Sound, Imaging, Clarity, Beautiful Finish

NONE!!!

This was by far the best purchase I've made in months. I am so proud of my Monitor 5s, 3s, center 10, and the asw210 sub. They complete my home theater to the T. I've read some of the reviews posted on this forum and a lot of them were negative. I can't understand that!! The sound is absolutely amazing. The imaging is fantastic as well. I'm pretty sure I am past the break in period of 60 hours. Actually I know I am because every time I listen to them, I am again amazed by the clarity of the sound. Crystal. For example I just watched Sleep Hollow and the sound of the horse hoofs clapping throughout the whole film was amazing. Crystal!! What really impressed me was the quality of the finish. I went with the cherry and they look grand. Goes nice with the hard wood floors. So I wonder if you guys got a bad batch of Monitors. Mine rock and I highly recommend them!! I

Musical bass, neutral mids and very nice highs. Beautiful finish (cherry)

Still none

Bought a month ago as recommended by local audio guys and reviwes from internet. Beautifully made, terrific finish ( I choose cherry). Sound just from the box was terrible (metallic and heavily distorted), but magically hour by hour they start to show everything I never heard from my CDs. What really amazed me - that is trully musical bass , very clean, very tight,very I would say mathematical. Santana's Supernatural excited me with magical bass and 80's guitar style. But if you like heavy and quick rock -those loudspeakers are not for you - sound a little distorted at mids and highs ( I can't listen to the Cure's Bloddflowers - may be disk was poorely mastered).

Image, tight bass, beautiful matched cabinets, dynamic

No real Low bass, but they're only 5 1/4"

I hate to say "for the bucks". I'd rather say that these are really good at any price but at a grand, they're a steel. The cabinets are some of the best I've seen and the soundstage, depth and freq balance blew me away.
They may not have thunder bass, but there's more to life than bass and I have a good sub anyway.
Most of the reviews agree below. I can only guess that the few that gave them a poor review have heard them on substandard electronics. I'm using the B&K Ref 20 and 7250 amp and it's one of the best combo's I've heard to date.
Wish they had ten stars

Similar Products Used:

Dyn, B&W

Build quality, looks ....clear, precise imaging.

Need tweaks for optimum performance

Just getting these broken in and I feel the 5i are beginning to show what they really can do. At first, a direct comparison had them far behind my old JBL's in depth, sound quality and strength. I have removed the tweet screens, mass loaded, raised them on stands to put the tweet at ear level and changed the placement several times. Then I bi-amped them. Yammy 2095 driving the tweets and Marantz ma500 driving the mids. I usually run these on large just to get them broken in. They are matched with the 31 (rears), center 10, and asw110 sub. This is a great setup with the 3i actually coming to life before the 5i. They are now equal to the JBL's on HT but are still behind in the music dept. They are much better than the Maggies, and about the same as the Energy RVS. I have read many great reviews on these and that's why I bought them. Now I just keep hoping I will be more impressed as the days go by.

Similar Products Used:

Energy, JBL, Magnepan

Very accurate speakers with a large soundstage. Highs are very sweet, airy and extended, mid range is very full, lows are tight and tuneful with respectful output for a 5.5 driver. Detail, detail detail is amazing!!! Vocal reproduction is very smooth and realistic, and the cabinets are well built, and are very appealing.

Warning!!! This speakers are very sensative and sound very bright, flat, sibilant etc. with the wrong electronics. Receiver's will not "cut the mustard" for music. Not only do the electronics you're using have to be of good quality, but they have to be warm and laid back or these speakers WILL sound bright!!! That includes the CP source, pre-amp, amps, and cables. Bad recordings will sound bad because of this speakers incredible accuracy - may not suit everyone.

I've lived with these speakers since November 99, ad it's taken me a long time to find the right electronics to complement them. At first, I was trying to achieve good sound with a Panasonic A120U DVD player for my CD source a Denon 3300 receiver, and lower end Monster Cable. After the 5i's broke in, they sounded better but I wasn't achieving the proper imaging, and they still sounded very flat, thin, with allot of brightness(they spike around 10khz) and extra sibilance in voices. There were numorous times I wanted to sell them but I heard from many people that the 5i's needed the proper electronics, so I decided to keep the speakers an upgrade the rest of my system.

I knew that I needed to find some laid back, warm qaulity electronics mosty to roll off the 10khz spike the 5i's produce, but I didn't have a ton of $ to spend, and I didn't want to sacrifice much detail either.

First, I upgraded to a an AH Tjoeb 99 CDP, and I bought some Siemen's 7308 tubes because they were known for being warm with added bass. Then I upgraded all of my cables to Custom House Barracuda and Benchmark II - EXCELLENT quality for the money... they really smoothed things out and took some of the edginess off the highs. Third, I added a Chang Lightspeed line conditioner, and this really lifted my soundstage and cleaned things up. Before the Chang, it seemed like my system would sound better at different times, possibly due to RFI, etc. Fourth, I added a Radio Shack PA stereo amp(designed by Adcom) and right then... I noticed the 5i's were really opening up - everything improved!

Recently, I sold the RS amp and bought an EAD Powermaster 500 5 channel amp. I'm still using the Denon 3300, but only as a pre-amp and the EAD's amps are far superior! The EAD lends a very warm, laid back sound to the 5i's, and the highs are sweet, extended and detailed without the brightness or sibilance. The imaging and mid range(especially in the vocals) has improved over 100% since my origial set-up. I'm fully happy with these speaker now; however, they challenge you to find perfectly-matching electronics so they won't be right for everyone.

Don't be afraid to throw a ton of power at these speakers. Even though they are rated at 8 ohms, and their sensativity is high, they still need allot of power to open up(more power will improve bass extension dramatically)! The 100 watt per channel EAD I'm using is a prefect match, but I may try the EAD Pm1000(200x5) later on when it's released to see if it improves the bottom end a little more.

I've heard many people claim the Rock or "Heavy Metal" music isn't these speakers strong forte. But with the electronics I'm currently using, the 5i's rock, with the exeption of bad recordings.

I plan on upgrading to an EAD Theater Master pre-pro in future as well since the Denon remains the last weak link in my system. Since I own the Silver 3i's, Center 10i, and the ASW-210 sub for theater, I elected to due all of research in 5 channel amps, but here are some warm 5 channel amp manufactures that work very well with bright speakers. The first(EAD was the most musical 5 channel I tried) is the best match IMHO, and so on....

1. EAD Power Master 500
2. Cinepro
3. B$K 7250 and AV 5000 II
4. AMC 2N100-5

I'm sure there is more, but this is a start. Finally, to all of those people out there who gave these speakers a bad rating.... my research and efforts have prooved that these speakers will sound superb with time, patience, and a little dinero IMHO. It was frustrating at times, but overall I learned plenty about component matching, and I've had allot of fun along the way. Let the good times roll!!!

Jeff
lermanj@earthlink.net or Jeff.Lerman@tropicana.com

Similar Products Used:

M&K, B&W, Def. Tech, Mirage and NHT.

Cute

Stumpy - low Bass

High end equipment ??

I think my B&K preamp with the ATI 1505 amp connected via transparent cables ranks a little higher than a mid grade integrated Marantz.

nice try.

but they are cute little speakers - my girlfriend loved them.

Soundstage, detail, wood finish, overall sound quality for the price

If you like thumpy, boomy base, these speakers will not give it to you.

While these speakers are a new purchase for me, and still technically in their "break-in" period, I am already enjoying what I think is a significant improvement over the Magneplanars (which are now up for sale on Ebay!). Vocals and mids/mid bass are so much more present with these than with the Maggies, and their ability to set a sound stage (which is why I love the Maggies so much) is second to none. I know folks who have paid quite a bit more money to get sound similar to what the Monitors can provide

I've got several more hours of listening time unitl they are completely broken in, and I will do that before playing around with "tweaks" (loading with lead shot, etc.) though I do have them bi-wired. However, I am already convinced that this is, for the money, one of the best speaker systems available.

Similar Products Used:

Magneplanar MG-10

The "Just Buy Them" aricle is pure hype. No value built into ownership by Monitor Audio. Poor support. Fit and finish is not as good as other products in same price category.

Though I liked these speakers when I first auditioned them at my local dealer, I probably wouldn't have even considered them if it wasn't for the glowing article in Home Theater Magazine. Over time (I owned them for just over a year), the speakers wore on me. I found them boxey and somewhat hollow sounding and overly bright. I wasn't thrilled that one had to do all of the tweeks just to get them to sound good (and I tilted them, toed them in, filled them with sand and of course broke them in for a week). Don't get me wrong, they are nice speakers, just not worth the price. I sold the speakers and replaced them with the M&K S150THX system - WOW whatta difference!!! I really like Dynaudio and would have chosen them over M&K if I was a little more into music (vs. home theater).

The MAs don't image as well as I would have liked in stereo mode and sound somewhat strained at reference level home theater playback (good electronics: Lexicon MC-1 & Bryston 9B). Even with gear (B&K AVR 305) and cables that are know to be "laid back sounding" I found the MAs unnaturaly bright.

Company support is mediocre at best. I received a replacement amp for my ASW 110 sub because the original one was humming (new one dodn't fix the problem BTW). The amp was very poorly packed and arrived with bent cooling fins and one edge was smashed in where the bolt hole is. MA didn't want to replace the amp because this didn't affect the sound. Give me a break! I scratched one of the (black) speakers and tried to get a little touch up paint. After getting "I don't know" answers from Monitor Audio USA, I contact the british company and still couldn't get touch up paint. Try sending an email on the web site. I got a response 3+ months after sending the message. The only person who really knows what he's talking about is Bruno and you have to call him on the telephone and be lucky enough to catch him in the office. It's little things like this that turn me off about a company, no matter how good the product. IMHO, this is a two bit operation.

Monitor Audio does seemingly nothing to protect consumers' investment in these speakers. Though I did get a decent deal at my local dealer, the used value of these speakers is driven into the ground by all of the people on Yahoo Shopping and eBay whoring theses things out for what seems to be dealer cost or below (if that's possible). I've owned other speakers and have sold them used. I fully expect to loose money in this sort of transaction but this was rediculous. I did manage to minimize minimize my loss on the sale, though.

If you decide that these speakers are for you, evaluate them very carefully a second time to be sure and then get the best rock bottom deal you can from your local dealer (for warranty support).

Similar Products Used:

Dynaudio, M&K, older MB Quart, Hafler (remember those?), Thiel.

I recently shopped extensively for speakers, after doing a lot of research (audio, video & HT mags, internet searches). Then came the listening…
For audio, I carried around Diana Krall's "Love Scenes" CD (Impulse IMPSD 234), esp tracks 1 and 11: great low end, clean & airy with string bass, guitar, piano and breathy jazz voice.
For HT, I used Armageddon: "unfurling" of sails in the pre-movie opening, then first two chapters up to & including "Meet Harry Stamper". Strong LFE effects, crisp transients when pieces rip through the space station, great "boomers" during New York meteor shower, and the incredible 3D soundstage of glass shards flying and landing when Harry shoots at AJ through a window, and bullets ricochet around).
Results (*roughly* same price range):

B&W 600 Series 2: nice for audio, weak for HT, not "dynamic"

Definitive Tech (I forget the model, less cost than B&W): quite good, but I have a good powered sub (Paradigm PS1000) so don't need another in the mains; also I prefer directional for music.

Paradigm Reference Studio/60: VERY good, almost bought them.

Mission 774: surprisingly good, from a (faded?) name, 30% cheaper than Paradigm (good value), but not in the same league

Monitor Audio Silver Cinema: WOW!! Hands down winner, much smaller than all others, equally good on audio and HT, and gorgeous to boot! Bought them: Silver 5 mains, Centre 10, and Surrounds. All use identical drivers (5.5" woofers, 1" gold dome tweeters), so excellent timbre match. Surrounds can be set as dipole or bipole. After I bought them, I saw the rave review in June Home Theater mag ("Just buy them!"), available at http://www.monitoraudio.com/

My speakers were now so good, I had to upgrade my receiver! I bought the Denon AVR5700, and am VERY pleased. I'm considering putting tactile transducers into my (also new - will it stop?) couch - I'd like to drive them with the "B" surround output of the Denon, but doesn't seem they can be set to "large", so I'll drive them with a separate amp with LFE signal.

Next: HDTV (I'm waiting for more variety of "true" HDTV to arrive on the market, give it a few months...)

I love the detail and imaging of these speakers. They do take a long time to break in. In fact, when I first got them home I thought "Oh man, what happened?" because the broken in ones at the dealer sounded so much better. So, give em time.
My only gripe is that they are not always as warm as I would like. Compared to the CDM7's (also a good speaker) for example, they sound much brighter to me. But this is a subjective thing... Also, they are warming up as they age.

All in all, a very good speaker.