Monoprice $50/pair Bookshelf Speakers Reviewed!

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How good could a pair of $50 bookshelf speakers be? Monoprice tries to answer that question with their new MP-65RT speakers. To our knowledge, these are the least expensive speakers with a ribbon tweeter ever produced by a manufacturer.

Here are the specs for the MP-65RT Speakers:

• 4" x 0.76" ribbon Ribbon tweeter
• 6.5" Polypropylene cone woofer
• 30 watts RMS, 60 watts maximum
• 6 ohms impedance
• Sensitivity: 87 dB @ 1w/1m

Check out our detailed review with full measurements to see what you get from a speaker that costs less than most speaker cables.

Read: Monoprice MP-65RT Bookshelf Speaker Review

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I really think it's a disservice to everyone to confuse ribbon tweeters with inexpensive planar devices such as the one used on the monoprice. They work on entirely different principles, and true ribbons are much more expensive to manufacture. On the other side of the coin, it's not true than planar tweeters pose impedance issues. To the contrary, they generally have ruler-flat impedance curves at either 4 or 8 ohms. True ribbons must rely on a transformer to raise impedance to avoid what would otherwise present a dead short to the amplifier.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

minor typo:

This is a $50 per pair speaker (as low as $40/pair on slae)

 

[shadyJ]

I really think it's a disservice to everyone to confuse ribbon tweeters with inexpensive planar devices such as the one used on the monoprice. They work on entirely different principles, and true ribbons are much more expensive to manufacture. On the other side of the coin, it's not true than planar tweeters pose impedance issues. To the contrary, they generally have ruler-flat impedance curves at either 4 or 8 ohms. True ribbons must rely on a transformer to raise impedance to avoid what would otherwise present a dead short to the amplifier.

You are right, they are more like a planar driver than what is commonly considered a ribbon. Although it is shaped like a ribbon, but that is more a matter of semantics. I wouldn't go so far as to say they work on entirely different principles though, both are using thin, charged diaphragms suspended between magnetic fields, but the shape of the magnetic field and nature of the diaphragm is different.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

You are right, they are more like a planar driver than what is commonly considered a ribbon. Although it is shaped like a ribbon, but that is more a matter of semantics. I wouldn't go so far as to say they work on entirely different principles though, both are using thin, charged diaphragms suspended between magnetic fields, but the shape of the magnetic field and nature of the diaphragm is different.

The unique feature of a true ribbon tweeter is that there is no need for a voice coil or an aluminum grid implanted on a diaphragm. The extremely low-mass ribbon itself responds to the fluctuating magnetic field. Mylar diaphragms on planar devices need a conducting grid to operate. Of course, mass is only one of the determinants of acceleration. Force is the other, so it's not valid to conclude that ribbons are inherently superior to other designs in this respect. But it's still a good idea to try and keep the terminology straight.

 

[IBJamon]

What I would like to see is a comparison against another ~$50 pair of speakers with a ribbon-like tweeter, the Dayton B652-Air. I used two pairs of them as Atmos speakers and they are quite nice for that purpose, but I'm curious how these compare.

What would be really interesting is that the woofer seems more well behaved than the one Parts Express used, so how well would swapping the tweeters out with the AMT (that seems more well behaved than these ribbons) in that pair work? deep thoughts

 

[panteragstk]

It seems like the "ribbon" in these is a scaled down version of what is in the Amber in-wall that I bought and returned. First thing I noticed was the same brightness. They sounded excellent for what they were. I wasn't expecting much from a $60 speaker, but was pleasantly surprised.

I wonder if Audyssey could tame that brightness? Granted I'd want these for my desk so I'd have to find another alternative.

 

[panteragstk]

What I would like to see is a comparison against another ~$50 pair of speakers with a ribbon-like tweeter, the Dayton B652-Air. I used two pairs of them as Atmos speakers and they are quite nice for that purpose, but I'm curious how these compare.

What would be really interesting is that the woofer seems more well behaved than the one Parts Express used, so how well would swapping the tweeters out with the AMT (that seems more well behaved than these ribbons) in that pair work? deep thoughts

I agree. This would be very interesting to see especially since they are the same price.

 

[shadyJ]

What I would like to see is a comparison against another ~$50 pair of speakers with a ribbon-like tweeter, the Dayton B652-Air. I used two pairs of them as Atmos speakers and they are quite nice for that purpose, but I'm curious how these compare.

What would be really interesting is that the woofer seems more well behaved than the one Parts Express used, so how well would swapping the tweeters out with the AMT (that seems more well behaved than these ribbons) in that pair work? deep thoughts

There is a review coming soon of the Dayton B452-AIR and C452-AIR, but not the B652-AIR.

I did do some close mic testing of the woofer on the Monoprice Ribbon speaker, and the woofer is remarkably well-behaved seeing that there is not low-pass filter on it. I was actually impressed. Swapping the woofers on a Dayton B652-AIR speaker might make for an interesting combination, depending on the behavior of the Dayton AMT tweeter.

 

[shadyJ]

It seems like the "ribbon" in these is a scaled down version of what is in the Amber in-wall that I bought and returned. First thing I noticed was the same brightness. They sounded excellent for what they were. I wasn't expecting much from a $60 speaker, but was pleasantly surprised.

I wonder if Audyssey could tame that brightness? Granted I'd want these for my desk so I'd have to find another alternative.

In theory, Audyssey should be able to tame that brightness since it is a system-wide resonance.

But you don't absolutely need Audyssey or automated room equalization. All you need to do is put some kind of gentle low-pass filter on at about 8 kHz or so, like a first-order filter. That should do the trick.

 

[MrBoat]

It seems like the "ribbon" in these is a scaled down version of what is in the Amber in-wall that I bought and returned. First thing I noticed was the same brightness. They sounded excellent for what they were. I wasn't expecting much from a $60 speaker, but was pleasantly surprised.

I wonder if Audyssey could tame that brightness? Granted I'd want these for my desk so I'd have to find another alternative.

On a 30W speaker, the grille cover could probably tame the brightness,

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Alright Mr ShadyJ, I just have to chime in a little. I remember when you got these and first set them up. We both were listening to among the cheapest speakers we had ever heard and looking for some way to get good sound. The Dayton Audio MK402 was really nicely made and sounded pretty good with simple fixes. Still, it wasn't exactly a high end miracle speaker.

You mentioned to me how amazing this monoprice speaker was for even less money and I was curious to hear for myself. The MK402 was tough because it was so inefficient that it was actually a bit hard to drive with cheap amplification. By comaprison, this monoprice was a bit more sensitive and an easier load. I could play them plenty loud and they didn't do anything horrific. On the other hand, they didn't quite knock my socks off either.

Then I added a subwoofer to the mix and really started to enjoy them. Your comment around their imaging is right on. It was actually quite impressive how good they imaged. The MK402 threw an indistinct but palpable soundstage. It could give a semblance of realism at times, but instrument placement was always a little out of focus. It wasn't a you are there experience. If I was there, I was drunk. With the Monoprice, images snapped into better focus with more precise placement. They disappeared nicely while throwing a great soundstage with real width and depth. On a good speaker that is a basic expectation. On a $50 speaker, it is exceedingly rare. That this speaker did such a good job with imaging was impressive. Tonally they need some help, but they don't sound as bad as they measure. Compared to other cheap speakers, they are quite recommendable. I would just suggest that a subwoofer be added to the mix, as I think it helped my enjoyment quite a bit, and I would suggest a tone control at a minimum. I didn't do a lot of EQ work when I used these but at least compared to the MK402, I think this one actually needed a few notch filters to sound more natural.

 

[Brian King]

I'd add a brace between the woofer and tweeter, replace the tweeter cap with a film cap, and play with the stuffing. Typically closed cabinets have more stuffing than these appear to have.

 

[shadyJ]

I'd add a brace between the woofer and tweeter, replace the tweeter cap with a film cap, and play with the stuffing. Typically closed cabinets have more stuffing than these appear to have.

Problem with that is they would have to raise the price above their target pricing of $50/pair to accomplish that. Sure there are lot of ways to improve this speaker, but not as much can be done without significantly raising price. However, if you are just thinking about mods you can do on your own as an owner, than yeah, they would be a good project speaker to tinker with.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Problem with that is they would have to raise the price above their target pricing of $50/pair to accomplish that. Sure there are lot of ways to improve this speaker, but not as much can be done without significantly raising price. However, if you are just thinking about mods you can do on your own as an owner, than yeah, they would be a good project speaker to tinker with.

One thing I never did with them when I had them to listen to was measure their distortion. One common concern with those cheap planar tweeters is distortortion. Their LF performance is a function of surface area because they all have similar and tiny amounts of actual excursion. As such you often see pretty ugly distortion rise at lower frequencies. My guess is that the cap value is very low to allow for very high crossover point with the shallow first order slope. I think the best bang for the buck upgrade you could do would be to carefully measure the drivers and establish the best crossover point to avoid distortion using steeper slopes. I might even play around with elyptical filters to try to really provide a steep slope with a low parts count.

There are a ton of things you could do to improve the sound of the speaker but when push comes to shove nothing will improve the drivers and cabinet all that much. As such, by the time you fixed all the problems the cost to you, even as a tinker, would be too much to be worthy. The Dayton Audio has better drivers and a better cabinet so the simple process of fixing the crossover is a worthy investment. I feel differently about this speaker. Anything beyond a mild crossover upgrade would be wasteful in my opinion. For that money there are better speakers.

 

[shadyJ]

One thing I never did with them when I had them to listen to was measure their distortion. One common concern with those cheap planar tweeters is distortortion. Their LF performance is a function of surface area because they all have similar and tiny amounts of actual excursion. As such you often see pretty ugly distortion rise at lower frequencies. My guess is that the cap value is very low to allow for very high crossover point with the shallow first order slope. I think the best bang for the buck upgrade you could do would be to carefully measure the drivers and establish the best crossover point to avoid distortion using steeper slopes. I might even play around with elyptical filters to try to really provide a steep slope with a low parts count.

There are a ton of things you could do to improve the sound of the speaker but when push comes to shove nothing will improve the drivers and cabinet all that much. As such, by the time you fixed all the problems the cost to you, even as a tinker, would be too much to be worthy. The Dayton Audio has better drivers and a better cabinet so the simple process of fixing the crossover is a worthy investment. I feel differently about this speaker. Anything beyond a mild crossover upgrade would be wasteful in my opinion. For that money there are better speakers.

Yeah there isn't much that can be done that is worth the cost if you have a really tight budget. I was thinking along the lines of a hobbyist who just likes to tinker with things to learn some stuff. Towards that end, these are great because they are cheap, so if you screw them up, no big loss. You could experiment with cabinet bracing to see what kind of difference that makes since these don't have much internal bracing. You could put more stuffing inside the cabinet. I think the crossover is fine since that woofer has such benign breakup behavior, but one thing that could be done is taper down the high treble above 10 kHz, perhaps by using a notch filter centered at 15 kHz. One thing that would be cool is to just use that woofer and tweeter in a 3-way, with the planar tweeter as a super tweeter. Then all you would need is a shelf filter on the tweeter to get a flattish response. You could put a low-pass on the woofer, but you would need to find a midrange driver or tweeter with low fs that could match the directivity of the high end of the woofer and low end of the tweeter. I wonder if there is the basis for a super-inexpensive three-way here?

 

[zieglj01]

If they go on sale for like $25 - 30, then I might toy with them -- I would put dome Sonic Barrier inside with some stuffing and test with some resistors on the tweeter to bring the level down some. As they are they could make some decent budget friendly surround speakers, or cheap garage speakers, or some starter speakers for a kids room.

 

[shadyJ]

As a reminder, Audioholics and Monoprice are giving these speakers away in this contest. All you have to do is post a reply saying what you want to see from Monoprice in the future.

 

[beezer73]

Everybody does 6.5" woofers, that's find if you use a dedicated sub. But how about some dual 8"s, some good ones with rubber surrounds and vented coils, and MUST have better crossovers than these capacitors, these are making the woofers full range, they need to have cutoffs. If you have to ad a midrange, ad a midrange. The crossover and adding a midrange only add about $5 to your bottom line, and I have no problem paying extra for them.

Dayton Audio is the only ones I know of (in my pricerange) offering dual 8", actually it's FOUR 8"s, two are passive, but they cost twice as much as these.

 

[Kingnoob]

Everybody does 6.5" woofers, that's find if you use a dedicated sub. But how about some dual 8"s, some good ones with rubber surrounds and vented coils, and MUST have better crossovers than these capacitors, these are making the woofers full range, they need to have cutoffs. If you have to ad a midrange, ad a midrange. The crossover and adding a midrange only add about $5 to your bottom line, and I have no problem paying extra for them.

Dayton Audio is the only ones I know of (in my pricerange) offering dual 8", actually it's FOUR 8"s, two are passive, but they cost twice as much as these.

How low of bass do the towers make? 30hz?
If you have a dedicated or good sub does front speaker woofer size matter??

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