers also are pretty solid.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say a hard fall wouldn’t smash them on impact, but the casual living standards of life aren’t going to knock anything loose or cause them to lose their amazing sound.
While the design itself isn’t particularly impressive on its own, the vinyl fireboard does have a sense of quality and durability to it. You could realistically hold onto these for a few years without worrying about any drop in quality or wearing of internal parts.
More practically, the speakers have a “soft start” feature that prevents any of the common power-up pop-on issues that can be a thing.
If you are looking for some field studio monitors that work well at a super affordable monitors rate, these very much make the list.
They aren’t anything to look at, at first glance, and that (along with said pricing) may be the biggest issue since they “look” so cheap at first.
The Specs
The PreSonus Eris E4.5 carries over many of the PreSonus character traits. This most obviously includes their low-high frequency transducer. In comparison to the rest of the family, the E4.5 is pretty much the runt of the litter, even coming in under the already diminutive (albeit highly popular) E5.
The E4.5 has a 4.5-inch woofer, resulting in tight bass, and a 1-inch silk dome transducer silk-dome high frequency tweeter.
These push out the great sound while also ensuring that it is as clear, sharp, and precise as possible.
In terms of frequency response, the Eris E4.5 speakers can range from 70Hz up to 20kHz. While that would normally mean it would offer a pretty capable low-end depth, in reality, you’ll want to invest in a subwoofer to help boost up your bass.
Each speaker has 25 watts of power and uses a class-AB power amp. It radiate sound can serious punch out to most small and mid-sized spaces while also having a relatively generous wide sweet spot that makes any general accurate listening experience more than possible even from the tail-end of a space.
Spec Breakdown
- Length: 9.55 inches (240mm)
- Width: 6.42 inches (163mm)
- Depth: 7.09 inches (180mm)
- Weight: 13 lbs. (5.9kg)
- Woofer Size: 4.5 inches
- Tweeter Size: 1 inch
- Frequency Range: 70Hz – 20kHz
- Wattage: 50
- Amp Class: AB
The Design
As I mentioned in the beginning when while the speakers’ overall physical build was surprisingly solid and durable, I was not quite so sold on its design out of the gate. To be perfectly honest, to me they looked like a regular set of speakers.
There was nothing particularly impressive or special or even compelling about them on the whole.
However, the more I played with them, the more I started to appreciate just how simplistic their design was.
For one, while they did, on their face, appear as just standard speakers, their matte black finish gave them a sense of subtle uniqueness that helped them blend in my home Eris series studio pretty easily.
Not only that, but it also did well to protect against smudges and fingerprints.
Another bit that made me a bit more receptive to the speakers was their gentle dark blue speaker pulses that stood out against the black exterior.
This, along with the PreSonus logo that would illuminate when powered on, really helped give the speakers some life, both on their own as well as in relation to a computer speakers or DJ screen.
Taking A Deeper Look – Features & Sound Quality
Now that we’ve taken a look at the physicality of the speakers, let’s take a more thorough look at what the Eris E4.5 has to offer in terms of its features.
Sound Quality
As I said before, when I pulled out the PreSonus Eris E4.5, I wasn’t entirely impressed out of the gate. And, while I’m still not a fan of the simplistic design, it was clear that they were made Eris with some legitimate resilience and quality.
I say all that to say, that while my expectations surrounding the sound were similarly low, I was very pleasantly surprised the moment I heard what types of audio inputs could do.
No, they aren’t perfect by any means, however, they’ve got a great volume soundstage, pretty accurate feed audio, and can reach pretty far. They also are well-balanced with a fairly wide neutral response.]
And unlike some similarly priced studio monitors, Eris does allow you that control for flattening frequency response to carry out accurate audio interfaces.
What It Gets Right
The Eris E4.5, like many studio monitors at this size and strength level, has a very clear and defined range of high and mid-range frequencies. These come across as very clean and precise, with the subtle details coming across very strongly.
For example, you can hear the vocal and the instrumental playback on a level that is pretty incredible when you realize how you often will only notice this on much more powerful and capable both the speaker level sets.
Similarly, the speaker has some pretty expansive soundstage coverage.
While you’d ideally want to have it set up in a good sweet spot to get the full effect, I was able to put them down pretty much anywhere and still hear them in the next room.
If you can set it up with a generously placed sweet spot, you can reliably fill up the majority of a medium-sized room.
This factor becomes even better when you realize that they come with tuning options as well.
We’ll get into the tuning section a bit later, but the fact that you can tweak and play with the sound space legitimately makes these speakers something that gets a leg up on any other speaker that doesn’t, just off of that alone.
What It Doesn’t
Unfortunately, these are not a perfect set of monitors and some areas just do not work well. The biggest and most noticeable area is the low-end frequency ranges.
These usually aren’t so strong in smaller speakers and that is the case here as well.
You simply are not going to hit the same level of power in the bass as you would in the mids and the highs.
Now, don’t get me wrong. You can still get some pretty good hits in while customized listening experience to something at the lower ends. However, if you are expecting that deep resonance, where you can feel the fullness and warmth that comes from a track’s bass, you’re going to be disappointed.
And amazingly enough, that’s it for the drawbacks.
Again, I was legitimately expecting the highs to be a bit pitchy, with some coloring throughout, and some issues with the volume. Heck, based on their small size, I was also expecting that I’d pretty much have to be hovering over them to hear anything.
Instead, the only thing you’re going to have to worry about is investing in a subwoofer, which you’d probably end up doing no matter what speaker set you got.
Features Offered
Connection Options
The Eris E4.5 has a pretty good selection of input connection options. Its back sports both an RCA and a 1/4th-inch TRS input connection.
As the RCA and TRS inputs are unbalanced and balanced respectively, it gives the PreSonus speakers full flexibility coverage based on what you want to hook them to at that time.
Unbalanced inputs require close-range connections but are very common. Meanwhile, balanced inputs, while not as common, can be used at much further ranges without degrading the excellent sound quality.
The speaker’s response front panel comes with a 1/8-inch headphone jack port as well as a 1/8-inch auxiliary port. This makes connecting to your smartphone or media player all the better.
The Eris E4,5’s can comfortably be used for gaming, DJ use, content creation, or with a media player, mixer, or another line-level source.
This is easily done by using the Eris E4.5 speaker’s rear panel, ¼-inch TRS and RCA inputs, front panel, 1/8” stereo inputs.
A loud clear front-panel integrated headphone amplifier lets you work, mix and vibe in stealth mode, without disturbing your housemates late at night!
The E4.5 comes with a TRS to RCA cable converter as well as an additional dedicated TRS cable.
It should be noted that both TRS-based cables are built for the 1/8th inch TRS cable as opposed to the 1/4th-inch.
Tuning Options
In most cases, budget studio monitors often just don’t have any tuning abilities. It’s just too much of an acoustic demand for them and would generally require them to pump up the price to justify their inclusion.
As such, the fact that the PreSonus includes all of their large Eris models before now was already impressive. The fact that they’ve included it in the Eris E4.5 is downright incredible.
While they aren’t quite as robust as the higher-end options, the Eris E4.5 can tweak both the high and low-end frequencies, giving you a much better and more accurate sense of volume control over the sound.
When tuning your speakers, you’ll want to play them compared to your overall studio space to get the maximum effect.
Studio Magic
These PreSonus studio monitors also include a special edition of Studio Magic.
This is a suite of over $1000 USD worth of music software including Studio One Prime and a load of great fit included plug-ins, loops, FX, virtual instruments, and tutorials.
Plus, can also use them in any DAW you are currently using.
Final Thoughts – Is it Worth Your Time?
When deciding whether to buy the PreSonus Eris e4.5, you have to consider how good the sound quality is, how durable the speakers themselves are, and if the price warrants what you get.
In this case, you are quite simply getting sound and a speaker build that is worth way more than what you are spending for it.
That’s just a fact.
Yes, there are some things about the speakers that could be better. They are a bit too light for some while having a fairly weak low-end bass.
However, when you consider that those are the only things you have to contend with, it starts to make all of its good points stand out that much more.
Ultimately, when asking the question, “Are the PreSonus Eris E4.5 worth your time?” the answer is a resounding, “Absolutely, yes!” If you are starting, or looking for an inexpensive set of studio monitors, the Eris E4.5 are some of the great value for money out there.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Simplistic Design
- Incredibly Affordable
- Surprisingly Good Sound Quality
- Has a Neutral Sound Frequency Response
Cons
- Low-End Frequency is Not That Impressive
PreSonus Eris E4.5: The Verdict
The PreSonus Eris E4.5 models, at first glance, really didn’t seem like all that much. It came across as something that looked, quite frankly, like some of the cheap speakers.
However, as you get to play with them and test and tease them out for a bit, you come to realize that you really couldn’t be further from the truth.
While in no way a powerhouse set of speakers, in terms of the amount of money you’re spending, there really isn’t a better cost-to-value proposition out there, even when you start talking about the more expensive studio monitors on the market today.
Put simply, if you’re a beginner on a budget but want some solidly built speakers that have good neutrality and an impressive level of sound quality, you owe it to yourself to check these out first and foremost.
They may just be all you’ll really need.
