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I live around the block and missed the party ??? (assuming you're still in Brentford/Kew Bridge)
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Monitor Audio 20 SE
lovely speakers. good to read about your enjoyment.
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I bought some Monitor Audio speakers last night mainly based on this (EBay search after reading it, then search of the reviews for the model I found).
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That's a lovely tale.
I've always thought that the Monitor Audio brand had something special to them. I had a gentleman come and buy a pair of R1200 Golds from me only yesterday. I applied some wood treatment on the spot for him and cranked them up loud in the garage and we were both in some level of awe. He'd first heard a pair back in the 80s in Portugal and had been obsessed ever since, refreshing Gumtree and eBay regularly in pursuit of finding a pair. He's also looking for a pair of Studio 20s!
Glad to hear the street party is live and kicking. I used to live at number 104 IIRC!
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anidel
ChasnotRobert
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scott_infinity
@Velocio
Back in 1998 I bought a paid of Monitor Audio speakers, yesterday was the first time in perhaps a decade when I really opened them up and let them sing.
There was a street party on my road, kids playing outside, no cars and no background noise, and all the windows open. The Monitor Audio are not the loudest speakers out there, I barely recorded 90db on my sound meter... but wow, were they alive.
Even in songs I know really well, the feel of the kick drum was palpable. The tone of the bass. The clarity of the high hat. Damn... these things sing.
So all I have in the way of audio equipment left over from years of having acquired and sold little bits, is this beloved pair of speakers - the model on the back shows that they are the Monitor Audio Silver S8, they were bought as reference speakers for a couple of grand back in the late 1990s when I had sold a record (a flawed master acetate of a band, which contained an alternative version of an album, and a fan paid enough to cover most of the cost of these speakers). And these speakers are hooked up to an Arcam amp, an amp old enough to not have a screen on it, with it's model designation no longer visible on the front (it's been cleaned enough times or chipped off?), but it looks a bit like Arcam A38 except without the screen and with fewer inputs - it's from around the same time as the speakers... the late 1990s. And the input for all of these is a studio DAC from RME Digi known as a DIGI96/8 with some FLACs (mostly 24bit) inputting to that.
Anyhoo... yesterday with people drinking outside, all windows open, and a party atmosphere pervading I figured that so long as I put on party-esque music I could have these loud.
I'm soooo glad I did. I've kept these things out of emotional attachment, at having purchased them at a time when I was broke and forlorn, a bit despondent. The music they played at the time kept me alive, and now in a different place (emotionally, financially, work-wise, etc) they remain an unbelievable gift that keeps on giving.
Hard to put words to how good they sounded and what they did to the songs. But I haven't heard them that alive in as long as I can remember (probably aided by a wood panelled room rather than a concrete box).
Good equipment, even old, is a glorious thing.