This article is on the new Bronze series of speakers from Monitor Audio. We will go over the technology they all share, then get into the differences between some of the different models.

Monitor Audio was founded in 1972 outside of Cambridge in the UK. For almost 5 decades, they have been winning awards for their value-oriented products that capture the ears of music lovers with their lively and fun to listen to sound.

With the introduction of these new models, the Bronze series enters its 6th revision over its 20-year span. The new models not only sound better but have a look that seems far more polished and contemporary than you would expect for their price range.

Technology Shared By All Monitor Audio Bronze Series Models

C-CAM Gold Dome Tweeter

Monitor Audio developed this unique tweeter many years ago. They take an aluminum-magnesium alloy dome and coat it with a ceramic material, which is what C-CAM describes (ceramic-coated aluminum magnesium). It also has their distinctive gold color added for a cool look. This special coating causes the breakup frequency of the tweeter to be pushed out well beyond the range of human hearing.

The new tech in Monitor Audio’s upgradedUniform Dispersion (UD) Waveguide II, combined with their C-CAM tweeter has some great advantages. You get less of a drop-off in high-frequency response as you move off-axis, which widens the sweet spot, giving you a big image for more than one listener. The way the waveguide is designed pushes the tweeter further back into the cabinet, providing a side benefit of improving time alignment as its voice coil is closer to the midrange/woofer voice coil.

In our testing of the Bronze 100 Bookshelf Speakers and Bronze 200 Floorstanding Speakers, we found it to have a huge soundstage where the speakers totally disappeared, proving the points Monitor Audio makes about this new tweeter design.

C-CAM Mid-Bass Drivers

Just like the tweeter, this tech is extended to the midrange-bass drivers. C-CAM was originally developed for the aerospace industry for jet engine components. It has great resistance to bending stress.

Monitor Audio improved the shape of the driver to reduce cone breakup. This reduced both coloration and distortion.

Finally, the driver itself just looks super cool, which is one of the many reasons we think they look best with the grills off.

High-Performance Cabinet Design

Many speakers in this class are made of thin material with little internal bracing. The Bronze series has some serious cabinets. The front baffle is almost 1” thick giving the drivers a very solid surface. The rest of the cabinet is over ½” thick with lots of internal braces to add rigidity.

Like many speaker companies, Monitor has spent a lot of time developing a port that reduces noise. A port is basically a hole in a speaker that helps improve bass response, but done wrong, can add noise. Monitor calls their port HiVe II. The smooth airflow they get from this improves the transient response of the bass drivers and gives them tighter bass.

Another thing that really impresses us is how Monitor bolts the drivers to the rear of the cabinet. We have seen this on far more expensive models, but never in this price range. If you look at the rear of their speakers, you’ll see one or more round black bolts. This connects the mid-bass driver with a rod to the rear of the speaker. The tweeter housing also gets the same type of treatment. For the woofers, this reduces the energy that might be transmitted to the cabinet walls, thus greatly reducing resonance and giving the tweeter a more solid mount, pretty neat.

When you see the cabinets in person, you’ll observe a fantastic finish on them.

High-Quality Crossovers

A speaker’s crossover is always hidden inside the speaker and is a place some companies cut costs as you never see it. The purpose of a crossover is to send the various frequencies to the right drivers. When you look at the quality of component parts Monitor uses, it's like what you would see inside a high-end amplifier. They use polyester film and electrolytic capacitors with air-core and low-loss laminated steel-core inductors.

Bi-wiring

At Audio Advice we have promoted bi-wiring for decades. It costs more to add to a speaker but does improve performance if you use bi-wire cables. To learn more about bi-wiring, we have a full article explaining bi-wiring and bi-amping. Even the entry-level Bronze 50 is set up to be bi-wired which is just great.

We do have to say we wish they had used a little bit deeper binding post. These are not as deep as we typically see and a banana plug does not go in very far. In our testing with Transparent cable bananas they were never loose or fell out, but we felt they would be more solid were they deeper.

On the positive side, other speaker companies could learn from how Monitor inserts the banana plug covers. The EU makes all speaker companies put little plugs in the banana holes to prevent people from confusing them with an AC outlet. Most plugs are pretty hard to get out yes you only have to do it once, but Monitor puts posts on the plugs which makes it super easy to get out with a regular pair of pliers, nice touch!

Well Matched for Home Theater

With all of the tweeters being the same and the mid-bass drivers all having the same tech, this series is great for home theater systems. You’ll get seamless transitions from speaker to speaker with a big soundfield.

Great Fit and Finish

While this is not really technology we have to call out how well these are made. The fit and finish on this contemporary-looking speaker line are far higher than you would normally expect for an entry-level range of very reasonably priced speakers. You’ll find solid cabinets that are well put together.

All of the main speakers in the Bronze series come in a choice of four finishes. White and Urban grey both come with a painted white front baffle while the Walnut and Black have a black painted front baffle. Each color comes with a coordinating grill that attaches with hidden magnets. With their unique tweeter waveguide and gorgeous C-CAM bass drivers, we feel like the speakers look far better with the grills off. And with their cool-looking perforated waveguide, you can leave the grills off and never have to worry about small fingers pushing in your tweeters, they are completely protected.

Main Bronze Series Speaker Models

The new Bronze series consists of two bookshelf speakers, two floor-standing speakers, a center channel, subwoofer, surround speakers, and a pair of Atmos elevation speakers. Monitor Audio also has in-ceiling and in-wall speakers you can use for architectural applications in a home theater system that also use their special tweeter design so they match up great.

Monitor Audio Bronze Series Bookshelf Speakers

The Bronze 50 and Bronze 100 are the two bookshelf models with the big difference simply being cabinet and mid-bass driver size. They share identical tweeters like all of the models with a 5 ½” woofer in the 50 and an 8” in the 100. Both have a rear mounted port.

The 50 does well in a small room or as surround channels, but we feel if you can step up to the 100, you get a lot more bottom end which always adds to the enjoyment of the music. As a matter of fact, in our listening to the 100, they really surprised us at how much bass they produced for their modest size.

Monitor Audio Bronze Series Tower Speakers

The Bronze 200 and Bronze 500 are the tower speakers with similar differences. You get dual 5 ½” mid-bass drivers in the 200 and dual 8” ones in the 500. The Bronze 200 turned out to be our favorite speaker in the line up, more on that in our listening tests.

The 200 and 500 each come with a very clever outrigger system. Each speaker has four pieces that bolt to the bottom of the cabinet using a large and small bolt so they perfectly align. They come with a sharp spike for carpet and some blunt rubber tips for hard surfaces. These screw in and out to level things up with a large round piece on top to tighten them down. It is one of the easiest leveling systems for spikes we have seen. We highly recommend you use these, especially with the 200 as, with its super small footprint, these add a lot of stability and improve the performance.

Monitor Audio Bronze Series Center Channel

The matching Bronze Series C150 Center Channel uses dual 5 ½” mid-bass drivers. It has great dialog clarity with the combination of these two with the C-CAM tweeter.

Monitor Audio Bronze Series Surround & Atmos Speakers

To round out your surround sound system there is a wall-mounted surround speaker with one 5 ½” driver coupled to two tweeters and an Atmos elevation speaker you can put on top of any of the speakers to bounce the Atmos channel off the ceiling. These have a 4” C-CAM mid-bass driver. The tweeter has a different waveguide here to give more controlled directivity which is perfect for this use case.

Listening Tests

Whether the sound of a speaker improves as they break in compared to how the sound new out of the box is a somewhat debatable subject. If anyone doubts it makes a difference, we challenge you to get a pair of Bronze speakers, listen to them brand new, and then play them for about 100 hours.

We tested the Bronze 100 and Bronze 200 extensively. The 100 was the first pair we connected up and they initially sounded very thin and lacking in bass. We think it must have something to do with the C-CAM mid-bass drivers. We put them in a room on a Sonos Amp playing Spotify on repeat and let them run for a few days. After this, they were a completely different speaker. We questioned Monitor Audio on this big change and they confirmed with us — they actually recommend up to 200 hours of break-in with the most noticeable results coming during the first 125 hours.

For our testing, we used a small Naim integrated amp coupled with a Cambridge Audio CXN V2 streamer, using Transparent Plus level interconnect and bi-wire speaker cables.

Monitor Audio Bronze 100 Bookshelf Speakers Review

We put these on speaker stands that were about 24” tall and positioned them about 14” off the back wall. At first, we toed them in with the speaker aimed directly at our ears, then tried less toe in with them aimed to about 2 feet behind our head. Set up this way, the image was just terrific. It extended way outside the speakers with center mixed vocals right in the middle and out front. The speakers completely disappeared. These have to be some of the best imaging speakers in this price range.

Deep bass response was equally as impressive as the imaging. Monitor claims their in-room response to only be 6 dB down at 37 Hz, which at first seemed like they were stretching it, but after hearing them, seems to be accurate. They reach low and are quite punchy. If you like electronic music, you will love the punch you get from these.

There is a caveat to this deep bass though. We felt like the midrange was not as full as it could be. We suspect this is likely due to having to run the tweeter lower and let’s face it, an 8” driver is not exactly known for being the best size for midrange. This gives them a sound that has more emphasis on the extremes than in the middle. Don’t get us wrong, they were never “bright” or “edgy” as the C-CAM tweeter is super smooth and open, they just did not give us the richness in voices and middle-frequency instruments compared to some other speakers.

Many people actually prefer this type of presentation as it is a lot of fun to listen to. And we can not forget the fact these are fairly inexpensive speakers and provide incredible imaging and bass impact for their cost.

There is a caveat to this deep bass though. We felt like the midrange was not as full as it could be. We suspect this is likely due to having to run the tweeter lower and let’s face it, an 8” driver is not exactly known for being the best size for midrange. This gives them a sound that has more emphasis on the extremes than in the middle. Don’t get us wrong, they were never “bright” or “edgy” as the C-CAM tweeter is super smooth and open, they just did not give us the richness in voices and middle-frequency instruments compared to some other speakers.

Many people actually prefer this type of presentation as it is a lot of fun to listen to. And we can not forget the fact these are fairly inexpensive speakers and provide incredible imaging and bass impact for their cost.

Monitor Audio Bronze 200 Floorstanding Speakers Review

These use dual 5 ½” mid-bass drivers compared to the single 8” in the Bronze 100 and are a very skinny tower speaker. They actually take up much less of a footprint in your room than a pair of Bronze 100’s on a stand and they blended into our room.

We tried the same toe in positions with these as the Bronze 100 and came to the same conclusion, toe them in just a little, but do not aim them right at you. These sounded better a bit closer to the back wall at about 12”, which is a bonus for fitting them in a room.

The caveats we had about the Bronze 100 were obliterated with the Bronze 200. The bass on these reaches a little deeper but is much more tuneful with improved definition. They are also slightly more sensitive which gave us better dynamics as well.

The imaging is equally as good if maybe not even better due to the smaller cabinet face. But the real change to our ears was how these get the midrange right. These had the presentation we have known to love from most British speakers. We have seen many other speakers that use smaller dual drivers have these same characteristics where the midrange is fantastic and the bass is fast and well defined.

Another area we noticed improvements in was the sense of timing. Some listeners ignore this and pay more attention to individual instruments and the soundstage presentation. But there is an argument that a great speaker should also make you want to get up and move when you play a fun, rhythmic track. The Bronze 200 had better timing to our ears than the Bronze 100.

While these are double the price of the Bronze 100, like all of the Bronze speakers, they are still a great value and were our favorite of the ones we tested. They had that open, airy top end we loved on the Bronze 100, but add more refinement to the bottom end with the other improvements we mentioned.

For someone just getting into a decent pair of speakers, the Bronze 100 will be a lot of fun to listen to and give you punchy bass and an extended open top end like you may have never experienced before. The Bronze 200 is more for the listener who wants even better sound, plus the look of this small tower is fantastic.

We should point out you will want a decent amp to drive these with. You do not need something super powerful, but it should have good current capability. There are plenty of good choices out there from Cambridge, Rega, NAD, and more. We actually have a great article on our top integrated amps under $1,000 — most of which will pair very well with either model.

Hopefully, you have enjoyed our brief overview of the Bronze series from Monitor Audio. If you have any questions at all give us a call or chat with us, or stop by our showrooms.