Monitor Audio Bronze 6G Review

Say hello to the new Monitor Audio bronze 6G series, the entry-level range of bookshelf and floor-standing speakers, including an all-new Dolby Atmos option.

Today we’ve got a selection of speakers from the all-new Monitor Audio bronze 6g series released in 2020. That is the sixth generation of the bronze series, building on a 20-year legacy. The award-winning bronze series is Monitor Audio’s more budget-friendly option but features many of the details and features of the premium higher-end, silver and gold series. This whole range has been designed to appeal to both music and movie lovers equally. You can start with a pair of speakers and add to your setup over time to suit you and your needs. Let’s begin by going over what’s in the range, and then we’ll delve into each one in more detail.

The Bronze 6G Series

First, you have two options for bookshelf speakers the bronze 50s, the more compact option and the bronze 100s, its bigger brother. These versions would make great stereo speakers position on a bookshelf or floor stands if you didn’t want the fully-fledged floor-standing models.

Speaking of floor standards, you have two options for floor standards. The more compact bronze 200s and the more powerful bronze 50s, the largest speakers in the range. These could be used as a more powerful option than the bookshelf speakers for front left and right speakers.

Next, we have the bronze c150s, a center-channel speaker used with other speakers in the range for a surround setup, expanding on surrounds. This range also includes the bronze FX surround speakers, specifically designed to offer surround sound in a home cinema setup.

Of course, there’s also a sub in this range, the bronze w10 subwoofer. The final and most exciting update to the bronze 6g series is a pair of Dolby Atmos speakers. The bronze AMS added to the bronze 50s or 200s speakers to provide Dolby Atmos surround sound.

Monitor Audio had big shoes to fill with this series as the past versions of the bronze series have been a big hit with customers. They’ve picked up some great five star reviews and awards. They’ve interestingly opted for a new approach with this new range bringing nothing across from the previous range, adapted over the past 15 years with multiple generations.

Monitor Audio did a lot of research for this new design, including assessing how the home aesthetics had changed. Following this, they opted for a similar tried and tested approach found in their latest silver series, a step up from the bronze.

Highlights for the Bronze 6G

There are some fundamental changes to highlight. The cabinets are slightly larger in the new 6g series, and the overall design has been refreshed. There are the striking tweeter grills which we’ve seen in the higher-spec silver series. You also have a choice of four new finishes: black, white, walnut and urban gray. They’ve also introduced a new high-frequency dispersion design called a uniform dispersion waveguide, alters how the high frequency is sent out from the tweeters.

If you look closely at the driver, you’ll also note that the drive unit’s cone geometry has been optimized, which can be seen from this concave angle. That enables the speaker to provide a more accurate sound and helps to reduce distortion at higher volumes.

So with us today, we’ve got your two options for bookshelf speakers, the bronze 50s and the bronze 100s, the bronze 200s floor standards and the new Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers, the bronze AMS. We will go into more depth on these products, including what we found in our testing.

The Bronze 50s

Let’s start with the least expensive bookshelf speakers in the range, the bronze 50s, the smaller option of the bookshelf or stand mount speakers, and the previous bronze one speakers’ replacement. These come as a pair, and their compact dimensions 166 by 281 by 265 centimeters make these the best suited in a smaller space such as a small lounge bedroom or home office. Design-wise, you have the choice of four colors. I like this urban gray option, but you can opt for the best style for your room’s aesthetics. As you can probably guess at this price, the finish is vinyl though the warner and urban grey offer a wood grain look. It does come with a mesh grille that covers the front section and attaches with hidden magnets. Again this comes down to personal preference. I prefer the look of these speakers without the grille and with the internal components on display. But it’s always nice to have the option to cover them up.

As I said, the bronze 50s are compact speakers meaning they don’t require a lot of space, and they aren’t affected if you position them next to a wall or tuck them away in a corner bookshelf. There’s something called a hive tube rear port on these speakers, which is tuned for easy positioning so you can place these speakers wherever they fit in your space without impacting your sound performance.

Internally you can see here monitor audio’s signature C-cam gold tweeter, which uses that new uniform dispersion waveguide, which helps your audio disperse more evenly throughout the room.

You can see a five and a half-inch C-cam mid-bass driver, the ceramic-coated aluminum magnesium cone which Monitor Audio is well known for. It features refreshed cone geometries as well as damped concentric mode technology. It also uses the new uniform dispersion waveguide. That sounds like many fancy words, but in simple terms, all of that helps to provide accurate time response and improves dispersion around your room.

Meanwhile, a larger diameter voice coil within the driver helps produce higher sound pressure levels for tight smooth bass. Monitor Audio has also introduced pure flow silver-plated oxygen-free copper wire inside the speaker. That helps to reduce any possibility of sound quality degradation, so you get the best sound possible from these speakers.

There’s a contrasting baffle and acoustically transparent hexagonal dispersion patterns on the tweeter across the front here. That is an excellent addition, particularly as you can see the grille’s gold tweeter when it catches the light.

On the back, you can see this speaker is bi-wirable with these gold-plated binding posts, which is a nice feature if your amplifier has that capability.

These speakers can be placed on a sideboard or bookshelf on top of floor stands or wall-mounted in terms of placement. They can be used as a stereo pair for two-channel listening or as part of a surround sound setup where they could be either the front, rears or both. You can also add the bronze AMS on top of them for Dolby Atmos sound.

The Bronze 100s

Let’s move on to the bronze 100 bookshelf speakers, which replacing the award-winning bronze 2 speakers. When you look at them side by side, you can see straight away that the hundreds offer a much larger cabinet size of 231 by 376 by 325 centimeters. They clearly will take up more space wherever you place them, but it does also mean that they can offer a more massive, more room-filling sound. That brings me on to the main difference between these two speakers: the driver size. As I said earlier, the bronze 50s have a 5.5-inch driver, whereas the bronze 100 offers a larger eight-inch driver, an upgrade from the 6.5-inch drivers found in the older bronze 2 speakers. Alongside the same renowned c-cam technology and damped concentric mode technology found in the bronze 50s, this larger driver size enables the bronze 100 to offer more resonant bass and a more comprehensive, more dynamic audio output.

Those are the only two differences between these speakers. They both come in the same four color options, and both have the same external aesthetic and the same tweeter. If you’re deciding between the two, I would weigh up the size of your room first as the bronze 100 are considerably larger, which’s important to factor in.

The Bronze 200s

Let’s take a look at the bronze 200 now. As you can see, the 200s have the same footprint as the bronze 50s but in a floor-standing design. They have the same tweeter found in both the bronze 50s and the bronze 100 but offer dual 5.5-inch drivers. They have the same four color options available to suit your flooring. These both the same features as the bookshelf speakers, so you’ve got the new uniform dispersion waveguide, damped concentric mode technology, a hexagonal dispersion pattern grille, etc.

We would recommend using these with TV. They’ll look nice on either side of a tv unit. Whether you use these alone or with a full home cinema setup with a center channel rears and a sub, it’s a fantastic option.

The Bronze 6G’s Sound Performance

I tested all three pairs of speakers in a two-channel setup. Of course, I did a thorough test in the office with a massive range of genres and different types of audio content. I’ll say that all three impressed me. I wasn’t expecting this level of sound performance from monitor audio’s entry-level range. I was very pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the most exciting observation was that as all three speakers used the same tweeter, they all offered very similar performance in mid and high frequencies. The vocals across the board stood out for me. I would say the vocals project better than its bronze predecessors.

First, the bronze 50s offered a clean, warm sound that makes them perfect for smaller sized rooms. The high frequencies and vocals were silky smooth and clean. The bass was the least powerful in these speakers due to the physical driver size. But to be honest, these are suitable for a lot of spaces, especially if you’ve got neighbors who perhaps wouldn’t appreciate having a more massive base. For bedrooms, offices, smaller living areas, etc., these would be great and comfortably fill the space.

The 200 again offered a room-filling sound in our demo room here. The standout feature in this pair for me was the stereo imaging and stage presence. The stereo separation was spot on, and the imaging ensured that the sound was dispersed evenly. When we stood off-center, it did do an excellent job of maintaining the sound performance. If I’m honest, I didn’t feel the 200 offered the same bass response we got from the bronze 100, despite having the additional driver. However, when testing the bronze 200s with the Sonos amp, I could tweak the eq and boost the bass, which did help. Of course, you do have the option of adding a sub to boost the bass further if you want. Suppose you’re looking for atmos in a home cinema experience. However, these would be the ones to go for as the AMS would sit perfectly on top to add those height channels making this an excellent TV setup.

Finally, the bronze 100 now these were the standout performance for me. This eight-inch driver and larger cabinet did help the bronze 100 take both the base and the overall sound performance to a very impressive level. High hats were crystal clear, and you could even hear subtleties in the performers breathing.

The Bronze AMS – Dolby Atmos Module

Let’s look at the final product we have here, and these are the Monitor Audio AMS Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers. It’s great to see monitor audio keeping up with the latest and most significant audio processing form. These are the first-ever Dolby Atmos-enabled speaker modules that we’ve seen from monitor audio. They’ve been designed to take a typical Dolby digital system to the next level by adding dedicated upward-firing drivers for 3D Dolby Atmos sound. As you can see from the triangular shape, they will angle sound up towards your ceiling, where it will bounce back down towards the viewer for a 3D audio soundstage. So this means if a helicopter were to fly over ahead or a car races from one side of the screen to the other, you’d experience that in-home cinema-quality sound and closer to the way the director intended it.

Of course, these have been designed to work perfectly with the bronze series, so they offer the same signature 25-millimeter c-cam gold dome tweeter with UD waveguide for precise directional sound and a four-inch c-cam driver to handle the mid-bass tones. Design-wise it has the same footprint as the bronze 50s that I have here and the bronze 200s floor standing speakers to sit perfectly atop the speaker for a sleek overall finish.

You can choose to place the AMS on either the front or the rear speakers, or you could have them on all four to elevate the listening experience, although I wouldn’t say that that’s essential. You can opt to place the AMS on the bronze 100 or bronze 50s0 speakers because it doesn’t share the same footprint. You can also use the AMS to other non-monitor audio speakers with this footprint size, which is an excellent option if you perhaps already have a bookshelf or floor standing speakers you love. Still, you want to add Dolby Atmos to enhance your immersion, for example.

As I mentioned, you can use these speakers separately as height surround speakers, and these can be easily wall-mounted using these dedicated keyhole wall mounts. They’re available in either black or white, but it might have been nice to have the new four colorways’ top choice, so they match entirely. If you’re looking at getting the AMS speakers to place on top of your speakers, then I’d suggest going for either the black or white bookshelf or floor standards for a more aesthetically pleasing match.

Conclusion

So that covers all the products we have here today. What we like about this range is the flexibility with setup options. You have a huge range of setups available, a stereo pair, a pair of bronze 50ss with AMS atmos speakers at the front with a c1bronze 50s center channel and the FX as surrounds. You could swap out the bronze 50ss for a pair of 200 floor standards with the AMS and then have bookshelf speakers as the rears. The list goes on. It’s all that works for you and your room.

If you’re choosing between the speakers and me, have here and the bronze 50s. There are a few points that I can add that might help make it a bit more straightforward for you. I haven’t tested the bronze 50s0s, but I can only imagine they would take it to the next level for both tv and music. It would be the best choice for a larger space and bass lovers. The bronze 200, as I said earlier, would be my pick for tv audio, especially when combined with the AMS atmos speakers. The bronze 100 would be my personal choice for incredible bass and powerful sound performance, but only if you have the space to position them on a floor stand. Finally, the bronze 50ss are the ones to go for if you’ve got smaller space and are looking to position speakers on a bookshelf or similar.