MONITOR AUDIO GOLD 300
Floorstanding loudspeakers
Look at what your competitors have and get inspired. Listen to you customers and get inspired. Review your own ideas and implement those that are relevant. Dress up the final product into an Armani suit. And here we have the Gold 300.
Function and form
The Gold 300s are slim and handsome speakers that feature several clever technical solutions. The C-CAM tweeter (Ceramic-Coated Aluminium Magnesium) is a ribbon transducer capable to reach 60kHz. The midrange and bass drivers (1x10cm and 2x16cm cones) are from the very same material, with coils attached from rear so they are invisible. Monitor Audio claims better excursion control with this improvement. The drivers are not mounted into the baffle, rather they are fixed by a single bolt to the rear wall of enclosure. Monitor Audio claims better de-coupling of the drivers from the baffle, plus higher rigidity of the cabinets that are made from 2cm thick MDF boards. Sensitivity is 90dB, impedance is 8 ohms and frequency response is 30 Hz - 60 kHz on paper. I found the 30Hz to be rather optimistic - looks like this value is -6dB point. Binding posts are mounted into a die-cast alloy terminal panel, internal wiring uses silver wires and a rear-firing bassreflex port fights turbulencies via spiral grooves.
It seems there was a lot of attention to detail when designing the Gold 300. The finish is flawless - the Monitor Audio are among the few speakers that can challenge Sonus Faber in the craftsmanship. My eyes got tons of visual stimulations, so what about aural stimulations?
Bass management
The Monitor Audio had very authoritative bottom end. Their bass was maybe not as weighty and big as with larger speakers, but it was very dynamic and it had nice slam factor. Don't expect just some fancy voicing for pop music - timpanis in orchestral pieces were nicely outlined and dynamically rich, the double bass in Diana Krall's Live in Paris was beautifully articulated with no boominess or overhang. I also liked electric bloom of a warm and rounded bass guitar in Chris Isaak's Wicked Game.
Clarity & delicacy
The Gold 300 masterfully balanced the thin line of transparency, detail, airiness and sonic richness. And extremely transparent speakers the Gold 300s were, though in longer listening sessions I missed a smidgen of textural detail. Still it was par excellence sound. I assume that many of these virtues are due to the well integrated ribbon tweeter which needs a bit of optimization in the listening room. I had the best results (the listening room was rather standard 17m2) with the speakers 1.2 meters from the front wall with only minimum toe-in.
Tonal accuracy
When I listened to Mummy soundtrack I found the Gold 300s to be on the lighetr and more brilliant side of neutrality. This contributed well to brass which were just brilliant and exciting through the Monitor Audios. Also percussive tranzients were precisly articulated. I tried to torment the Gold 300s with a special tracks selection to reveal that they actually were unbearably piercing but they never were. The Gold 300s were just extremely upfront in highs but never crossing the line. The transition from the highs to mids was seamless, the ribbon tweeter was not a separate entity, rather a past of the whole.
Still, the upper tilt which is a kind of signature for all ribbon tweeter designs made Son Seals' raspy voice a tad lighter and more throaty, rather than chesty. This way or presentation reminded me of what I used to hear from Danish Raidho speakers.
Spatial resolution
The soundstage of the Monitor Audio Gold 300s was nicely layered, wide and deep. The image focus was pinpoint, it was easy to locate individual instruments and instrumental groups within the soundstage. When traditional instruments were combined with synthesized sounds (like in the Mummy soundtrack) it was easy to discern the three-dimensional richness of acoustic instruments from the one-dimensional artificial sounds.
Recommended resellers
Horizon Trading Prague, Praha, +420 222 715 959
222715959
Manufacturer's website: http://www.monitoraudio.co.uk
Associated components
- Sources: Luxman D-03 SACD
- Amplifiers: Luxman L-590AX
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Rapport, Telos Audio Black Reference
- Power conditioning: Gigawatt PF-1 distributor with Gigawatt power cord, Supra LoRad
Gallery
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