classical label monitors

Perusing pro-audio magazines, books, and web sites it appears that the qualities searched for in a monitor include (1) accuracy (2) resolution so as not to miss flaws (3) reproducible settings when working with the same monitor in another setting and (4) lack of fatigue - so that one can work for many hours.

I see B&W mentioned a lot in CD booklets.

It depends upon the type of music being mixed and assumptions about how it will be played back. For classical it's usually mixed for accuracy. It's similar for jazz. For pop, rap, modern country it can be very different and "compromise" mixes are more common. Remember, large amounts of music is now experienced in a digitally compressed format, a digitally compressed format accompanying video on a computer, thru very cheap headphones, as part of a video game, etc. It really doesn't make that much sense for an artist/producer/engineer to produce highly dynamic, wide frequency music when that's the case.

It's also worth noting that the VERY FIRST thing many (and, I suspect, most of the modern, decently capitalized) studios look for in a monitor is XLR connectivity. They're set up this way for many reasons (the performance advantages of active, balanced speaker designs being only one of them), including reliability, compatibility, and simple legacy. A lot of the pro speakers out there leave much to be desired sonically, so the ATC (a pretty fine product by any measure) stands even taller in that crowd. IMHO the ATC are excellent products, but choosing a home loudspeaker and a studio monitor are, more often than not, two very different excersizes, unless you use active speakers at home. Not that that's a bad idea - just rare.

There are certain applications where passive monitors do pop up in studios (sometimes on the older consoles) and they can be almost anything.

Marty

The PMC website has an impressive "key client list". Not sure how many are classical labels. Funny, they list Polygram New York. Hmmm.
Interesting list.