ESI nEAR i5 Aktiver Studiomonitor

This is an honest opinion on the ESI Near i5 in comparison
to Presonus Eris Studio 5, Studimon5 amongst other brands
I used to own.
To be clear, these sound the best to my ear albeit their
maximum SPL level is clearly on the lower end.
However, they have a very clean low bass. No, not a bass-
monster, but honest low bass without cabinet vibrations
and well defined mid bass and lower bass registers.
Physics is usually the limiting factor. A 5" driver can
only go that low and that's it. Unless massive DSP correction
and beefy output stages coupled with superb drivers are
used.
But then you clearly leave the realm of affordable monitors.
I like their compact size and frequency response across the
whole spectrum. But I really like that the higher registers
are not aggressive at all, yet provide enough definition
and clarity. My Eris Studio 5's are way more aggressive there
which led to unpleasant playback of my full scale 88 stage
piano. Especially when hitting the notes quite hard in the
higher octaves. No matter the settings. Way too aggressive
to my ears at least. Plus the Eris Studio 5 though having quite
a massive bass foundation their signal fidelity was not so nice.
Too muddy in the bass register, but plenty of oompff.
What I find very practical on the ESI Near i5 is their built
in peak indicator within the orange power LED. That way I could
adjust on both of them the max. level when peaking and dialed
down a tad on the input level control to avoid unpleasant peaks,
when going crazy on my piano or controller.
I wish ESI had also configured the TLR input as balanced instead
of unbalanced. Only the XLR input is balanced. That being said,
I was surprised how low the noise level is on the unbalanced input.
Also the susceptibility to radio noise (e.g. phone or nearby
laptop) is very low. Very good immunity against radio waves. My
Eris Studio 5 had a serious problem there and I had to keep my
phone and laptop quite some distance away from them.
Now, how do they compare to Palmer's Studimon 5? Ok, the palmers
have seriously more power and go way louder. However, no DSP fine-
tuning there, bass port on the backside which made it difficult for
proper positioning and even worse quite some case resonances at
higher SPL levels. That had surprised me of the Palmers honestly.

I wish ESI would make a matching subwoofer. I know they have the
Aktiv 10s which is quite an older type subwoofer. Come on ESI,
make a matching 8" subwoofer with that orange driver please. The
10s is simply too big.

So, in my opinion give the ESI Near i5 (or its bigger brothers)
a try. For me they ticked a lot of boxes for that price.