Pair of Tannoy Reveal 402 powered studio monitors in excellent condition.

These are excellent little nearfield monitors for anyone who wants an honest, balanced, easy-to-listen-to reference without the fatigue that can come from more aggressive studio monitors.

One particularly nice thing about this pair: they are exceptionally quiet at idle. There is no distracting hiss or hum when you're sitting in front of them with no signal. This is something worth mentioning because some Reveal 402 owners have reported audible background hiss or hum with their speakers. That is not an issue with this pair.

The Reveal 402 is also a very good monitor for low-level listening and mixing. At modest volume, they make it easy to hear how instruments are sitting against one another and to make decisions about vocal level, guitar, keyboards, percussion and other midrange elements without your ears getting worn out.

Put on a well-produced reference CD or familiar recording and you'll find the 402s present a fairly balanced and natural picture of the music, with a smooth, non-fatiguing character. As you'd expect from a compact 4-inch monitor, they don't reproduce the deepest low bass with the authority of a larger 6.5-inch monitor or subwoofer. That's actually part of what makes them useful as a secondary reference: if your mix sounds balanced and translates well on a small monitor like this, you're getting valuable information about the midrange and overall balance.

Why the Reveal 402 makes a great secondary monitor

• Excellent for low-level listening
• Smooth, non-fatiguing sound
• Good midrange clarity for balancing instruments
• Useful as a secondary mix reference
• Compact footprint — easy to place on a desktop or console
• Quiet operation at idle — no objectionable hiss or hum with this pair
• Built-in amplification — no external power amp required
• Excellent for home studios, project studios, editing suites and casual critical listening

Condition

Excellent condition. These have been well cared for and are clean and fully functional. The drivers, cabinets and controls are all in very good shape.

Most importantly, this pair runs very quietly at idle. Connect your source, turn up your monitoring level and you'll appreciate having a clean, quiet background when you're working.

If you're looking for a compact, musical and forgiving monitor that you can listen to for hours, the Reveal 402 is a very good choice. They're especially useful for producers and engineers who already have larger monitors but want a smaller reference that tells you something different about the mix.

A great little monitor for the money — and an excellent addition to a serious studio monitoring setup.