Monolith Audition T5 Floor-Standing Speaker Review

[shadyJ]

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Monoprice has had a variety of great choices for audiophiles on a tight budget as we have seen in past reviews. Our review of their MP-T65RT towers showed them to be highly competent for their incredibly low price, and our review of their Encore T6 Towers showed performance that punched way above their price class. Monoprice has recently launched a loudspeaker line in between these levels of affordability. The Audition series slots in as merely ‘very affordable’ between the ‘bargain basement’ cost of the MP series and merely ‘modestly priced’ cost of the Encore series. In today’s review, we look at the Audition T5 Tower Speakers. Their MSRP is $500 per pair, so not ultra-low cost but still a very low price for a pair of floor-standing speakers- assuming they are well-thought-out designs. While we should expect some compromises from such a low price point, they still have to do some things right, or that $500 would be money better spent elsewhere. Monoprice has shown sensible engineering or lower-cost items before, so that gives us hope that these speakers have qualities to recommend them. Read our full review to see if that is indeed the case…

READ: Monoprice Audition T5 Floor-Standing Loudspeaker Review

 

[ryanosaur]

Thank you, Shady. Great write up.

 

[TLS Guy]

View attachment 63836​

Monoprice has had a variety of great choices for audiophiles on a tight budget as we have seen in past reviews. Our review of their MP-T65RT towers showed them to be highly competent for their incredibly low price, and our review of their Encore T6 Towers showed performance that punched way above their price class. Monoprice has recently launched a loudspeaker line in between these levels of affordability. The Audition series slots in as merely ‘very affordable’ between the ‘bargain basement’ cost of the MP series and merely ‘modestly priced’ cost of the Encore series. In today’s review, we look at the Audition T5 Tower Speakers. Their MSRP is $500 per pair, so not ultra-low cost but still a very low price for a pair of floor-standing speakers- assuming they are well-thought-out designs. While we should expect some compromises from such a low price point, they still have to do some things right, or that $500 would be money better spent elsewhere. Monoprice has shown sensible engineering or lower-cost items before, so that gives us hope that these speakers have qualities to recommend them. Read our full review to see if that is indeed the case…

READ: Monoprice Audition T5 Floor-Standing Loudspeaker Review

Clearly a good value speaker. It is too bad they chose a Tweeter with a wave guide. That steep dip in response around 12 KHz will most likely be due to cancellations caused by reflections from the guide. If they had padded the tweeter down correctly, then I bet the speaker would have sounded slightly dull. This might have been the better option. This is the reason I avoid tweeters with deeper wave guides and only use ones with shallow or no wave guides.

The same issue occurred with my center speaker with the coaxial drivers. Since the cone is larger the cancellation dip is at 9 KHz. That was audible. Fortunately I had a an identical driver above as the bass fill driver for BSC. So I was able to use the tweeter of that fill driver as the fill driver for the 9 KHz dip. Somewhat to my surprise it worked like a charm.

 

[Bobby Bass]

Thanks for another great review. Glad to see that Monoprice continues to make quality equipment that is affordable. Great sound should be available to all.

 

[Danzilla31]

View attachment 63836​

Monoprice has had a variety of great choices for audiophiles on a tight budget as we have seen in past reviews. Our review of their MP-T65RT towers showed them to be highly competent for their incredibly low price, and our review of their Encore T6 Towers showed performance that punched way above their price class. Monoprice has recently launched a loudspeaker line in between these levels of affordability. The Audition series slots in as merely ‘very affordable’ between the ‘bargain basement’ cost of the MP series and merely ‘modestly priced’ cost of the Encore series. In today’s review, we look at the Audition T5 Tower Speakers. Their MSRP is $500 per pair, so not ultra-low cost but still a very low price for a pair of floor-standing speakers- assuming they are well-thought-out designs. While we should expect some compromises from such a low price point, they still have to do some things right, or that $500 would be money better spent elsewhere. Monoprice has shown sensible engineering or lower-cost items before, so that gives us hope that these speakers have qualities to recommend them. Read our full review to see if that is indeed the case…

READ: Monoprice Audition T5 Floor-Standing Loudspeaker Review

You know what I really hate about Monoprice? They make it really hard to sell their gear used with their prices on new stuff already so low dammit

Great writeup @shadyJ!

 

[head_unit]

Presuming at this price the cabinets are not stuffed? If so stuffing the heck out of them could yield a lot of benefit. The tuning of the port appears like mid-50s so no wonder the bass has some boom. Stuffing could lower than and improve the tuning, aside from absorbing midrange inside the enclosure.

 

[shadyJ]

Presuming at this price the cabinets are not stuffed? If so stuffing the heck out of them could yield a lot of benefit. The tuning of the port appears like mid-50s so no wonder the bass has some boom. Stuffing could lower than and improve the tuning, aside from absorbing midrange inside the enclosure.

There is already a lot of polyfill type stuffing in this speaker. Also, packing too much stuffing in a ported loudspeaker can actually degrade its performance.

 

[TLS Guy]

Presuming at this price the cabinets are not stuffed? If so stuffing the heck out of them could yield a lot of benefit. The tuning of the port appears like mid-50s so no wonder the bass has some boom. Stuffing could lower than and improve the tuning, aside from absorbing midrange inside the enclosure.

Wrong! Stuffing like that would ruin them and kill the bass. The starting point for stuffing a vented design, is to cover about 50% of the surface with sound adsorbent material.

 

[Trebdp83]

I find too much stuffing really increases my booms. This is the holiday leftovers thread, right?

 

[Danzilla31]

I find too much stuffing really increases my booms. This is the holiday leftovers thread, right?

That's what she said

 

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, she said it while lighting a lot of candles.

 

[ryanosaur]

Yeah, she said it while lighting a lot of candles.

Methane is flammable, isn't it?

 

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, it was the last thing she said or did, tragically.

 

[ryanosaur]

Yeah, it was the last thing she said or did, tragically.

Stop making holiday stuffing out of White Castle.