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I was curious to review Monitor Audio’s Gold 100 6G speaker because I had reviewed the British company’s Silver 500 7G and was impressed by its sound, particularly with regards to where I felt they excelled over competing products, which was in their midband clarity and their sense of effortless musical flow.

The Gold 100 6G are different speakers, of course, the most obvious difference being that the speaker under review is a standmount while the Silver 500 is a floorstander. However, as Rick Lennon of Monitor Audio importer Kevro pointed out to me, “The Gold 100 6G is a three-way design like the Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G, which isn’t very common among bookshelf or standmount speakers.” And while I don’t remember the finish my Silvers came in, I’m pretty sure the Macassar finish on the 100s beats it in feel and looks. Pulling a 100 6G from its shipping box elicited from me a couple of “wows”—one for the speaker’s finish, which exceeded my expectations, the other for its weight, which also exceeded my expectations—it seemed heavy for a standmount. I thought: “What the heck did they put in this speaker, a barbell?” Each 100 6G weighs 30lbs, so make sure you bend those knees when you unpack them.

The Gold Series is also a step up from the Silver Series in Monitor Audio’s lineup. As Rick explained it, “Compared to Silver, the 100s have an improved tweeter for higher accuracy and detail, as well as a larger, clearer and more consistent sound. Gold also features a new driver technology called HDT (Hexagonal Diaphragm Technology), which uses a hexagonal pattern to [handle] cone break-up, resulting in a 10% increase in frequency response compared to the RST II cones used in the Silver Series 7G.”

As for the Gold Series 6G’s improvements over the series’ 5G—G signifies Generation—those include a more optimized MPD III tweeter—a variant of the Heil Air Motion Transformer (AMT) one—based on the tweeter of the company’s flagship Hyphn/Platinum Series, along with a new 3″ midrange said to deliver improved sensitivity, frequency response, and directivity.

But why is the speaker so heavy? “The cabinet features the same front baffle thickness as the Gold 500 6G ($9500/pair),” Rick said. “It uses the same 8″ HDT C-CAM driver, which is equipped with a large motor and a new high-strength, neodymium bucking magnet for improved power handling and greater control. Additionally, the new 3″ midrange driver is housed in a dedicated steel enclosure.”

When I asked what the design goal was for the speaker, Rick said, “To deliver true high-fidelity sound, with lifelike mid- and high-frequency definition. The Gold 100 delivers so much of what we love—transparency, low-level detail, three-dimensional imaging, and a deep, wide soundstage that extends way outside the physical boundaries of the speakers.

“It also delivers deep bass and plenty of it,” he continued. “And has a clarity that allows the listener to distinguish various elements and every detail. It was also designed to play loudly while still resolving the faintest sounds and offering solid and stable imaging. Finally, it had to look great.”

The Gold 100 6G retails for $5199/pair.

“Sit down and Listen!”

The speakers are a ported, bi-wired design. I set the speakers on 29″ stands and broke them in for three days straight playing everything from opera to rock to classical.

In my room, they were easy to position, in large part due to them being so transparent. It’s easier to set up speakers when they’re as revealing as the 100s proved to be, because it becomes an exercise in snapping in the sonic parts together like a puzzle.

This is even easier to do with a CD like Roger Waters’ Amused to Death (CD, CK 47127), which is packed with 3D-like effects that extend in every direction past the speakers’ physical boundaries. Once you know how far and deep the effects on this recording should be inside your room, it becomes a useful template for setting up your speakers’ soundstage.

Once I’d finished setting them up and, as I’d previously planned, prepared to grab lunch upstairs, the speakers held me hostage. “Sit down and listen!” they commanded. I was so captivated by what I was hearing from the Waters CD, I couldn’t help but continue listening. The speakers deliver a butter-smooth response that is inviting because it sounds simultaneously devoid of distortion and replete with information.

They delivered detail that was new to me, or at least that I forgot was there. It was now fleshed out and unmistakable—a second barking dog on the right, bits of previously incomprehensible conversation, more intricate and varied studio effects. The nature of the sounds—how they’re made, how they move—was made plain as day. I thought, “Man, there’s that Monitor Audio clarity again!” But it was more than that. There was superb clarity, yes, but also substance and high resolution. It felt like I was hearing a universe of information inside those pits.

The guitar solo that opens the first track, “The Ballad of Bill Hubbard”, sounded sweet and natural, without a hint of electronic debris. It floated like an illuminated beacon, in sharp focus high above the stage. The synthesizer chords that followed sounded solidly anchored, densely colourful, and expansively resonant. Sounds had nuance and an abundance of inner detail possessed of body, warmth, and a grain-less, introspective quality that pulled me into the music. The background singers sounded explicit and luscious. And those angry-sounding apes at the start of “What God Wants, Part 1?” I couldn’t recall hearing them sound this varied, nuanced, and distinct.

Listening to Medeski Martin & Wood’s Combustication (CD, Blue Note CDP 7243 4 93011 2 2) was a studio effects-laden, funky delight. The 100s pumped the first song, “Sugar Craft”, into my room with bounding loops of double bass, richly hued synthesizer notes, and drums that were splayed out in a drum-set formation.

One of the neatest things the 100s did was show me the subtle ways Medeski manipulates the loudness and duration of his organ notes, making them sound almost as if they’re breathing in and out. Through the 100s, this CD sounded hi-res! Transparency and detail were excellent; instruments sometimes sounded so vivid, their physical traits would flash in my mind, like the corrugated surface of a cymbal, or the ridges on a bass string.

Double bass and drum hits leaped out of the 100s in weighty morsels defined by material-texture and geometric structure. Organ notes floated in rolling sequences a couple of feet in front of the speaker plane.

Similar to the Silver 500 7G speakers I’d heard, notes and sounds filtered out of the Golds with unrestrained smoothness. But the sound was meatier through the Golds—there were more musical threads filling the spaces and joining the elements together.

Hearing Jennifer Warns croon through the 100s on the song “Ballad of the Runaway Horse” on Rob Wasserman’s disc Duets (MCA Records, MCAD 42131) was another treat. This CD is already great-sounding, but I was still caught off guard by how natural and sweet Warns’s singing sounded, and by all the nuances revealed inside it—the tonal lilts, the breath intakes, the amount of air pushing out her syllables. And I learned something when I played guitarist Pat Martino’s album Footprints (CD, 32 Jazz, 32021), a recording bathed in low frequencies originating primarily from an electric bass, and what I learned was that, just as Rick had promised, the 100s do plenty of bass, and not just any bass, but of the defined, solid, and walloping kind.

These speakers’ sound surprised me. They offer a potent blend of the qualities audiophiles love.

Final Observation

And that brings me to this: just how much audiophile sound does one need? Or, how about this: how much better can stereo get? I know that can sound naïve, but we’ve been perfecting stereo for decades. While listening to the Gold 100s play music—and this is telling of how they communicated to me—I often wondered, “Can stereo get much better than this?” Sure, you might get more bass or airier highs or fill a room better with a more expensive speaker, but the 100s’ sound left me wanting for nothing. If I’d heard these speakers when I became an audiophile in the 80s, I would’ve been blown away. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Speaking of which, remember the days when standmounts had no bass and were considered a compromise compared to floorstanders? The Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G is an example of how much bass a modern, properly designed monitor can deliver, and it is no compromise. Not once during my audition of the British speakers did I think, “They need a subwoofer.” The 100s sounded complete.

To the right person who wants premium sound but doesn’t have a small fortune to get it, the 100s might be all the look, size, and, especially, sound, one could want.

Monitor Audio will be exhibiting its Gold Series 6G speakers in the Westmount room at the Montréal Audiofest, held March 28 – 30 at the Bonaventure Hotel. For more information and tickets, click here.