JBL One Series 104 £149

I’ll let fellow MusicTech reviewer John Pickford take the credit for noting a recent seismic and historical shift in studio-monitor quality. Our advice used to be to pay £1,000 or more for decent monitors, but recently, John noted that: “Advances in transducer technology, cabinet design, and on-board amplifiers have improved the performance of more affordable monitors beyond all expectations”. That, you might think, was a reasonably throwaway statement, but Pickford knows his stuff – I mean really knows his stuff. So much so that we usually give him the really expensive monitors to review at his Invada Studios – the prime place to line them up against other just-as-expensive options.

With ears like his, he can also tell if four-figure speakers really are worth the extra cash, for what can sometimes be just a fraction of a percent