Not all speakers have to look like boxes. Some speakers can’t even be designed as a box, because then they don’t work as intended. The Monitor Audio Concept 50 is just such a speaker, which couldn’t have been made to looked any different even if they had tried their best.
That’s because Monitor Audio – celebrating 50 years with the Concept 50 – has thought differently than they usually do.
Gone is the box shape we know from the fine Gold series, among others. Here you’re left with two standing trapezoidal cabinets screwed together, with a new driver placed in the space between the cabinets.
In each of the two columns (if you can call them that) there are two woofers facing the other pair in the opposite, mirrored cabinet. This concentrates the bass energy in the space between the columns, which Monitor Audio says provides better bass control, deeper bass response and better dynamics.
The bass should go all the way down to 21 Hz (-6 dB), which is rare even for large speakers, and the new MPD driver all the way up to 60 kHz.
The columns, or cabinets, are made of a mineral-acrylic hybrid, and each speaker weighs a full 96 kg.
The four 20 cm woofers in the speakers are joined by a special arrangement of six 50 mm midrange units placed in a circle around an MPD III tweeter.
The sound of the Monitor Audio Concept 50, like that of the Gold and Platinum speakers, is taken to the extreme. With a huge and airy soundstage that’s overwhelmingly detailed, while going insanely deep in the bass.
If they ever become available for testing, we’ll find out just how much better they are than their more reasonably priced siblings. Not that we know the price – it hasn’t been revealed yet. But they sure won’t be cheap.
In contrast, the sea-green Silver 100 Limited Edition is much more affordable. It’s a small two-way speaker for a €1,300 pair, which in Heritage Green and with Monitor Audio’s anodised gold C-CAM base unit will be available from selected retailers during September.
well that’s quite a big departure from monitor audio those are pretty ugly looking speakers but how can that MPD tweeter be better than the platinum one when the platinum one goes to 100,000 clean and this one only goes to 60,000 clean and it’s supposed to be the third generation that doesn’t make sense but anyways I sure wouldn’t trade my beautiful platinums for this ugly looking thing.
They are not the 3rd generation of Platinums, they are a standalone statement product. The performance of a MPD is not only it’s ability to reach inaudible frequency levels, there are much more parameters at play. I’ve seen them in the flesh and the engineering and finish is beautiful and it’s refreshing to see a brand not only designing something different, but also using that design to improve the performance of a typical loudspeaker. Well done I say ..
I was talking about the MPD tweeter, that’s the third generation one and it only goes to 60 kilohertz the platinum one goes to 100khz clean, learn to read LOL
obviously you can’t read very well I said how can this tweeter be better when it’s the third generation which it is and it only goes to 60,000 Hertz and the platinum one goes to 100,000 Hertz clean I’m talking about the tweeter not the speaker. LOL
I don’t find them ugly at all, different … Yes, ugly … No.
I have some Monitor Audio speakers and find they really drive well, detail is there and sound staging is quite something.
Knowing the price point would be useful as I am in the market for a speaker upgrade.
they’ll probably be about 50,000, I have the platinum 200 Gen 2 and they are absolutely amazing sounding, definitely world class.
I still think they should have brought out the platinum 500 gen 3 because it’s still would have been cheaper than the concept 50 which will probably be around $50,000, now it’s making the platinum series incomplete without the 500 hopefully they will reconsider and bring out the 500 for the platinum series.