Mon Acoustics SuperMon Mini Loudspeaker Review

[shadyJ]

I knew very little about Mon Acoustics except that they were a high-end loudspeaker manufacturer based out of Korea, so I was a bit surprised when Audioholics editor-in-chief Gene DellaSala asked if I wanted to review a pair of their speakers. With enclosures made from aluminum, these are not your typical loudspeakers; to be honest, they are not quite like anything I have dealt with before. The metal cabinet is only one of the unusual design characteristics of their speakers, and there are a host of others that we will cover in this review of the SuperMon Mini. The Mini, as its name indicates, is a small loudspeaker designed for small rooms or desktop systems. At $2k per pair, they are geared toward those interested in luxury products and want to get the most out of a small space. They are manufactured and hand-assembled entirely in Korea. With an all-aluminum cabinet, the luxury aspect is certainly there, but what about the other elements that comprise a loudspeaker? That is what we will be examining in today’s review of the Mon Acoustics Supermon Mini...

READ: Mon Acoustics SuperMon Mini Loudspeaker Review

 

[beaRA]

"The SuperMon Minis are not typical stand-mount hi-fi loudspeakers. They are desktop/small space loudspeakers intended to be placed in a quarter-space acoustic environment. Therefore, the usual suite of measurements that we post is not really suited for evaluating them."

This comment from the article doesn't track for me at all. Surely a basic on-axis response in the standard presentation would be quite informative for a nearfield application. I can interpret from the horizontal polar, but it feels purposefully obscured here.

As to the product itself, there is nothing to see here. If you are looking for a small desktop speaker with aluminum construction, the Genelec 8030C is cheaper with a far more optimized waveguide and cabinet shape, plus it comes with amplification built in.

 

[MalVeauX]

Pretty interesting that they're all metal. I've always wondered why there's not more fully aluminum speakers out there since it's not super heavy. If people are ok with 250lb subs they would be ok with 200lb+ towers and lighter monitors I imagine that are even looking at this stuff.

I'm confused how this is a high end anything other than price tag. But that said, I'd be interested to hear them. The SPL response graph looks unattractive to me regardless of the measuring process, the "V" pattern of elevated mid-bass and treble. I don't expect these to dig deep, they're just too small. I guess I'm not seeing much reason for the pseudo-isobaric design of the two woofers.

Thanks for the read!

Very best,

 

[TLS Guy]

Pretty interesting that they're all metal. I've always wondered why there's not more fully aluminum speakers out there since it's not super heavy. If people are ok with 250lb subs they would be ok with 200lb+ towers and lighter monitors I imagine that are even looking at this stuff.

I'm confused how this is a high end anything other than price tag. But that said, I'd be interested to hear them. The SPL response graph looks unattractive to me regardless of the measuring process, the "V" pattern of elevated mid-bass and treble. I don't expect these to dig deep, they're just too small. I guess I'm not seeing much reason for the pseudo-isobaric design of the two woofers.

Thanks for the read!

Very best,

The isobarik design substantially reduces volume, as Vas is halved. In theory by 50%, but you loose 3db. in sensitivity.

I see one problem with this design, in that the bass has reduced output below the crossover to the rear driver, but above the loading the front driver will not. So this might be contributing to the slight rise in the upper bass.

I use those drivers in 0.25 cu.ft. sealed enclosures as my four ceiling speakers. They are excellent drivers and I have been telling everyone here they are the best Atmos drivers you can buy, bar none. Those drivers should be ALL members first choice for that application.

These drivers have a long ancestry in which I was intimately involved. These drivers are the descendent of the Jordan Watts driver, designed by Ted Jordan. I was in communication with him, until the end of his life. He left his patents to Ted Jordan Designs and the engineers behind these Mark Audio speakers. His wife who was an engineer with Ted at Goodmans before the company had to be sold for death duties. This is when Jordan Watts was formed. Leslie Watts was Goomans CFO.
In the divorce his wife got the rights to his patents also, and formed Bandor, that made drivers using Ted's patents.

Anyhow, the secret of these drivers, and the basis of Ted's patents is that the drivers do break up, but in a highly controlled fashion, so that the effective radiating area decreases in inverse proportion to frequency, avoiding beaming usually associated with breakup. Actually the response is actually very good out to 20 KHz. In any event the speakers have a very good response to well above the speech discrimination band, where it is optimal to cross them over. The cone is very light and is a geometric tractrix.

For a small speaker they have an excellent low end response also. They will go well into the 40 Hz range. The big problem with the JW driver was oil canning of the cone from overdriving in the bass, which ruined the driver. These Mark Audio drivers have a cunning mod, that prevents excessive travel of the VC and prevents oil canning,.

I have been doodling with a TL MTM kit design for these speakers. They have excellent T/L parameters for a TL. Ted Jordan was a big fan of TL speakers by the way.

So I'm not surprised that James liked these speakers so much.

 

[Imperfect]

The isobarik design substantially reduces volume, as Vas is halved. In theory by 50%, but you loose 3db. in sensitivity.

I see one problem with this design, in that the bass has reduced output below the crossover to the rear driver, but above the loading the front driver will not. So this might be contributing to the slight rise in the upper bass.

I use those drivers in 0.25 cu.ft. sealed enclosures as my four ceiling speakers. They are excellent drivers and I have been telling everyone here they are the best Atmos drivers you can buy, bar none. Those drivers should be ALL members first choice for that application.

These drivers have a long ancestry in which I was intimately involved. These drivers are the descendent of the Jordan Watts driver, designed by Ted Jordan. I was in communication with him, until the end of his life. He left his patents to Ted Jordan Designs and the engineers behind these Mark Audio speakers. His wife who was an engineer with Ted at Goodmans before the company had to be sold for death duties. This is when Jordan Watts was formed. Leslie Watts was Goomans CFO.
In the divorce his wife got the rights to his patents also, and formed Bandor, that made drivers using Ted's patents.

Anyhow, the secret of these drivers, and the basis of Ted's patents is that the drivers do break up, but in a highly controlled fashion, so that the effective radiating area decreases in inverse proportion to frequency, avoiding beaming usually associated with breakup. Actually the response is actually very good out to 20 KHz. In any event the speakers have a very good response to well above the speech discrimination band, where it is optimal to cross them over. The cone is very light and is a geometric tractrix.

For a small speaker they have an excellent low end response also. They will go well into the 40 Hz range. The big problem with the JW driver was oil canning of the cone from overdriving in the bass, which ruined the driver. These Mark Audio drivers have a cunning mod, that prevents excessive travel of the VC and prevents oil canning,.

I have been doodling with a TL MTM kit design for these speakers. They have excellent T/L parameters for a TL. Ted Jordan was a big fan of TL speakers by the way.

So I'm not surprised that James liked these speakers so much.

Half Vas is assuming perfect coupling between the two speakers. Measured Vas will be closer to 60%+ of its previous value even for clamshells.

 

[lovinthehd]

Interesting but can't see using such small speakers generally, especially for the cost but maybe in an office environment where you don't have to buy them?

 

[TLS Guy]

Interesting but can't see using such small speakers generally, especially for the cost but maybe in an office environment where you don't have to buy them?

You would be surprised. The JWs had a really good bass response, better than most 8" drivers actually, and these Mark Audio drivers model very well also. Power rating is 45 watts and sensitivity is on the high side. Actually those in the ceiling have the highest spl. watt for watt. If you use them full range then there is no crossover loss. If you use a first order crossover, and you never need a higher order than that with those drivers, you only loose 1 db. of sensitivity. I ran a pair of JWs in a TL crossed to an STC super tweeter at 10 K for years. It used to reproduce very good bass and more then enough for my apartment in Catford while I was in Med school. I drove it with a 10 + 10 watt Mullard tube amp and the Quad 22 tube preamp I'm still using here.

You can see the impedance curve and Thiel/Small parameters of a JW module. These are my measurements. You can see there is a small peak in the impedance curve at 375 Hz and the second harmonic at 750 Hz. These are due to the resonances of the three beryllium cantilevers that form the suspension and feed the signal to the voice coil. These do slightly color the sound.

The Mark Audio drivers have a conventional spider.

The CH 110 I think most resembles the original JW drivers, the Fs is 44 Hz, and xmax is 8mm. Qts is .412, so you can get a better bass from those then most bookshelves.

So an MTM using those drivers, would have a sensitivity of 93.6 db. The power handling would be 95 watts. So that would produce a very decent spl. from most receivers, even the lower powered ones.

When dealing with these drivers you have to leave behind the preconceptions you have of dealing with other drivers. They really are unique.

 

[lovinthehd]

No, I doubt I'd be surprised as to the utility of such small specific use speakers, sorry. I usually don't even think much of your speakers or musical tastes either.....

 

[TLS Guy]

No, I doubt I'd be surprised as to the utility of such small specific use speakers, sorry. I usually don't even think much of your speakers or musical tastes either.....

I think you would have a very different view if you heard them. As far as those 4" drivers are concerned, you need to be much more open minded and look at the data.
As I said, you have to leave your preconceived notions behind. As far as my speakers are concerned they are out of the mold, but they really deliver as my measurements show. As far as your views on musical tastes, you seem Hell bent of jettisoning a 1000 or so years of great musical art from our civilization, and the loss is yours.

 

[lovinthehd]

I think you would have a very different view if you heard them. As far as those 4" drivers are concerned, you need to be much more open minded and look at the data.
As I said, you have to leave your preconceived notions behind. As far as my speakers are concerned they are out of the mold, but they really deliver as my measurements show. As far as your views on musical tastes, you seem Hell bent of jettisoning a 1000 or so years of great musical art from our civilization, and the loss is yours.

Maybe, but not likely to get a chance. Euro musical "art" isn't all that impressive compared to the rest of the world. Especially that euro churchy crap

 

[TLS Guy]

Half Vas is assuming perfect coupling between the two speakers. Measured Vas will be closer to 60%+ of its previous value even for clamshells.

I would have to model the drivers in isobaric configuration. I have designed two subs, and one integrated bass section of a pair of speakers. I'm still using a pair of one of the sub designs in my family room. I can't say I'm really fond of the technique, it does reduce cabinet volume but at the expense of sensitivity. It does give you control of bandwidth and Q. However, in a low Q design then the bandwidth is very limited. If you extend the bandwidth then you have a Bose boom box.

In years past isobaric subs were popular, but you can't get the bandwidth to cover the LFE signal. So I think that is why they are not popular now.

I'm sure in the design in question they did save a useful amount of cabinet volume.

 

[TLS Guy]

View attachment 58533​

I knew very little about Mon Acoustics except that they were a high-end loudspeaker manufacturer based out of Korea, so I was a bit surprised when Audioholics editor-in-chief Gene DellaSala asked if I wanted to review a pair of their speakers. With enclosures made from aluminum, these are not your typical loudspeakers; to be honest, they are not quite like anything I have dealt with before. The metal cabinet is only one of the unusual design characteristics of their speakers, and there are a host of others that we will cover in this review of the SuperMon Mini. The Mini, as its name indicates, is a small loudspeaker designed for small rooms or desktop systems. At $2k per pair, they are geared toward those interested in luxury products and want to get the most out of a small space. They are manufactured and hand-assembled entirely in Korea. With an all-aluminum cabinet, the luxury aspect is certainly there, but what about the other elements that comprise a loudspeaker? That is what we will be examining in today’s review of the Mon Acoustics Supermon Mini...

READ: Mon Acoustics SuperMon Mini Loudspeaker Review

James, the biggest mistake the designers made, was not to have a grill. Those cones are very frail. They are close to foil. So without a protective grill they are going to get damaged. They won't last long on a desk. That was a very bad error.

The next thing is that I'm pretty sure the bass tuning is sub optimal. Do you know the model number of the driver they used, as Mark Audio make so many of those drivers? I would love to model it. Most of those drivers should have much better bass response than that. Tuning the cabinet at 150 Hz does not sound right to me.

I think they would have been far better off with a dome tweeter rather then that deeply set AMT tweeter.

I have a strong hunch that design could be improved a lot.

 

[Spock]

These speakers seem very similar to the Paradigm Signature S1, both being all-Aluminum construction. But the S1 came with Paradigm’s highly regarded Beryllium tweeters. How do you think the S1 would compare with the Mon?

 

[shadyJ]

James, the biggest mistake the designers made, was not to have a grill. Those cones are very frail. They are close to foil. So without a protective grill they are going to get damaged. They won't last long on a desk. That was a very bad error.

The next thing is that I'm pretty sure the bass tuning is sub optimal. Do you know the model number of the driver they used, as Mark Audio make so many of those drivers? I would love to model it. Most of those drivers should have much better bass response than that. Tuning the cabinet at 150 Hz does not sound right to me.

I think they would have been far better off with a dome tweeter rather then that deeply set AMT tweeter.

I have a strong hunch that design could be improved a lot.

I believe that the driver is the Mark Audio CHR-90.

I don't think the lack of a grille is a big problem for most people. The people who get these speakers are not going to be placing them in an area with a lot of physical activity. These are desktop or office speakers for well-to-do folks, or maybe bedroom speakers for smaller bedrooms. They aren't likely to be used around kids.

As for the bass tuning, there are two things going on, the port loading and the isobaric system. The isobaric system seems to give it a 2nd-order roll-off, but the port seems to give it a mid-bass bump. Maybe there is room for improvement, but when you are using aluminum as an enclosure material, it becomes difficult to make the cabinet larger, and it would also be contrary to the goals of this speaker. As you know, most commercial loudspeakers would have improved performance with a larger enclosure, but manufacturers have to draw the line somewhere in terms of size or else no one would buy the speaker.

 

[shadyJ]

These speakers seem very similar to the Paradigm Signature S1, both being all-Aluminum construction. But the S1 came with Paradigm’s highly regarded Beryllium tweeters. How do you think the S1 would compare with the Mon?

I don't really know how it would compare. Paradigm usually gives their tweeters a bit of a bump, so I would speculate that the Paradigm has a more forward sound, and the Minis would sound a lot warmer in comparison.

 

[TLS Guy]

I believe that the driver is the Mark Audio CHR-90.

I don't think the lack of a grille is a big problem for most people. The people who get these speakers are not going to be placing them in an area with a lot of physical activity. These are desktop or office speakers for well-to-do folks, or maybe bedroom speakers for smaller bedrooms. They aren't likely to be used around kids.

As for the bass tuning, there are two things going on, the port loading and the isobaric system. The isobaric system seems to give it a 2nd-order roll-off, but the port seems to give it a mid-bass bump. Maybe there is room for improvement, but when you are using aluminum as an enclosure material, it becomes difficult to make the cabinet larger, and it would also be contrary to the goals of this speaker. As you know, most commercial loudspeakers would have improved performance with a larger enclosure, but manufacturers have to draw the line somewhere in terms of size or else no one would buy the speaker.

Thanks James. I will take a close look later. However I looked at the documents for that driver, and the response you measured is virtually identical to the closed box response, including the ripple at 150 Hz, and the second order roll off. I get the feeling this is a great amateur hour achievement.