ProAc Future Series: A "Dead Dog" or just Dead??

Yeah, I did one of those "What the hell happened to those great little Pro...?" yells, too.

I'm a recording engineer and I have a pair of Future One's that are incredible. I beleive they are really true and could be used as reference speakers in a Mastering room. They ar every impressive speakers.

I really, really enjoyed the .5s on a Meridian 588, Rowland integrated with Shunyata cords, and Kimber wires at a dealer back in the day. Also put on the 2.5s in that room and sounded great, but the ribbon added tons of "air" to the highs.

Very synergistic, and I was close to going that direction.

Not sure you get much from going to 1s from .5s though as the drivers are the same, just a larger cabinet.

I discussed this range a while back with a dealer.
He said part of the problem was that all of the range did not give the perceived value that Proac usually do mainly because of their lack of actual weight (i.e in kgs)and basically potential buyers were put off.
He discussed this with the designer who was aware of this "problem" but all changes he made to the design messed up the sound apparently.
I don't think personally the shape helps from an aesthetic point of view and would depend if they looked right in your room.
In the UK there are the occassional pair that turns up at good prices,well for here anyway.
Having said all that I never heard anybody say they sounded bad quite the opposite but clearly they haven't sold as well as expected.

I have just recently tried out a second hand pair of Future 2's and was amazed by how good they were. While it's true that they look a bit strange there's nothing strange about how they sound which is nothing short of phenomenal. As to why they haven't hit their stride I can't say. The F2's cost a serious packet when they were new, perhaps more than 20k USD. So perhaps that's part of the reason. Another reason could be that they are a finicky product requiring just the right components to operate at optimum levels. Still, while in the shop we sampled the JMLab Nova Utopia Bes with Omega amps to boot and the difference was immediately noticeable. All the dimension, ambiance and clarity was washed straight down the pipe. The JM's sounded like a sick dog compared to the F2's. Sorry but that's just how it was. So, the JM/Omega system must cost upwards of 50k and sounded tight and sad. The F2's hooked up to a Counterpoint SA-5000 and Sonic Frontiers Power 2 Amp easily bested this pricey field. I'm just happy there's still a pair lying around for me.

JME