HOME CINEMA CHOICE SEPTEMBER 2019
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You might think these obvious ground rules for
any operation wanting to sell a lot of speakers, but it’s
surprising how many display a bias one way or the other.
It isn’t simply a matter of ensuring your drive unit
integration is seamless and tonal character consistent in
the round but, more tellingly, a question of presentational
personality. And it’s here the Essex-based company
frequently seems to steal a march on its rivals.
The Monitor Audio ‘house sound’ is geared to please
a lot of people a lot of the time by giving them what they
want and not some notion of ‘correct’ concocted by a
bunch of technicians in white lab coats. This means deep
bass of good quality and plenty of it; the kind of clarity that
allows listeners to separate what’s going on and hear every
detail eff ortlessly; refi ned treble with air and defi nition;
the ability to go loud and hit hard yet resolve a pin drop;
a spacious soundstage with solid and stable imaging; ease
of drive and, to top things off , a luxurious standard of build,
fi nish and engineering. It can’t be a matter of luck that
these assets appeal just as powerfully to music purists
and fi lm fanatics alike. Along with mainstream
competitors Bowers & Wilkins and KEF, Monitor Audio has
evolved a sonic profi le designed to compete and seduce.
It’s as simple as that.Metal mayhem
We’re probably all familiar with Monitor Audio’s Bronze/
Silver/Gold/Platinum model hierarchy so, with this Gold 5.1
package, we’re surfi ng close to the company’s best game.
Revised for a fi fth generation (it was previously retooled in
2014), the new Gold lineup has slimmed down to just one
centre speaker (the £1,100 Gold C250) rather than two in
the superseded range. This is joined by the £1,700 Gold FX
bipole/dipole surrounds, the £2,100 Gold W12 subwoofer
and, for this setup, the £4,000 Gold 300, which is the larger
of two three-way fl oorstanders.
The 300s are substantial items and pack plenty of
trickle-down driver technology from the company’sMonitor Audio isn’t a speaker maker catering chiefl y to music lovers
that does pretty well with home cinema all things considered. Nor
is it a company packing multichannel cred that nevertheless makes
a decent enough fi st of hi-fi. If you can detect the slightest hint of
compromise in either direction, MA reckons it hasn’t done its job.
44 MONITOR AUDIO GOLD 5.1/£8,9 00
David Vivian is smitten by the looks, build quality
and sonic delivery of this premium 5.1 combo
The Gold
standard
PRODUCT:
5.1-channel
fl oorstander/dipole
speaker system
POSITION:
One rung below
MA’s Platinum II
flagship range
PEERS:
Bowers &Wilkins
700 Series 5.1;
PMC Twenty5.23 5.1AV I NF O
- MA's distinctive
MPD ribbon tweeters
are found across
the Gold range