Up to 84% in savings when you subscribe to The Absolute Sound
Logo

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Survey: Three Small Monitors from Definitive, CEntrance, and GoldenEar

Survey: Three Small Monitors from Definitive, CEntrance, and GoldenEar
 
For many people, the term “high-end audio” equates to “high-priced audio,” but I fondly recall a time when things were not this way. TAS founder Harry Pearson once remarked that (I am paraphrasing, here), “The high-end is about high sound quality and a music-first mindset—not about high price points”—a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. Thus, though I enjoy exotic, ultrahigh- performance audio gear as much as (or more than) the next person, I’ve long been fascinated by those affordable gems that occasionally come along in our industry—the products that, without fanfare, hype, or stratospheric prices simply settle in and play the music with fidelity and conviction. Three such gems are the affordable compact monitors from Definitive Technology, CEntrance, and GoldenEar Technology that I will address in this survey.
 
Definitive Technology StudioMonitor 45
Many audio enthusiasts associate the name Definitive with so called “home-theater speakers,” but the company also has roots that go deep in the area of affordable, high-performance monitors. Over the past year, Definitive has rolled out a threeproduct family of stand-mount studio monitors, the smallest and most affordable of which is the inexpensive Studio Monitor 45 (or SM45, for short). In spite of its almost laughably low price, the SM45 is a speaker that demands to be taken seriously, for reasons you’ll discover in a moment.
Survey: Three Small Monitors from Definitive, CEntrance, and GoldenEar
 
The SM45 is a two-way, bass-reflex monitor that is larger than you might at first expect (viewed from the side, it proves to be nearly a foot tall and deep). The driver complement includes a second-generation version of Definitive’s 1-inch aluminumdome tweeter (which receives special heat-treatment processing and a ceramic coating) plus one of the firm’s signature 5.25-inch BDSS (Balanced Double Surround System) mid/bass drivers fitted with Definitive’s recently developed LRW (Linear Response Waveguide) phase plug. Together, BDSS and LRW technologies are said to give the mid/bass driver dramatically greater excursion (and thus dynamic) capabilities, lower distortion, smoother frequency response, and improved off-axis performance. A curved baffle plate with rounded edges also helps fight diffraction.
 
I found the SM45s sounded great straight out of the carton so that they didn’t need a lot of run-in time and weren’t terribly fussy about placement. They did, however, need at least a little clearance from adjacent walls and sounded best on stands that positioned their tweeters at ear level.
 
From the start, three aspects of the SM45’s sound hit home for me. First, they were unexpectedly full-bodied and offered an astonishing amount of bass reach (down into the upper 30Hz region)—reach few other small monitors can match. Frequency response is smooth but perhaps not strictly neutral, as the speakers do introduce a broad, gentle touch of bass lift from about 80Hz on down. However, there’s not enough low-end emphasis to make the speakers sound overblown, but rather enough to remind you that this is a serious, near-full-range monitor—one that seeks to provide big-speaker depth and richness. The only caveat I found is that if you feed the Definitives very low-frequency material at high volume levels, you may periodically bottom out their mid/bass drivers (I did this once or twice on brutal LF test discs).
 
Second, the Definitives sounded much more dynamically expansive than other monitors that I have heard about their size and price. It’s almost as if the SM45s magically suspended the conventional rules of “small-speakerness,” holding forth with ease and gusto, as if they were much larger than they appeared to be.
 
Third, the SM45s were relaxed, effortless, and at times downright holographic imagers. Many small speakers claim to have these properties and can even achieve them to some extent, but the Definitives take “disappearing act” imaging to a much higher level and do so without requiring endless tweaking, fiddling, or fine-tuning. For a quick, four-word, audio-speak summary of the SM45, try this one: “Plays big and disappears.” Indeed, these speakers re-define the concept of cheap thrills.
 
To appreciate the broad appeal of the SM45s, it’s instructive to put on a piece of music that could, under typical circumstances, embarrass most small monitors—a piece such as the very taxing closing section of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (Tilson-Thomas, San Francisco Symphony, SFS Media, SACD). Rather than falling flat on its face and sounding painfully overstressed, the little SM45s just wade right in and play the music. Are there occasional moments of compression, low-level congestion, and the like? Of course there are (Mahler’s 8th is, after all, power music at its most demanding), but overall the Definitives’ presentation not only hangs together, but also retains a significant amount of the scale, grandeur, and aspirational reach that makes this piece so majestic.
 
Naturally, the SM45s work for smaller pieces too, such as the title track from Anne Bisson’s Blue Mind [Fidelio], where Bisson’s voice and piano sound pure and well-focused, although the accompanying acoustic bass does sound hearty almost to a fault. But overall, the musical effect is one where dense tonal colors, vivid imaging, and an overarching quality of sumptuous richness carry the day.
 
The SM45 might not provide the highest levels of strict textbook accuracy, but it provides giant helpings of musical richness, relaxation, and enjoyment at a ridiculously modest price. For these reasons and many more, Definitive’s SM45s are a no-brainer recommendation for music lovers whose sights are set high, but whose budgets are limited.
 
 
 
CEntrance MasterClass 2504 Monitor
Chicago-based CEntrance started as an audio-engineering consulting company, but has since branched out to manufacture a range of innovative music products, some targeted for the prosound world, some geared for serious desktop audio enthusiasts, and a few—such as the MasterClass 2504 mini-monitors reviewed here—that appeal to both communities. In creating the 2504, CEntrance hoped to build a nearfield speaker accurate and revealing enough for monitoring applications, but refined and soulful enough to please audiophiles. Most of all, they wanted a monitor that would deliver exceptional imaging and soundstaging in desktop applications.
Survey: Three Small Monitors from Definitive, CEntrance, and GoldenEar
 
The 2504 is a small, bass-reflex monitor that incorporates a CEntrance-designed 4-inch coaxial/coplanar mid/bass/tweeter array said to eliminate arrival time delays between the driver elements (not all coaxial drivers are coplanar, and thus not timealigned as the CEntrance driver is). The crossover network, in turn, uses “audiophile-grade capacitors,” air-coil inductors wound from oxygen-free copper wire, and special “low-leakage” printed circuit boards to “minimize phase shift, frequency nonlinearity, and resulting distortion.” Thoughtful touches abound.
 
The 2504’s require about 20 hours of run-in time and extremely careful placement. CEntrance’s manual advises that the speakers “truly open up if they are positioned in such a way that there is no horizontal surface right in front of them” (italics are mine). CEntrance thus recommends placing the speakers either at the front edges of desks or on short stands at least 1–1.5 feet from nearby walls. I would add that listeners should elevate the 2504s so that their coaxial drivers are at ear level; in fact, this step is the crucial key to unlocking the speakers’ superb imaging capabilities.
 
The 2504s offer neutral and accurate voicing suitable for monitoring applications, yet voicing that also offers a gentle hint of natural warmth which keeps the speakers from sounding cold, analytical, or sterile. Mids are sophisticated and nuanced, while upper mids and highs sound delicate and extended, with a touch of natural sweetness. The only caveat is that you might occasionally hear faint traces of a subtle horn-like coloration on hard-edged upper midrange/treble transients (perhaps a lowlevel interaction between the coaxial driver’s tweeter and mid/bass cone?). Happily, though, this is a minor flaw that’s rarely evident.
 
Bass extends to a lower limit of about 50Hz, which doesn’t sound impressive on paper, but turns out to be perfectly adequate for nearfield listening. Some bass connoisseurs might wish for a smidgeon more lowfrequency damping, but I personally respect and admire the balance CEntrance has chosen, which offers low-end detail and definition on one hand, with pleasing natural weight and warmth on the other.
 
The 2504s offer good levels of detail and resolution, excellent transient speed, and a sure-handed way with low-level and larger-scale shifts in dynamic emphasis. But by far their most impressive qualities are their tightly focused imaging and vivid 3-D soundstaging. Expect to hear wide, deep soundstages unfold far behind and beyond these tiny desktop speakers.
 
To hear these qualities in action, put on “Aphrodite” from Robert Paterson’s The Book of Goddesses [American Modern Recordings], a piece written for and performed by the Maya trio, which features harp, flute, and percussion. Impressively, the 2504s showed many of the positive qualities I’ve heard from far more expensive speakers on this track, meaning that the harp sounded lithe, agile, and luminous; the flute sounded breathy, round, and resonant; and the percussion instruments sounded taut, incisive, and full of rhythmic drive.
 
More importantly, the 2504s captured the “air” surrounding the instruments and the elusive sense of performers playing in a real three-dimensional space—qualities conveyed through masterful reproduction of very lowlevel spatial and reverberant cues in the music. In simple terms, it’s the 2504’s ability to “go 3-D” on command (when recordings permit) that gives this speaker an element of greatness.
 
While the 2504s can’t play at headbanger levels, they can handle the demands of rock music pretty well—assuming you use them, as intended, for nearfield listening. You won’t hear the thumping, overblown bass favored by some rock fans, but the CEntrance’s sheer clarity, power, and expressiveness may win you over nevertheless. On well-recorded electric guitar solos, for example, such as those served up by bluesman Hadden Sayers on Hard Dollar [Blue Corn Music], you’ll find Sayer’s Fender Strat sounds satisfyingly scorching and evocative through these little boxes.
 
For nearfield listening, I think CEntrance’s MasterClass 2504s are tough to beat; in fact, they are among the most sophisticated and satisfying desktop monitors that $499 can buy.
 
 
 
GoldenEar Technology Aon 3 Monitor
Sandy Gross (founder of Definitive Technology and GoldenEar Technology) has an abiding passion for making fine loudspeakers accessible to people of moderate means, and his Aon 3 twoway bookshelf monitor is a perfect case in point. Gross says the concept for the Aon 3 arose after a business trip where he heard a demonstration of a very expensive set of monitors. The premium-priced speakers were “really very good,” said Gross, but he also thought, “I’ll bet GoldenEar could build small, highperformance monitors that would give these things a run for their money—for a fraction of the price.”
Survey: Three Small Monitors from Definitive, CEntrance, and GoldenEar
 
To this end, the GoldenEar Aon 3 monitor features an “augmented two-way” design, leveraging driver technologies created for the firm’s award-winning Triton Two floorstander. Thus, the Aon 3 uses a Heil-type tweeter and a 7-inch wide-bandwidth mid/bass driver to cover most of the audio spectrum,
while a pair of side-mounted passive radiators helps extend bass depth and punch. The resulting speaker serves up agile, detailed, and revealing mids and highs, plus bass that is robust and surprisingly extended, and that matches the resolution and speed of the mids and highs step for step.
 
I found the Aon 3 sounded best when positioned within about two feet of the rear wall of my listening room, using stands that placed the tweeters roughly at ear level. I experimented with toe-in angles until soundstaging “locked in,” yielding images that were surprisingly realistic in height and scale, with terrific spaciousness and three-dimensionality.
 
To give the Aon 3’s a workout, I turned to an old favorite: Ti-Ti Chickapea’s Change of Worlds [Orchard Park]. Ti-Ti Chickapea—a trio comprising the gifted jazz cellist Hank Roberts, eclectic guitarist Richie Stearns, and violinist and luthier Eric Aceto— combines elements of traditional folk music, bluegrass, and jazz in a format reminiscent of the works of Robert Frisell. Change of Worlds is a recording that can be enjoyable on mid-grade gear, but that really “clicks” into realism when played through a better grade of equipment. Happily the Aon 3s did not disappoint.
 
On the track “Star of the County Down,” the Aon 3s sounded fast, pure, and believable as they navigated Stearns’ intricate and finely woven guitar lines. Plucked notes were rendered with such realistic attack, sustain, and decay that they seemed to lead lives of their own. I was also drawn in by the Aon 3’s ability to capture the weight, warmth, richness, and woodiness of Roberts’ cello—qualities that remained consistent across the instrument’s lower, middle, and upper registers. This top-to-bottom focus and coherency is arguably the Aon 3’s greatest strength—the quality that makes it seem like a considerably more costly speaker than it actually is.
 
On Aceto’s electric violin—an instrument that should sound clear and incisive yet never overly “steely” or brittle, the Aon 3s rendered the instrument’s finely filigreed treble details without any sonic histrionics or overshoot. I also noted that the Aon 3 found the understated but heartfelt emotion in Roberts’ deceptively simple vocals—emotion conveyed partly through micro-dynamics and partly through revealing hints of grit and grain in Roberts’ voice. Finally, the Aon 3s placed each ensemble member in a precise location within a 3-D soundstage.
 
Can the compact Aon 3 delivers truly satisfying bass? The short answer is that it does, provided you can be happy with bass that extends only a bit below 40Hz and like to listen at sensible— not ear-melting—volume levels. As a bass test, I put on on the title track from master bass guitarist Dean Peer’s album Airborne [ILS Records], wherein Peer and percussionist Brett Mann serve up a serious bass workout. This is not an album for fainthearted speakers, so I was delighted to find the Aon 3s rendered most of the bass content on hand with clarity and gusto. Granted, a slim layer of low-frequency underlayment was under-represented, but very little of substance went missing.
 
What are the Aon 3’s weaknesses? I would say it is a very good imager, but not quite as good as GoldenEar’s smaller Aon 2, which offers superior dispersion and therefore seems to have an easier time helping the sound break free from the box. I would also say that the Aon 3, though very capable in its own right, is perhaps not the right speaker for low bass aficionados or those who like their music loud. But apart from these minor shortcomings, what’s not to like? Of all the speakers in this survey, the Aon 3 is the one that, if heard in the dark, could plausibly pass for a multi-thousand-dollar model.
 
In sum, the Aon 3 sounds more vibrant, finely resolved, involving, and believable than it has any right to for its size and price. It is, as Mr. Gross promised, an affordable compact monitor that gives more costly competitors a serious “run for their money.”
 

SPECS & PRICING

 
Definitive Technology StudioMonitor 45
Type: Two-way, bass-reflex, dual-driver, bookshelf/standmount monitor
Driver complement: 1″ pure aluminum dome tweeter, 5.25″ mid/bass driver
Frequency response: 35Hz–30kHz
Sensitivity: 90dB
Impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions: 6.7″ x 11.69″ x 11.69″
Weight: 12 lbs.
Price: $398
 
Definitive Technology
11433 Cronridge Drive
Owings Mills, MD 21117
(410) 363-7148
 
CEntrance MasterClass 2504
Type: Two-way, bass-reflex, dual coaxial-driver, nearfield monitor
Driver complement: One 4″ full-range coaxial/coplanar driver, with dual voice coils— one coil driving the 4″ woofer element and the other driving a coaxial 3/4″ dome tweeter (both driver elements share a high-performance neodymium magnet)
Frequency response: 50Hz–20kHz, +/-1dB
Dimensions: 5.71″ x 9.06″ x 8.15″
Weight: 5.47 lbs., each
Price: $499
 
CEntrance , Inc.
8817 Mango Ave.
Morton Grove, IL 60053
(847) 581-0500
 
GoldenEar Technology Aon 3
Type: Two-way, dual-driver, bookshelf/stand-mount monitor with dual passive radiators
Driver complement: One HVFR (high velocity folded ribbon) tweeter, one 7″ cast-basket mid/bass driver, and two 8″ side-mounted passive radiators
Impedance: 8 ohms
Sensitivity: 90dB
Dimensions: 9″ x 14″ x 11″
Weight: 23 lbs.
Price: $999
 
GoldenEar Technology
P.O. Box 141,
Stevenson, MD 21153
(410) 998-9134

Tags: GOLDENEAR

Read Next From Review

See all

Adblocker Detected

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."