Does anybody own Monitor Audio speakers?

[andy13]

i am looking for good quality speakers in the 1000$$ range. Any suggestions? Monitor Audio any good? Strictly for 2 channel stereo.

[anamorphic96]

Monitor Audio is a great speaker company. The Silver 6's are killer at 999.00. If you want to spend less check out the B2 or B4 from the Bronze series.

Cheers,
Glenn

[dongrod]

Monitor Audio is a great speaker company. The Silver 6's are killer at 999.00. If you want to spend less check out the B2 or B4 from the Bronze series.

Cheers,
Glenn

Do you think MA B2 will be great with NAD receivers? I understand that NAD receiver is on neutral side and the MA is a bit on the forward side. Do you think theres a punch with this combo?

Thanks

[anamorphic96]

They work perfectly well together. Absolute Sound reviewed the B2's with the NAD 320BEE with great results.

Glenn

[fahertyps]

They work perfectly well together. Absolute Sound reviewed the B2's with the NAD 320BEE with great results.

Glenn

I bought the B2 a few months back while looking for a smallish book shelf speaker and at teh recommendation of several folks in this Forum. I am very happy with them. Currenlty powered by a Denon 2 Ch. Give the guys at Saturday Audio (Chicago) a call. He was very cometitive and knowledgeable.

SF

[Lensman]

i am looking for good quality speakers in the 1000$$ range. Any suggestions? Monitor Audio any good? Strictly for 2 channel stereo.

I don't own any MAs, but I recently auditioned a pair of Silver S1s which are right in your range and was extremely taken with them. I compared them with offerings from Paradigm, Vienna Acoustics, B&W, Focal/JMLab, PSB, and Polk. Though they didn't throw a particularly wide soundstage, they did throw the deepest one. They were also not as warm as the other speakers - going more for being precise. In this they excel. They are exceptionally clean, fast and tight and were easily the most detailed speakers of the group. Case in point: on an Enya song I was auditioning with, I could actually tell her mouth was slightly dry from the slight pop I could hear as her lips seperated when she opened her mouth. I'd never noticed this on the oher speakers. It was this level of detail that ultimately turned me away from them for Paradigms. I just felt I had too many sub-par recordings that would become unlistenable on speakers so exceptionally revealing. Though I can also hear this on the Paradigms, it isn't nearly as prominent. Monitor Audio's are well worth an audition, it was a real struggle for me not to buy them.

[RGA]

Good speakers don't ruin recordings - this notion of revealing - STOP! Think maybe the speakers are revealing themselves as the culprit - no one mentions this and it is more than likely the case.

[drseid]

While I don't own any MA speakers, I do like the brand and I am sure you would be happy with them.

That said, there are a couple other speakers in that price range I feel you should seek out before pulling the MA trigger...

The first will be hard to find... They are the Opera Audio Consonance Eric-1s at a retail price of $995/pr. My advice is to definitely listen to these first, as they are my personal benchmark for what a 1K or less speaker should sound like. You can find some pics, specs, and request dealer locations at www.operaudio.com

Close behind them (and more commonly available) are the Linn Katans at $995/pr. retail as well. These are some tremendous performers in the price range and have a very good fit and finish.

Finally, at a lower price point, you could do a 21 day home audition of the Freedom F1 speakers from Tyler Acoustics at $525/pr. sold Internet direct only through the Tyler Acoustics web site at www.tyleracoustics.com

The Freedom F1s are giant killers that have superb build quality at a budget price. Only negative is they are Internet direct, so you would have to incur the return shipping costs to Tyler if you want to return them (but shipping costs to send these back are probably only $30, or so, so the monetary risk is relatively low)...

Any of the above I feel will do an even better job than MA at this price point, but if you go with the MAs, I don't think you will be disatisfied.

---Dave

[Olivertmc]

I have Monitor Audio B1's and love them. They are very similar to the B2's but with less bass output (I use the B1's with a small sub). They are great speakers, and I'm constantly surprised by the quality of sound they produce. I have them paired with an old Teac receiver (in dire need of upgrading) and they still sound great.

[LVMF]

I currently am have the Gold 10's that I'm demo'ing...the S2's were nice for HT, but not for HiFi stereo. After listening for 2 weeks, I'm getting tired of the 'sterile' sound IMHO...

[dudeman]

i am looking for good quality speakers in the 1000$$ range. Any suggestions? Monitor Audio any good? Strictly for 2 channel stereo.

I've had my bronze b2's for 3 months now and they continue to impress. I replaced my larger, early '90's Bostons, with these and can't believe what I was missing in the way of depth. The Bostons had plenty of detail, but no real low-end and a narrower soundstage.

I noticed that the b2's were using more power than the Boston's so I bi-amped them with my two old Luxman 60 watt receivers and I am even more impressed with them.

With your budget I suppose you can do better but I imagine that the last $600 you spend on a set of bookshelfs will get you about a 5% improvement in quality -- serious diminishing return. If it were me I would spend the extra cash on a subwoofer.