Monitor Audio Studio 2 nfm Monitors / Black Ash
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Monitor Audio Studio 2 Monitors
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker.
Drive-units: 5" (125mm) aluminum-alloy–cone woofer, 1" (25mm) gold-anodized alloy-dome tweeter.
Crossover frequency: 3.2kHz.
Crossover slopes: first-order, 6dB/octave low-pass; second-order, 12dB/octave high-pass.
Frequency response: 55Hz–30kHz ±3dB.
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal.
Sensitivity: 89dB/W/m.
Recommended power: 20W–100W.
Dimensions: 10½" H by 6½" W by 7 7/8" D.
Weight: 24.2 lbs (11kg)/pair.
Finishes: black Ash
Author: Excerpt: From Sterophile magazine
Date added: 14-12-2009, 03:24
Having cautioned the dubious, however, let me urge the rest of you to experience music through these remarkable overachievers. The qualities that I value most in music—articulation, grace, communication, and truth—are well served by the Studio 2s. In addition, I found them remarkably easy to get along with, reliable, and good-looking as well—which is a pretty good set of characteristics, if you expect to be settling down with them for the long haul.
If you do, remember that careful placement, the right stands, and attention to setup and associated equipment are necessary and will reward you with a direct connection to the music that's rare at any price point. The Monitor Audio Studio 2s are easy to love, hard to explain, and true to the head, heart, and soul of music. While there are other speakers out there that offer a lot of value for the same money, these are very, very special.
And you can take my word for it.
If you do, remember that careful placement, the right stands, and attention to setup and associated equipment are necessary and will reward you with a direct connection to the music that's rare at any price point. The Monitor Audio Studio 2s are easy to love, hard to explain, and true to the head, heart, and soul of music. While there are other speakers out there that offer a lot of value for the same money, these are very, very special.
And you can take my word for it.
Author: John Borwick-
Date added: 14-12-2009, 01:51
Monitor Audio Studio 2 loudspeaker John Borwick
To my ears, some of the best sounds to be heard at the
September Heathrow Hi-Fi Show were in the large room occupied by Monitor Audio. Admittedly I was most impressed by a pair of their flagship floor-standing models costing several thousand pounds and possessing a beautifully extended bass response. However, Monitor Audio have always included one really tiny loudspeaker in each of their ranges and the Studio 2 model in black, now fits in neatly at the bottom end of their Studio Series.
Justly acclaimed for their all-inhouse cabinet construction, the company has more recently taken to building all their own drive units. This means they are freed from the need to design around the units available from other suppliers, which can limit the designer's scope and possibly involve delays and other hang-ups. It has also Specification meant that the company's founder and managing director, Mo lqbal, has been able to experiment with lots of new ideas and concentrate developments on just those aspects which deliver the sound quality he wants.
This ongoing process of refinement is best exemplified in his progressive use of metal diaphragms and cones. The current tweeter has a 25mrn dome shaped diaphragm of aluminium/magnesium alloy, gold anodised to produce the required degree of stiffness and self-damping. The result is true piston-like motion without breakup modes through to a claimed 28kHz, combined with very low mass and increased efficiency. The new 125mm bass driver used in the Studio 2 and several other Monitor Audio loudspeakers also has a metal cone, based on aluminium alloy sandwiched between two heat dissipating ceramic (crystal) coatings, with a temperature sta ble synthetic rubber surround. A substantial magnet system contributes to an above average sensitivity rating of 89dB. There is a cast magnesium chassis and a protruding phase plug at the cone centre designed to smooth the offaxis response and improve the rigidity of the voice coil former. To allow for possible use as front or centre loudspeakers in a home theatre system, the Studio 2 is video shielded and will not distort TV screen colour.
Integration of the responses of the two drive units has been given special attention to ensure consistent axial frequency response as well as phase linearity. High quality crossover components, including polypropylene capacitors where appropriate, are used and the two halves of the network are brought out to twin pairs of terminals to permit biwiring. These terminals are robust, will accept 4mm plugs or bare wire, and come with solid link bars in position. The terminals board is steeply sloping so that the connectors project as little as possible.
The enclosure is bass reflex loaded via a small circular port in the back panel. Acoustically the box is very inert, being fabricated from MDF throughout and realwood veneered inside and out to give a 'balanced' structure and prevent any tendency to warp under changing temperature or humidity conditions. Strong bonding is introduced using a microwave gluing technique. All edges are slightly rounded and this contouring is continued in the front grille frame. As a further step towards reducing diffraction effects on the off-axis response, the two drive units are rebated and Tbolted flush with the front baffle, which of course is also handsomely veneered. This may encourage some users to remove the grille (it does introduce a tiny amount of high frequency loss) but there should be no real danger to the fragile tweeter as it has a gold mesh protecting screen.
The Monitor Audio literature describes this as a "miniature loudspeaker" and so it is. Dimensions are 265 x 165 x 200m (10-4 x 6.5 x 7.9in) which may not seem to accord well with the moderately elevated prices I quoted earlier. Then, for most listening situations, the total budget will also need to allow for decent quality stands to bring the system up to ear height from the floor. So we have a right to expect something special in terms of performance: read on.
Performance
Set firmly on stable stands, and run in for a few hours beforehand just in case, the Studio 2s soon persuaded me that I was indeed listening to something rather special in the 'miniature loudspeaker' line. It was therefore a pleasure rather than a chore to make a series of placement experiments to identify the optimum layout in my given room (and to repeat the exercise in a couple of quite different rooms). I was pleased to find that the loudspeakers were less intolerant of close-to-wall positioning than some others, despite that rear-facing port hole. The makers suggest a position "near but away from the room boundaries". This suggests that some degree of inbuilt 'voicing' has been used to allow for a small amount of bass boost from wall reflections. In practice I found that about 60cm (2ft) from the back and side walls gave the most pleasing subjective balance. More than 1 metre into the room, the inevitable bass roll-off from such a small loudspeaker did rob the music of depth and overall impact. However, I could move the loudspeakers to about 15cm (6in) from the wall and still achieve an acceptable bass/treble balance, except that orchestral basses began to boom, and piano tone became slightly wooden and garbled.
This tolerance is good news for users relying on convenient bookshelves (if they are fairly deep) or who are averse to placing loudspeakers too far out into the room. Once optimized, the Studio 2s were exceptionally realistic in their handling music of all kinds. A well recorded solo instrument or voice came true to life and chamber groups were almost tangible as inthe-room performers. Part of the secret must lie in this 'gold' tweeter which produces no hint of treble edge: it just reproduces the top end of the spectrum cleanly and without emphasis. This may seem unexciting on a first listen, but its naturalness and lack of fatigue soon wins one over. The extreme bass is missing: I found the-3dB point to be around 65Hz, in good agreement with the curves supplied to me by Monitor Audio. Yet, even before I tuned the wall spacing for best reinforcement of low frequencies, I had come to recognise this loudspeaker as capable of a warmth and depth out of all proportion to its diminutive size. Midrange transparency and depth of image came close to rivalling that of my resident Quad ESL-63s—and the Studio 2s could go really loud without audible stress: praise indeed.
No mini loudspeakers costing between £699-99 and £899.99 depending on cabinet finish are going to be everyonesapos;s cup of tea. But where space is at a premium and the quality requirements are of the highest, I am happy to place the Monitor Audio Studio 2 right up there with the best. They have graced the different rooms I tried them in (Mo lqba 1 having astutely supplied me with the most glamorous 'grand piano' lacquer version) and made such musical sounds that my listening hours have simply raced by: strongly recommended !
To my ears, some of the best sounds to be heard at the
September Heathrow Hi-Fi Show were in the large room occupied by Monitor Audio. Admittedly I was most impressed by a pair of their flagship floor-standing models costing several thousand pounds and possessing a beautifully extended bass response. However, Monitor Audio have always included one really tiny loudspeaker in each of their ranges and the Studio 2 model in black, now fits in neatly at the bottom end of their Studio Series.
Justly acclaimed for their all-inhouse cabinet construction, the company has more recently taken to building all their own drive units. This means they are freed from the need to design around the units available from other suppliers, which can limit the designer's scope and possibly involve delays and other hang-ups. It has also Specification meant that the company's founder and managing director, Mo lqbal, has been able to experiment with lots of new ideas and concentrate developments on just those aspects which deliver the sound quality he wants.
This ongoing process of refinement is best exemplified in his progressive use of metal diaphragms and cones. The current tweeter has a 25mrn dome shaped diaphragm of aluminium/magnesium alloy, gold anodised to produce the required degree of stiffness and self-damping. The result is true piston-like motion without breakup modes through to a claimed 28kHz, combined with very low mass and increased efficiency. The new 125mm bass driver used in the Studio 2 and several other Monitor Audio loudspeakers also has a metal cone, based on aluminium alloy sandwiched between two heat dissipating ceramic (crystal) coatings, with a temperature sta ble synthetic rubber surround. A substantial magnet system contributes to an above average sensitivity rating of 89dB. There is a cast magnesium chassis and a protruding phase plug at the cone centre designed to smooth the offaxis response and improve the rigidity of the voice coil former. To allow for possible use as front or centre loudspeakers in a home theatre system, the Studio 2 is video shielded and will not distort TV screen colour.
Integration of the responses of the two drive units has been given special attention to ensure consistent axial frequency response as well as phase linearity. High quality crossover components, including polypropylene capacitors where appropriate, are used and the two halves of the network are brought out to twin pairs of terminals to permit biwiring. These terminals are robust, will accept 4mm plugs or bare wire, and come with solid link bars in position. The terminals board is steeply sloping so that the connectors project as little as possible.
The enclosure is bass reflex loaded via a small circular port in the back panel. Acoustically the box is very inert, being fabricated from MDF throughout and realwood veneered inside and out to give a 'balanced' structure and prevent any tendency to warp under changing temperature or humidity conditions. Strong bonding is introduced using a microwave gluing technique. All edges are slightly rounded and this contouring is continued in the front grille frame. As a further step towards reducing diffraction effects on the off-axis response, the two drive units are rebated and Tbolted flush with the front baffle, which of course is also handsomely veneered. This may encourage some users to remove the grille (it does introduce a tiny amount of high frequency loss) but there should be no real danger to the fragile tweeter as it has a gold mesh protecting screen.
The Monitor Audio literature describes this as a "miniature loudspeaker" and so it is. Dimensions are 265 x 165 x 200m (10-4 x 6.5 x 7.9in) which may not seem to accord well with the moderately elevated prices I quoted earlier. Then, for most listening situations, the total budget will also need to allow for decent quality stands to bring the system up to ear height from the floor. So we have a right to expect something special in terms of performance: read on.
Performance
Set firmly on stable stands, and run in for a few hours beforehand just in case, the Studio 2s soon persuaded me that I was indeed listening to something rather special in the 'miniature loudspeaker' line. It was therefore a pleasure rather than a chore to make a series of placement experiments to identify the optimum layout in my given room (and to repeat the exercise in a couple of quite different rooms). I was pleased to find that the loudspeakers were less intolerant of close-to-wall positioning than some others, despite that rear-facing port hole. The makers suggest a position "near but away from the room boundaries". This suggests that some degree of inbuilt 'voicing' has been used to allow for a small amount of bass boost from wall reflections. In practice I found that about 60cm (2ft) from the back and side walls gave the most pleasing subjective balance. More than 1 metre into the room, the inevitable bass roll-off from such a small loudspeaker did rob the music of depth and overall impact. However, I could move the loudspeakers to about 15cm (6in) from the wall and still achieve an acceptable bass/treble balance, except that orchestral basses began to boom, and piano tone became slightly wooden and garbled.
This tolerance is good news for users relying on convenient bookshelves (if they are fairly deep) or who are averse to placing loudspeakers too far out into the room. Once optimized, the Studio 2s were exceptionally realistic in their handling music of all kinds. A well recorded solo instrument or voice came true to life and chamber groups were almost tangible as inthe-room performers. Part of the secret must lie in this 'gold' tweeter which produces no hint of treble edge: it just reproduces the top end of the spectrum cleanly and without emphasis. This may seem unexciting on a first listen, but its naturalness and lack of fatigue soon wins one over. The extreme bass is missing: I found the-3dB point to be around 65Hz, in good agreement with the curves supplied to me by Monitor Audio. Yet, even before I tuned the wall spacing for best reinforcement of low frequencies, I had come to recognise this loudspeaker as capable of a warmth and depth out of all proportion to its diminutive size. Midrange transparency and depth of image came close to rivalling that of my resident Quad ESL-63s—and the Studio 2s could go really loud without audible stress: praise indeed.
No mini loudspeakers costing between £699-99 and £899.99 depending on cabinet finish are going to be everyonesapos;s cup of tea. But where space is at a premium and the quality requirements are of the highest, I am happy to place the Monitor Audio Studio 2 right up there with the best. They have graced the different rooms I tried them in (Mo lqba 1 having astutely supplied me with the most glamorous 'grand piano' lacquer version) and made such musical sounds that my listening hours have simply raced by: strongly recommended !
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