Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G Floorstanding Speakers - Piano Ebony - Ex Demo

Product Details

• Brand: Monitor Audio
• Model: Gold 300 (5th Generation)
• Finish: Piano Ebony high-gloss real-wood veneer
• Sold as: pair

Condition Notes

A matched pair of Gold 300 5G floorstanders in excellent condition. The Piano Ebony lacquer is deep and clear with no swirl marks, scratches or dulling, and the figured ebony grain is beautifully matched across the pair. Cabinet edges and corners are sharp and unchipped, the soft-touch top trim is clean, and the drive units are unmarked. The cast outriggers, floor pucks and bi-wire terminals are all in excellent order.

Supplied complete with the magnetic grilles, outriggers with both spikes and floor pucks, bi-wire links and the original factory packaging.

Piano Ebony is the finish that made this speaker. A high-gloss real-wood veneer over a heavily braced cabinet, it is the kind of lacquer work you normally only see on speakers costing considerably more, and in a lounge room it reads as furniture rather than equipment. Monitor Audio only ever offered it on the Gold Series, and it is no longer available on the current range at all.

Underneath the cosmetics the Gold 300 is a serious three-way. The MPD high-frequency transducer is a folded-ribbon design borrowed from Monitor Audio's flagship Platinum II line: instead of pushing air with a dome, it squeezes it out of a pleated membrane, which means it moves far less mass and reaches to 50 kHz without the hardness that creeps into metal domes when a recording gets busy. Cymbals have shimmer and decay rather than a splash.

Below it, a dedicated 2.5-inch C-CAM midrange driver handles the vocal band in its own isolated chamber, so the twin 8-inch RDT II bass drivers can get on with the job they are built for. Those cones are a sandwich of thin C-CAM over a Nomex honeycomb core with a woven carbon-fibre back skin - extremely stiff, extremely light, and well damped, which is why the Gold 300 keeps its grip on a bass line at volume instead of smearing it. Dual rear HiVe II ports extend the low end to 30 Hz without the chuffing that plagues lesser reflex designs.

This is a speaker that wants a real amplifier. It drops to 3.5 Ω and is happiest with 100 to 250 watts from something comfortable driving a 4 Ω load. Give it that and a room with a bit of space behind it, and it delivers the composed, large-scale, unfatiguing sound that put the Gold Series on so many shortlists - equally at home on a string quartet and the front three of a cinema system.

Main Specifications

• System format: 3-way
• High frequency: 1 × MPD transducer
• Mid-range: 1 × 2.5" C-CAM
• Bass: 2 × 8" RDT II long-throw
• Frequency response (−6 dB): 30 Hz – 50 kHz
• Sensitivity (1 W @ 1 m): 90 dB
• Maximum SPL: 117 dBA (pair)
• Power handling (RMS): 250 W
• Recommended amplifier: 100 – 250 W
• Nominal impedance: 4 Ω
• Minimum impedance: 3.5 Ω @ 1 kHz
• Crossover frequencies: 650 Hz (LF/MF), 3 kHz (MF/HF)
• Bass alignment: Bass reflex, dual HiVe II ports
• Dimensions incl. grille & terminals (H × W × D): 1000 × 240 × 360.6 mm
• Dimensions incl. feet & spikes (H × W × D): 1047 × 327.8 × 417.8 mm
• Weight: 30.56 kg each