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Monitor Audio Bronze 500 Loudspeaker Review

Monitor Audio Bronze 500

The average audio enthusiast doesn’t have a massive sound-treated room in which to lovingly place and tweak his or her huge, perfect, tower speakers. Humans are constrained by space—which, in my case, includes my office, although I’m waiting for a Tardis-style technology to make the interior bigger than its exterior. Compact floorstanders that play nicely in the average room and can fit just about any décor are the logical solution to the space problem. That’s where the Monitor Audio Bronze 500 ($1495 per pair) comes in. 

The Bronze 500 is available in a variety of finishes. I was sent the Urban Gray version, which has a slate baffle with light wood-toned top, sides, and back. It is extremely nice looking, very simple, and modern. The driver complement includes a 25mm C-Cam Gold Dome tweeter with a Uniform Dispersion waveguide, and two 8″ C-Cam mid/bass drivers. The bottom of the unit is finished off with four outrigger feet, which work equally well on hardwood or on carpet and can be leveled with ease. I always appreciate well-designed feet, and the Bronze 500 certainly came through. The speakers are moderately heavy at about 40 pounds apiece, though I had no trouble lugging them up a flight of stairs and into my office (not to brag or anything). Nominal impedance is listed at 8 ohms and sensitivity at 90dB, which means the 500 won’t need a massive amount of power to reach loud listening levels. In my testing, I found that my 160Wpc Parasound HINT6 was more than equal to the task. (Monitor Audio recommends an amplifier in the 60–200W range.) 

Setup was a breeze. The Bronze 500s come well-packed and were easy to slide out and slot into place. After screwing in the feet, all I had to do was get them situated, tweak location until they sounded right, and start listening. That’s something I appreciate about a well-made and attractive floorstander: The 500s could fit in a living-room system as a home-theater solution, as well as in an audiophile’s listening space. They looked great in my office, and my kids kept trying to touch them, which is a good sign. 

Design-wise, the most interesting aspect is the Uniform Dispersion waveguide built into the tweeter. The tweeter’s curved profile, engineered using Finite Element Analysis, offers three advantages: 1) greater control of off-axis dispersion; 2) better time alignment by positioning the tweeter dome deeper in the cabinet and more in line with the woofer; 3) a lower crossover frequency and consequent smoother transition in directivity between the midrange and tweeter.

In general, I found the Bronze 500s exceedingly easy to position, particularly forgiving of placement, and highly attractive—all of which are key features I want from an entry-level floorstander.

First on deck was the MPS reissue of Don Elli’s Soaring. It’s an aptly named album and the perfect record to demonstrate the Bronze 500s’ biggest strength. Despite their moderate size (I mean, not that moderate, it wasn’t easy to lug them upstairs all by myself), the Bronze 500s sound massive. They’re speakers that revel in spreading out, widening the soundstage, and bellowing complex harmonies like they’re no big deal. And yes, I’ll admit, my first thought was, “Oh wow, these things have bass,” which is almost always the first feature I notice in new speakers. I’m attracted to extremes. (What can I say? It’s why I got into high-end audio—I live for danger.) Drums sounded solid and impactful, and the double woofers plus the rear porting helped create a sense of depth in a mix of hard-blowing saxophones, screaming electric guitars, and electric string instruments. Soaring was not an easy record to start off with, but the 500s impressed me from first spin.

Switching genres, I put on the CD version of Radiohead’s Amnesiac. The fourth track—“You and Whose Army?”—begins with Thom Yorke’s voice over a spare guitar against a humming vocal background. The sound was rich and full, and Yorke’s voice in particular held a deep, natural timbre. There was a slow build as the bass came in, gentle and deep, until the drums dropped, and the piano picked up toward the climax. It was that moment, in particular, which showed the 500s’ ability to alternate with ease between spare and natural and big and bold. They excelled when the music was massive, messy, noisy, but their easy, natural midrange allowed quieter musical moments to shine through, as well. With each new song, I wanted the 500s to play louder. I craved more range—lower lows and higher highs. The treble never sounded bright—perhaps due to the waveguide. The mids in particular kept pulling me in, and Yorke’s voice was centered and gritty in a good way. 

These speakers were easy to love. I skipped ahead to “Knives Out” at this point, since I couldn’t listen to the album and not hear that song. Drums were steady and tight in the right channel, but extended beyond the physical limitations of the speakers. Each new track revealed a wider soundstage than the one before it, and I felt as though my office had finally reached Tardis-status. I’m exaggerating, but only a little bit. Yorke’s voice was big and his reverb sounded both sharp and mellow. The glittering guitar in the left channel held just enough sparkle to gleam, but not so much that it sounded harsh or overly bright. After a couple of times through, I just shut my eyes and began to enjoy the song—which says a lot all on its own.

Next up, another CD, one of my favorite purchases of the last few years. Good Day For Cloud Fishing is a collaboration between poet Dean Young and clarinetist and all-around fantastic musician Ben Goldberg. Young sat at a typewriter banging out short poems while a band comprising Goldberg, Nels Cline, and Ron Miles played compositions based on other poems Young had written and published. So…poem, song, poem whisper down the lane. The album mixes my two favorite things, jazz and poetry, which sounds extremely pretentious, I’m aware. Anyway, the three-piece band of trumpet, clarinet, and guitar created a strangely melodic and insistent sound anchored by Cline’s playing. Track two, “Parthenogenesis,” began with a gentle, lilting solo from Goldberg on clarinet. The uppermost harmonics sounded crisp and smooth, until a mellow trumpet stepped in, sounding rain-soaked and boozy. The 500s nailed the ambience. Cline played low to give the song some depth, while Miles blew an interesting and gritty solo. The 500s did a fantastic job of making the trumpet sound lifelike and alive, even as it meandered up and down, sometimes squealing forcefully, sometimes grunting with effort. Overall, these trio works were spare, fascinating, and full-bodied despite the absence of a traditional rhythm section, and the 500s did them justice. I was very surprised and delighted by how large and encompassing this music sounded through these reasonably sized speakers.

I finished my listening with the CD version of the album Memories in Beach House by the Seaside Lovers. The first track was a smooth-jazz-inspired slice of island City Pop with a shimmering sax and production values as slick as a velvet couch. The flute shined and danced through the first track, and the synths sounded full and deep, never straying into the saccharine. City Pop works best when the sound is massive and allowed to stretch out and fill a room, which happened to be one of the 500s’ virtues. In particular, “Sunset Afternoon” is an aggressive fast-paced synth attack, with a wide range of textures and shapes floating through the soundstage, and I felt the 500s effortlessly matched the scope of the music. The 500s did a good job of reproducing the heavy thumping drum lines and the tight bass, while keeping the more delicate instruments solidly in view. I found myself wanting to crank the volume. I wanted more of it, which I think is a good metaphor for my overall experience with the 500s. They constantly raised the bar, and I never got tired of having them in my listening room.

The Monitor Audio Bronze 500s exceeded my expectations in every way. Their design, their ease of setup, their rich tonal qualities, and subtle upper harmonics make for a robust and diverse loudspeaker. I could see these fitting into a living room system and being switched between movies, music, and television without losing a bit of their hard-hitting quality. They play well with lush film soundtracks, given their stratospheric richness and consistency. It helps that they’re attractive and compact, competitively priced, and fit basically anywhere with a few extra feet to spare. These are easy to recommend, and I hate to see them go.

Specs & Pricing

Frequency response: 41Hz–25kHz -6dB (free field); 32Hz–30kHz -6dB (in-room)
Sensitivity: 90dB, 2.83V/1m
Nominal impedance: 8 ohms
Minimum impedance: 4.1 ohms
Bass alignment: Bass-reflex, Dual HiVe II port system
Crossover frequencies: 550Hz; 2.7kHz
Dimensions: 9.09″ x 37.4″ x 12.7″
Weight: 39 lbs. 11 oz.
Price: $1495/pr.

KEVRO INTERNATIONAL (North American Distributor)
Unit #4
902 McKay Road
Pickering, ON, L1W 3X8
Canada

Tags: FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKERS MONITOR AUDIO

By Drew Kalbach

I have a degree in English from Temple University and a Masters in Fine Arts with a specialty in poetry from the University of Notre Dame. I’m a full-time self-published author with over 100 books in both romance and men’s adventure fiction.

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