After more than nine years at Finland’s longest-running studio complex, serving some of the country’s leading artists, mastering engineer Daniel Hagström opened his own room in 2023. He also took the opportunity to switch his monitor allegiance, a leap of faith that was rewarded when his first project was approved without revision.

His choice was a pair of Amphion Two18 and BaseTwo25 bass extension system powered by Amphion amplifiers. ‘It was time to spread my wings and try something new and fresh,’ he says.

Hagström’s new room is in a in a creative and cultural district of Helsinki that houses other audio producers and creatives, including the studios of Universal Music Finland. ‘What I left behind was the room and the speakers, so everything changed at once,’ he reflects. ‘That’s a dangerous thing for a mastering engineer, but everything worked out very well.’

He had heard Amphion monitors at other facilities, and was able to make a direct comparison to another set of loudspeakers at an industry party. As luck would have it, they were set up next to the same brand of speakers that he was using at the time. ‘I could instantly switch between speaker systems, so I played some of my masters and what my attention was attracted to was the speed of the Amphions, the low end and the resolution,’ he says.

‘For some reason, they felt more straightforward and natural to me. When switching to the other system, I could feel the low end slowing down a bit. That was initially why I got interested; I felt like I would be able to handle the low end so much better with the resolution of the Amphions. I decided there and then that if I were to ever have a new room and change speakers this is the first set I would try.’

He already had the rest of his equipment set up when the loudspeakers were delivered, but was about to leave for a weekend trip and had yet to hear anything in the room other than people talking…

‘I was so stressed,’ he says. ‘When you construct a studio you never truly know how it sounds until you put a loudspeaker in it, even if you have done all the simulations. And I was coming back on from my trip Monday to my first mastering job at 10am.’

With only minutes before he had to leave, he put on a familiar song and briefly listened to the speakers and the room: ‘That was a huge relief,’ he says. ‘When I returned, I played one reference track then started mastering. And version number one was approved, with no revisions.

He built his first studio in a garage, tinkering with tape machines, old synths and software downloaded from the internet, and then went on to become a composer, producer and engineer working in film, theatre and video games. These days, he focuses on mastering, working with clients including Gettomasa, Costi, JVG, Mikael Gabriel, BESS, Juha Tapio, Nublu, Justinas Jarutis, Bauer Media and X-Factor Finland.

Working with Amphion speakers has changed Hagström’s approach to monitoring while mastering. ‘Before, when I was working with DSP-based speakers, I always used to measure and fine tune. Now I have taken the approach of listening in a new environment with new speakers and reacting to what they tell me. I don’t think about the room or the response. I do what I think needs to be done, print the master and send it out. That is what changed, and it works amazingly well.’

Although he is first and foremost a mastering engineer, Hagström is also known for his work on the soundtrack for Mediatonic’s successful battle royale video game Fall Guys, which has attracted upwards of 50m players.

More: https://amphion.fi