David Kahne is a musician, composer, engineer, mixer, producer, A&R man, and music supervisor who, in one or more of these capacities, has worked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Lana del Rey, The Strokes, James Brown, Stevie Nicks, Sublime, Miley Cyrus, Paul McCartney, and many more artists. He also received a Grammy Award for Tony Bennett’s MTV Unplugged, which was the Album of the Year in 1994.

Here, Kahne talks about how he relies on his Equator Audio D8 studio monitors for much of his work and why he recently added a pair of the company’s D5 monitors:

“I have a studio at Avatar Studios. It’s a good size room, and I also have access to the big rooms when I need a large acoustic space for recording drums, orchestra, loud guitars, etc. I’ve been using Equator Audio’s D8 monitors for roughly a year and a half at this point and have been very impressed with their performance, which is why I recently added a pair of D5s. I use the D8s for both mixing and recording. I do have a bigger speaker set, but I spend a lot of time on the D8s because they’re so easy to listen to. With these speakers, there’s no listening fatigue and everything I mix on them translates really well to other playback mediums.”

“Currently, I’m working on a project for Motown Records that requires a very different kind of listening, which is staying true to what was recorded in the 60’s. Being coaxial design monitors, the D8s are great for this project, as most studios back then had coaxial monitors. I’m also using the D8s in my work with the rock band Walk off the Earth, a great group out of Toronto as well as Bad Rabbits from Boston, vocalist and instrumentalist Kate Davis from NYC, and vocalist Jena Rose from Dallas.”

When queried about those D8 traits that appeal most to him, Kahne commented: “Mostly, I like the way the midrange works with the D8s. It’s very clear and concise, and small changes are very audible. I must say that the bottom is really nice, too; it’s not hyped, so I’m not able to fool myself. As far as fatigue goes, I mentioned earlier that it’s very easy to listen to the Equator monitors for hours and not get tired. In my opinion, this is one of the great characteristics of coaxial speakers.”

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