From the R952MD I reviewed in January 1988 to the Silver 500 7G reviewed by Rob Schryer in February 2022, Monitor Audio speakers have offered excellent sound quality and high-quality engineering. So when I was offered the company's Platinum 300 3G for review, I readily agreed. Having lived with standmounts and mini-monitors for the past year, I felt it would be good to spend some time with a pair of large, full-range, three-way floorstanders.
The Platinum 300 3G
With its elegant-looking enclosure featuring a gently curved front baffle and sidewalls and a concave rear panel, and its drive unit array of folded ribbon tweeter, 4" midrange unit, and two 8" woofers, Monitor Audio's Platinum 300 3G looks very similar to the Platinum PL300 II loudspeaker that Robert Deutsch reviewed in November 2016. Those speakers cost $14,496/pair back then; the 3Gs cost $17,900/pair, which, adjusted for inflation, is a lower price than that of its predecessor.
There are significant differences, however, all intended to reduce distortion and increase driver bandwidths. The new Micro Pleated Diaphragm (MPD) III tweeter, a variant of the Heil Air Motion Transformer (AMT), was developed for Monitor Audio's 50th Anniversary flagship Hyphn loudspeaker. The crossover from the midrange unit is set at 3kHz, and the tweeter's passband is said to extend to above 60kHz compared to >40kHz for a typical AMT tweeter. Monitor Audio's downloadable brochure mentions a gentle rise on-axis to maximize high-frequency detail. The square tweeter diaphragm is surrounded with a waveguide to control directivity.
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Michael Des Barres and the Art of Aural Obsession
Listening to music inspires us to take action. Upon hearing an I.E.-Instant Earworm-we must then determine the best way we can go about listening to it again (and again) at our convenience.
PLANET OF SOUND
BLACK FRANCIS ON HARNESSING THAT MAGIC PIXIES DUST
T+A R 2500 R STREAMING RECEIVER PHONO MODULE
In my review of the T+A R 2500 R receiver (August 2024 issue), I covered many of its features and took as deep a dive as time and column inches allowed.
Audia Flight FLS10
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp.
Totem Acoustic Element Fire V2
Totem Acoustic was founded in 1987, in Montreal, Canada, by a former high school math teacher named Vince Bruzzese. The company's first product, the Model 1 loudspeaker,' impressed me so much I bought a pair.
MoFi Electronics MasterDeck
Get two mouthy jazz drummers in a room and watch the sparks fly. Talented turntable designer Allen Perkins, the brain behind Spiral Groove,2 Immedia's RPM turntables,³ and various SOTA models, is first and foremost a jazz drummer.
Soulution 727
AImost 14 years have passed since a review of a Soulution product appeared in the pages of Stereophile.\"
The Spin Doctor checks out the Kuzma Safir 9, a superarm from Slovenia.
The British audio scene from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s was pretty strange. Audio as a hobby was a big deal, with widespread appeal to a much younger crowd than today. Audiophiles were guided by a flurry of what my friends called \"hi-fi pornos,\" audio magazines that filled the racks at the newsagents.
Alex goes to Japan
Arriving in Japan from the United States is like being turned upside down. This condition lasts for much of the first week. When I visited in November, the time difference between Tokyo and New York was 14 hours. \"The floating world\" is a term for the pleasure-addled urban culture of Edo-period Japan, but it's also an apt description for the twilit and not-entirely-unpleasant weirdness of first arriving in Tokyo. Everything seems slightly unreal.
Wilson Audio Specialties The WATT/Puppy
Since the original WATT/Puppy concept kicked off in the late 1980s,' there has been a 40-year evolution leading to the latest version reviewed here.
