Quote Originally Posted by oddeoowphil38
Kex, I was very suspicious of the 8" driver just as you are BUT after listening to the Monitor 3 IMHO they are at least to me better sounding. True the midrange was a lil tighter and more controlled on the mini but not by much. The mini sounded a lil strained listening to the same material at the same volume level and in the same environment. I went back a forth all afternoon yesterday doing several A/B comparisons. The monitor 3 presented a much larger sound stage and remained very well behaved. It was the closest to the Studio 20 that I have heard to this point. Sure the 20 was better in every respect especially imaging but what amazed me more was it being a smaller speaker than the monitor 3 yet still outperformed it. As you know I am no expert but I was extremely impressed with both the studio 20 and the monitor 3. Have never heard the monitor 5 so have no opinion either way. To me, the towers did not offer any significant advantages over the monitor 3 other than a little bass extension. Guess I prefer a bookshelf type of speaker over towers---too bad I am discovering this now......lol. Anyways, thanks for the input.
Phil
What you heard in those 3's is exactly why I have been recommending them for a couple of years now. They are not as good as the 20's but for the best bang for the buck, the 3's stand up well. I almost bought the 3's two years ago. They performed extremely well in HT set to small crossed over at 80 hz. But I decided on buying the 7's. For HT the 7's were minimaly better at best then the 3's but for 2-channel music, they simply just play louder, cleaner and more detailed then the 3's. At medium to high volumes the 3's can do well against the 7's, but at very high volumes, the 7's leave the 3's behind. There is no replacement for displacement, the 7's with the dual 6.5's and a much bigger box then the 3's, well you can see where I'm going with this. But even though I was going back and forth on buying the 3's or 7's I knew I was getting a great speaker at a great price.