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Monitor Audio Gold 100 (2019 revision) measurements by SoundStage/NRC

MZKM

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https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...dio-gold-100-loudspeakers&catid=77&Itemid=153
M.A.’s speaker measurements are all over the board, some are good and some are not, I don’t even know how they vary so much unless there are different designers.

For the far off-axis (45-75°), you can easily see the issue with crossing a 6.5” at 2.5kHz:
fr_456075.png

You also see that their AMT has pretty narrow dispersion.

At first I thought they maybe crossed that high due to distortion of the AMT (the RAAL ribbons don’t due too well at 2kHz for instance), but nope:
thd_90db.png

Besides the tiny blip at ~3400Hz the tweeter’s distortion doesn’t even show up in the 50dB window.

You can also see some weird happenings (related to the port?) at 500Hz, and looking at the response we do see that from the high frequencies going down, the SPL lowers at 500Hz and then gradually rises till 100Hz (the NRC chamber is only valid to around here).

<84dB sensitivity and 4ohm nominal also isn’t great.

This thing is $2300/pair by the way, at least it looks nice:
monitor-audio-gold-100-bookshelf-speakers-01-1200x1200.jpg


Here is the 2014-2018 version:
MAGX100_1_Zoom.jpg



These measurements are from last year, but I just found them, as another user asked me if I ever contacted Monitor Audio for comments on how they rate sensitivity (you can click my signature and go Manufacturer Comments in the Speaker Sensitivity tab for comments from other companies), but like B&W, you literally cannot contact the company, they simply refer you to your local dealers; so I went looking at measurements from other sites just to see, and the NRC got 83.32dB 300-3000Hz on the listening window, and this speaker is rated at 86dB @ 1W (I think they meant 2.83V, as this is for 4ohm, so 1W would be -3dB; so they are claiming 89dB @ 2.83V, which is +6dB from what the NRC got, but granted they use the listening window so it’s a bit lower than on-axis).
 
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MZKM

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Yeah, even the Bronze wasn’t as bad:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...dio-bronze-6-loudspeakers&catid=77&Itemid=153

And it has 87dB sensitivity.

The older (before 2014) GX100 was better:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...&catid=77:loudspeaker-measurements&Itemid=153
And ~87dB.

So the current model has worse FR/directivity (distortion is better) and more difficult to power. I wonder how the 2014 Gold 100 measured.
 

sjeesjie

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Pretty disappointed about this. I’m looking for replacements for my Silver 300s so the gold versions were the obvious choice but I think I’ll broaden the horizons a bit.
 

HooStat

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Pretty disappointed about this. I’m looking for replacements for my Silver 300s so the gold versions were the obvious choice but I think I’ll broaden the horizons a bit.
I think the Silvers are their best speaker, just based on some on-line searching and measurements I was looking at a while back.
 

DSJR

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Over here, MA speakers were regarded as 'Bling' for a particular nationwide dealer chain to put in their windows to gain interest. I never liked their metal cone equipped speakers but maybe they sorted it later on (the cheap Bronze 2's had a kind of 'pinched' sound to them and a now old 'five star' favourite had a kind of ccccchhhhhhh (as in Scottish 'loch') colouration further up. Not nice to my ears.
 
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Hi,

I was at NRC for the measurements of this speaker. I was also at Monitor Audio a few years back talking to them about their transition to an AMT. One of the things not talked about with ribbons is high distortion at fairly low frequencies -- on almost all the ribbon-based speaker we've measured, distortion starts rocketing up below 3kHz. So if you're crossing over below that, which most are, you're in trouble.

One of the engineers at MA told me he worked with various ribbon designs for two years to get distortion down before they gave up and went with AMTs. As you've noticed, the directivity is compromised in this design, but if you look at the floorstanding models, they have a cone midrange only about 3" across -- we haven't measured one of those, but I'd bet the directivity is much, much better.

Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
 

valerianf

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May be a dome tweeter is the good (old) choice.
There are a bunch of very good speakers that are using a dome tweeter.
I am nostalgic of the MA speakers using a dome tweeter.
 

Beave

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https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...dio-gold-100-loudspeakers&catid=77&Itemid=153
M.A.’s speaker measurements are all over the board, some are good and some are not, I don’t even know how they vary so much unless there are different designers.

The more-likely explanation is that business interests (ie, marketing) wanted a two-way bookshelf with the 6" woofer and the AMT tweeter, and engineering did the best they could to make it work.

Also noteworthy is that the impedance is very difficult in the crossover region - magnitude low at the same time as the phase angle is highly negative.
 
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MZKM

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The more-likely explanation is that business interests (ie, marketing) wanted a two-way bookshelf with the 6" woofer and the AMT tweeter, and engineering did the best they could to make it work.

Also noteworthy is that the impedance is very difficult in the crossover region - magnitude low at the same time as the phase angle is highly negative.
Right, but looking at the distortion, I wonder if they could have crossed at 2kHz instead of 2.5kHz.
 

Beave

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Hi,

I was at NRC for the measurements of this speaker. I was also at Monitor Audio a few years back talking to them about their transition to an AMT. One of the things not talked about with ribbons is high distortion at fairly low frequencies -- on almost all the ribbon-based speaker we've measured, distortion starts rocketing up below 3kHz. So if you're crossing over below that, which most are, you're in trouble.

One of the engineers at MA told me he worked with various ribbon designs for two years to get distortion down before they gave up and went with AMTs. As you've noticed, the directivity is compromised in this design, but if you look at the floorstanding models, they have a cone midrange only about 3" across -- we haven't measured one of those, but I'd bet the directivity is much, much better.

Doug Schneider
SoundStage!

The Gold 300, with the small midrange, were measured by Stereophile here Gold 300 Stereophile

Impedance looks much more friendly, and there doesn't seem to be any big directivity problem, though the output does narrow more than I would expect for such a small midrange driver (maybe because it's recessed into a small 'waveguide?')
 

thewas

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Personally would like to see some more detailed measurements and reviews of the current (6th generation) Bronze 100 as it has an 8" midwoofer which is rare for a passive standmount and the measurements here don't look too bad for its price class.
The German reviewers here also like it more than some Dali, Nubert and Magnat competitors in this price class, maybe an interesting alternative to the here in ASR positively reviewed ELAC DBR-62 and Focal Chora 806 / Aria 906 in the same price range with possibly more bass and SPL reserves.
 
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Anterantz

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Yeah, even the Bronze wasn’t as bad:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...dio-bronze-6-loudspeakers&catid=77&Itemid=153

And it has 87dB sensitivity.

The older (before 2014) GX100 was better:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...&catid=77:loudspeaker-measurements&Itemid=153
And ~87dB.

So the current model has worse FR/directivity (distortion is better) and more difficult to power. I wonder how the 2014 Gold 100 measured.
Hi there, if someone can help me I have a configuration of gold100, c150 and gold50 with an arcam avr20 and I notice that I have to turn up the volume a lot to get a fairly powerful sound.

I see the gx100 series sensitivity was
86.6db but at 2.83v / 1m, does this mean -3db for 1w / 1m or would it be 89.6db at 1w / 1m or 83.6db?

Am I very involved with this?
 
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MZKM

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Hi there, if someone can help me I have a configuration of gold100, c150 and gold50 with an arcam avr20 and I notice that I have to turn up the volume a lot to get a fairly powerful sound.

I see the gx100 series sensitivity was
86.6db but at 2.83v / 1m, does this mean -3db for 1w / 1m or would it be 89.6db at 1w / 1m or 83.6db?

Am I very involved with this?
The sensitivity of the Gold 100 is close to 83dB, the average speaker is around 86dB, so the Gold 100 need around 2x the wattage to get as loud.
So moving the speakers closer to you and sitting closer to the speakers would be the easiest way to increase the loudness.
 

Anterantz

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The sensitivity of the Gold 100 is close to 83dB, the average speaker is around 86dB, so the Gold 100 need around 2x the wattage to get as loud.
So moving the speakers closer to you and sitting closer to the speakers would be the easiest way to increase the loudness.
Sorry, do not specify that my golds are the gx series, I have acquaintances with silver300 and avr10 to say that they do not go up from a volume of 50/55 for music and cinema with large rooms and I have a small room 10m2 and I have to be around 65 from
volume with an avr20.

And then he explained to me if the problem was that my gold is 3db harder and therefore requires more energy than the one known with the silver300, I have plenty of power but I do not understand with a smaller room and an avr
more powerful I have to climb more than him. And it already makes me wonder if my arcam may be broken.
 

Anterantz

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I still have doubts, if the gx100 measured 86.6db at 2.83v / 1m it means that at 1w / 1m they are 83.6, right?
 

ad_fletch

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have a pair of Bronze 100s here waiting to be measured. We published the review already..
So I can see DS from SoundStage isn't here any more, but I'm intrigued by the NRC measurements of the Bronze 100.

Hi-fi News has measured them as impressively flat too, although they did note a resonance around 30kHz (!)

The "C-CAM" tweeter with integrated waveguide seems to be the same as that in the higher Silver models, and the overall design has a lot of attention to detail (port flare treatment for example).

They are very well priced here in Australia (1/3 the price of Aria 906 and 3/5 the price of DBR62).

Would be great to see how they go on the Klippel if anyone has a pair to send Amir.
 

VintageFlanker

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Would be great to see how they go on the Klippel if anyone has a pair to send Amir
Or any Monitor Audio for what matters. For exemple, new Silver range looks very promising. Subjectively, I always liked their products and was a big fan of previous Silver and Gold series.
 
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