Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/monitor-audio-platinum-300-3g-loudspeaker

 I see I haven’t commented yet on the Platinum 300 3G’s degree of tonal neutrality. This speaker is commendably uncolored. Solo piano recordings are very revealing of problems in the upper midrange, but the piano on the Silverman concert recording sounded both natural and full range, with no notes emphasized. The only aspect of the Monitor Audio’s sonic signature that did occasionally concern me was a slight emphasis to recorded sibilance, more noticeable with the solid state Naim and Parasound amplifiers than with the tubed Audio Research I/50 or, paradoxically perhaps, the class-D NAD. The I/50’s top octave starts to roll off prematurely into low impedances (footnote 1), which could account somewhat for its mitigation of this slight sibilance, though the shape of the Platinum 300 3G’s impedance magnitude trace (fig.1 in the Measurements sidebar) suggests that this rolloff will be minimal.

I finished my critical listening sessions with Joni Mitchell at Newport (24/192 FLAC, Rhino/Qobuz), recorded live in 2022. What can I say? With its lack of coloration and neutral tonal balance, Monitor Audio’s Platinum 300 3G did justice not just to Mitchell’s age-deepened voice but to those of all the singers featured on this album.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/focal-maestro-utopia-evo-loudspeaker

One moment, the Maestros take on the character of a 200lb street brawler, the next, that of a ballerina. They did the only thing that matters in the wild world of hi-fi: connect me to the music. I produced pages of notes full of terms like authority, grace, ebullience, grandeur, brawn. But maybe this says it better than reams of descriptors: During the evaluation of almost every new piece in my system, I make a fresh Roon playlist of songs that show off the product particularly well. On average, I end up with a list of 30, 40 songs. After two months with the Maestros, I was up to 157 tracks. From chamber quartets to EDM, orchestral showpieces to Appalachian folk, delta blues to big band, these exceptional French speakers brought the joy. Astute and revealing, they’re among the hautest of haut-parleurs.