Audiophilepure

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/2025-recommended-reference-component-arendal-sound-1528-monitor-8-loudspeaker

The ability of the Monitor 8s to reveal details was illustrated by several recordings that Philip auditioned during the review period. For instance, with The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, Philip describes how he “could hear everything through the Arendals” and that the pair “sounded as clean as any speakers” he’s ever reviewed. “Adderley’s band was spread wide across the front of my room, and the position of each musician was a cinch to visualize.”

Listening to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Moanin’, Philip writes how “the wide stage conveyed by the Arendals was bookended by the rich tones of the trumpet on the left and the tenor saxophone on the right. The drum kit emerged with commendable clarity almost directly behind the right speaker, which seemed to disappear entirely.” He sums up his listening impressions of this song by explaining that the speakers “called little attention to themselves and simply communicated what was in the grooves of the vinyl.”

Philip compared the 1528 Monitor 8s with his reference speakers: a pair of Monitor Audio Gold 300 5Gs. The Gold 300 5G is a three-way design that is now discontinued. It sold for US$9500 per pair when Philip made his purchase. Like the Monitor 8, the Gold has two 8″ woofers, but it has a 2.5″ midrange and a 1″ AMT-type driver for high frequencies, and it’s a floorstander. Philip describes an extensive back and forth that demonstrated to him that both pairs of speakers have “a fair amount in common,” but in the end, he leaned more to the 1528 Monitor 8s, declaring: “At higher volumes, the Arendals were more effortless, betraying no sense of exertion whatsoever. That being said, the 300s could also play louder than I’m able to tolerate, but the Arendals were just more at ease doing so. . . . For this reason, I found they encouraged higher playback. If you have a large room and/or listen at high volumes, you’ll almost certainly favor the Arendals.”

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