Monitor Audio PL200 II Floorstanding Speaker Reviewed

Published On: April 17, 2017
Last Updated on: October 31, 2020
We May Earn From Purchases Via Links

Monitor Audio PL200 II Floorstanding Speaker Reviewed

Brent Butterworth reviews the PL200 II tower speaker from Monitor Audio's Platinum II Series, which incorporates a new Micro Pleated Diaphragm tweeter, among other improvements. Find out what he thought of the PL200 II's performance in this week's featured review.

Monitor Audio PL200 II Floorstanding Speaker Reviewed

By Author: Brent Butterworth

Brent has been a professional audio journalist since 1989, and has reviewed thousands of audio products over the years. He has served as editor-in-chief of Home Theater and Home Entertainment magazines, contributing technical editor for Sound & Vision magazine, senior editor of Video magazine, and reviews editor of Windows Sources magazine, and he also worked as marketing director for Dolby Laboratories. He's now on staff at Wirecutter.

Monitor-PL200II-225x250.jpgSeeing a 40-inch-high tower speaker like the Monitor Audio Platinum II Series PL200 II retailing for $11,495/pair triggers memories of CES past. When I went to my first CES in 1990, $11,495 bought you a pair of flagship speakers from THIEL or MartinLogan--and probably left enough cash to buy a good CD player. Today, a speaker in this price range might be touted as "reasonably priced" compared with some high-end offerings. There are two reasons why I shouldn't let this price jump bother me. First, when you adjust for inflation, today's $11,495 equates to $6,259 then. Second, the PL200 II is arguably a better-engineered, better-made speaker than any of 1990's flagship models.

The Platinum II line is an update of Monitor Audio's original Platinum line, which launched in 2008. (I reviewed the $10,000/pair Platinum PL300 at the time and loved it.) The biggest difference between the original Platinum Series and the Platinum II Series appears to be in the tweeter. The originals featured a ribbon tweeter, while the II Series uses an MPD (Micro Pleated Diaphragm) tweeter, which is Monitor Audio's version of an AMT (Air Motion Transformer) tweeter. This type of tweeter has recently become popular again due to its use in speakers from GoldenEar Technology, MartinLogan, and others--although Monitor Audio stresses that its magnet system, diaphragm, and other elements are different from the AMT design. The PL200 II's MPD tweeter is vertically oriented, and it's claimed to have "uniform output to 100 kHz."

The cones in the four-inch midrange and dual 6.5-inch woofers use a sandwich construction, with Monitor Audio's ceramic-composite C-CAM material on the front and woven carbon fiber on the rear. Using such different materials on the same cone tends to damp resonance and reduce distortion.

One more interesting twist on the cones: They're connected to the voice coil (the wire coil that moves the cone back and forth) with what Monitor Audio calls a DCF (Dynamic Coupling Filter). The DCF is a nylon ring said to behave like a rigid material below the crossover frequency and like a damping material above the crossover frequency. Thus, it's effectively working as a mechanical low-pass filter, allowing a shallower slope and simpler filter to be used in the crossover circuit.

Crossover frequencies are 750 Hz between the woofers and the midrange and 3.9 kHz between the midrange and the tweeter. That second number might seem high; however, considering that the midrange's effective radiating diameter is about 3.5 inches, 3.9 kHz is the frequency at which its dispersion starts narrowing. Thus, the midrange/tweeter array should deliver broad, consistent dispersion without overtaxing the tweeter with frequencies too low for it to handle safely.

The PL200 II's enclosure is reassuringly rigid and non-resonant, partly because of its thick, gently curved side walls and partly because the drivers are bolted through the rear panels. The front baffle is covered in Inglestone leather, a 1.2mm-thick covering hand-selected from the top five percent of hides in Northern Europe. (It definitely looks nicer than the leather on my furniture, which appears to have been selected from the bottom five percent of hides in Oklahoma.) A heavy, high-density-fiberboard base stabilizes the speaker and provides a place to attach the feet or cones. The grilles are attached magnetically and fit into shallow grooves that prevent rattling or accidental detachment. In fact, Monitor Audio provides a magnet specifically created for removing the grilles, which is impossible to do with bare fingers.

The Hookup
I used the PL200 IIs with my usual stereo rig, which consists of a Classé CP-800 preamp/DAC, a Classé CA-2300 stereo amp, a Music Hall Ikura turntable, and an NAD PP-3 phono preamp, plus an Audio by Van Alstine AVA ABX switcher for level-matched comparisons. For movies and TV, I used a Sony STR-ZA5000ES AV receiver. I used Wireworld Eclipse 7 interconnect and speaker cables.

There was nothing fussy about the setup of the PL200 IIs. They worked well in the same positions I use for my Revel F206s, with the speakers toed in to point directly at my listening position. I tried them with and without the grille over the midrange and tweeter, and the differences were subtle, so I did most of my listening with the grilles off, as I usually do.

Monitor-PL200-tweeter.jpgPerformance
Because the new tweeter is the biggest change from the previous Platinum Series, I wanted to get an immediate idea of what it could do. Typically, I use recordings with lots of acoustic guitar or cymbals to test tweeters, but I've started using Gudrun Hinze's recording of Graham Waterhouse's "Piccolo Quintet, Op. 26," which sets Hinze's piccolo against a string quartet. The fundamental tones of a piccolo run from 523 to 4,186 Hz, and the overtones reach well above 10 kHz, so there's plenty to reveal a tweeter's character and flaws. I loved the way the PL200 II revealed the subtleties of this often-unsubtle instrument. Hinze's high notes sounded piercing (it is a piccolo, after all) but not shrill or harsh or breathy, even though I was playing the Quintet at a volume roughly equivalent to having a front-row seat in a small recital hall. The piccolo's sound also exhibited a lot of body; I got more of a sense of the instrument's natural resonance than I'm used to hearing (although that's a testament to the quality of the midrange driver, not the tweeter). The resonances of the wooden bodies of the stringed instruments, particularly the cello, also came through with exceptional clarity and realism. In fact, that's the way I'd describe the sound of this recording through the PL200 IIs: real. Or at least pretty close to real.

Piccolo Quintet, Op. 26: Piccolo Quintet, Op. 26

The 1970 jazz album Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett does not sound real through any speakers. Although this wasn't a good recording even by the standards of its day, I still enjoyed the way it sounded through the PL200 II. The speakers clearly revealed the album's rather strangely mixed stereo presentation, but the timbres of the instruments--especially Burton's vibraphone and Jarrett's piano--sounded natural nonetheless. Nothing sounded harsh or boomy or undefined, and the tune's infectious groove came through beautifully.

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett:The Raven Speaks

Recordings with more reverberance showed off the performance of the PL200 II's midrange/tweeter array to even better effect. Al Jarreau's recording of the jazz standard "My Foolish Heart" had a real "band in the room" feel, as if I were watching Jarreau and his group in a small jazz club. I loved the way the vibes, piano, and drums spread out naturally across the front of my listening room, with all the ease and natural spaciousness you'd hear if the instruments were just sitting on a small club stage instead of being miked in a studio. I'd describe the sound of the PL200 IIs on this recording as "authoritative." That's partly because the bass had a satisfying heft, but also great pitch definition and attack. The PL200 IIs even found the subtle growl in the bottom range of Jarreau's voice, which tends to get lost in the pop and smooth jazz recordings for which he's best known.

Cecile McLorin Salvant's take on the Fats Waller classic "Jitterbug Waltz" proved the PL200 II could handle female vocals as deftly as male vocals. I can't describe the speakers' rendition of her voice any more articulately than "really, really, really clear," but that pretty well sums it up. This recording is just voice and piano, yet from the piano alone I got a clear perception of the studio's acoustics; it sounded like a big room with a 12-foot ceiling, measuring maybe 25 by 40 feet. If they faked this with digital reverb, I'd sure love to know what reverb they used, because the piano sounded so compelling and realistic that I found myself restarting the tune several times.

Cécile McLorin Salvant - WomanChild - 10 - Jitterbug Waltz

So far I've mentioned only fairly lightweight music, but the PL200 IIs did a nice job with heavier music, too. It had plenty of bass output to handle The Cult's "Edie (Ciao Baby)" at a high volume. All the various parts of this tune's complex mix--which includes a string section, loud electric guitar, and subtle acoustic rhythm guitar--were easy to distinguish through the PL200 IIs. I especially enjoyed the sound of the strings, which I thought might seem strained and etched at the volume I had set, but they didn't.

Even though a high-end tower speaker like the PL200 II is obviously designed primarily for music listening, it can be expanded into a home theater system--Monitor Audio offers the $3,995-each PLC150 II two-way speaker and the $5,795-each PLC350 II three-way speaker as a matching center speaker. I didn't have those on hand for this review, but I did try watching a couple of movies through the PL200 IIs. I watched Tropic Thunder for the umpteenth time to hear all the funny lines again, not for the action, but the Vietnam battle scene that opens the movie does have lots of gunshots and explosions. The PL200 II's strong, high-precision bass reproduction suited the scene well, delivering above-average punch for a passive tower speaker. I'd probably add a subwoofer, but you wouldn't necessarily have to.

Click over to Page Two for Measurements, The Downside, Comparison & Competition, and Conclusion...

Measurements
Here are the measurements for the Monitor PL200 II speaker (click on each chart to view it in a larger window).
Monitor-FR.jpgMonitor-imp.jpgFrequency response
On-axis: ±15 dB from 36 Hz to 10 kHz, ±4.0 dB to 20 kHz
Average ±30° horiz: ±18 dB from 36 Hz to 10 kHz, ±3.1 dB to 20 kHz
Average ±15° vert/horiz: ±15 dB from 36 Hz to 10 kHz, ±3.1 dB to 20 kHz

Impedance
min. 3.6 ohms/117 Hz/-33.9, nominal 6 ohms

Sensitivity (2.83 volts/one meter, anechoic)
85.7 dB

The first chart shows the frequency response of the PL200 II. The second chart shows the impedance. The computer that runs my LMS analyzer broke down as I was putting these measurements together, so I am temporarily unable to present charts with average responses. In the meantime, I've presented a chart showing the response at 0° on-axis and 10, 20, 30, 45° and 60° off-axis. Ideally, the 0° curve should be more or less flat, and the others should look the same but should tilt down increasingly as the frequency increases.

The PL200 II has an admirably flat response through most of the audio range, with a subtle downward tilt that suggests it's unlikely to strike a listener as bright-sounding. There is a substantial peak in the tweeter's response, centered near 16 kHz, but this will be audible to few, if any, listeners (and certainly not the older male audiophiles who are the likely buyers of this speaker). The grille covering the midrange and tweeter is one of the most acoustically transparent I've encountered, with just a very subtle roll-off, typically about -0.5 dB, beginning above 9 kHz, and a small extra -1.8dB dip centered at 13.5 kHz.

Sensitivity of the PL200 II is about average at 85.7 dB (measured at one meter with a 2.83-volt signal, averaged from 300 Hz to 3 kHz), which means it needs about 25 watts to hit 100 dB. That's the anechoic sensitivity; you'll get perhaps an extra three dB in your listening room. Impedance is rated at four ohms but actually averages about six ohms. Most solid-state and reasonably powerful (at least 30 watts per channel) tube amps shouldn't have any trouble driving this speaker.

Here's how I did the measurements. I measured frequency response using an Audiomatica Clio FW 10 audio analyzer with the MIC-01 measurement microphone, and the speaker driven with an Outlaw Model 2200 amplifier. I used quasi-anechoic technique to remove the acoustical effects of surrounding objects. The speaker was placed atop a turntable that elevated it three inches off the ground. The mic was centered on the tweeter axis and placed at a distance of two meters from the front baffle and a pile of denim insulation was placed on the ground between the speaker and the mic to help absorb ground reflections and improve accuracy of the measurement at low frequencies. Bass response was measured by close-miking the woofers and ports, then scaling the port responses appropriately and adding that sum to the woofer responses. I spliced this result to the quasi-anechoic results at 180 Hz. Results were smoothed to 1/12th octave. Except as noted, I made measurements with the grille covering the midrange and tweeter removed. Post-processing was done using TrueRTA software.

The Downside
The stereo presentation and tonality of the PL200 IIs is straightforward. You'll find a lot to like if you sit down for a long listen, but this isn't the kind of speaker that grabs your attention right away when you walk into a room where it's playing.

For example, in "Edie (Ciao Baby)" by The Cult, the PL200 IIs have what I'd call an appropriately large soundstage. It stretches from speaker to speaker and a few feet beyond, but it doesn't have that colossal sound many people would expect from a heavily produced rock or pop recording. I expect many fans of dipolar panel speakers, such as Magnepans or MartinLogans, may find the PL200 IIs' presentation too reserved for their taste.

The PL200 II's treble sounds great to me, but it may be too reserved for some audiophiles' taste. In R.E.M.'s "1,000,000," for example, the snare drum had more dynamics and snap with some of the other speakers I had around at the time. Of course, there's an upside to this, too: The PL200 II won't fatigue your ears or annoy your living companions.

Comparison and Competition
Unfortunately, I didn't have any speakers in the PL200 II's price range on hand when I did the review, but I did have my trusty $3,500/pair Revel Performa3 F206s. I compared them with the PL200 IIs using my Van Alstine AVA ABX switcher, which allows precisely level-matched comparisons.

The strengths of the PL200 II compared with the F206 start with its bass, of which there's not only more (which in this case is a good thing), but the bass also sounded tighter and better-defined, with more detail and growl than the F206's woofers could muster. The PL200 II's midrange also sounded a little clearer; I could hear a little more detail in vocal recordings. Vocals also never sounded thin through the PL200 IIs, which is something that can happen with the F206 because its 2.15-kHz crossover point puts much more stress on its tweeter. That said, the F206 sounded more open and produced a bigger soundstage.

Competitors in the PL200 II's price range include the $9,000/pair B&W 804 D3, which I reviewed in June 2016. The 804 D3 isn't as neutral-sounding as the PL200 II; its measured response is definitely not flat, and it doesn't sound flat. But the 804 D3 has a wonderful, charming character I loved, and it looks much cooler than the visually understated PL200 II.

Once you get into this price range, speakers start to get more esoteric, and the straightforward engineering of the PL200 II becomes more rare. It's up to you to decide if you'd rather spend your 11 bills on a more by-the-book design like the PL200 II or on a big panel speaker from MartinLogan or Magnepan, or various other options from smaller, boutique brands. We're very much at a hardcore enthusiast price point here, in which case the purchase becomes more a matter of taste. That's why I recommend attending a regional hi-fi show to listen to as many speakers as you can to find out what you like the best, if you don't have years of experience as an audiophile to rely on.

Conclusion
The PL200 II is a beautiful, well-engineered speaker that looks, sounds, and measures like Monitor Audio put years of work into it. Its strengths are terrific bass response, clear midrange, clean and unfatiguing treble, and a realistic sense of space. It doesn't sound as dramatic and exciting as some exotic audiophile speakers, but that seems to be by design. Those who value natural, unhyped sound over audio pyrotechnics will love the PL200 II.

Additional Resources
• Check out our Floorstanding Speakers category page to read similar reviews.
• Visit the Monitor Audio website for more product information.
Monitor Audio Debuts ASB-10 Soundbar and WS-10 Subwoofer at HomeTheaterReview.com.

  • cougartotem
    2022-10-18 08:40:31

    Hi Richard, I hope I didn't get your hopes up but.. did you notice that this review is well over 5 years old? I'm gonna guess this comment section has been, and will remain, colder than a titch's wit. I would contact MA directly for an answer to your question. It isn't reasonable to expect a reviewer to respond to comments >5 1/2 years after publication. I can only speak for the Platinum v.1s, but they were significantly better sounding than the Gold series when I bought them (about 6 years ago). They also posses a pride of ownership factor that is just off the charts. The Platinum IIs sound even better (as you would expect). It is reasonable to assume the Series 3s will sound even better than the IIs, although I miss the leather-covered baffle and lament the fewer finish options. The discontinued Santos Rosewood finish was just impossibly beautiful, especially at these prices. Good luck with your speaker hunting pursuit and happy listening.

  • Richard De Gannes
    2022-09-21 14:26:16

    Hello, My listening space measures 19.5ft long x 11.5ft wide x 10-14ft high. Can MA PLT 200 II or their new generation 3 speaker work in this listening space or is my space too small for this size speaker? Are the PLT series that much better than the Gold and worth the increased price? My amplifier is a Parasound A21+. Thanks in advance.

Subscribe To Home Theater Review

Get the latest weekly home theater news, sweepstakes and special offers delivered right to your inbox
Email Subscribe
HomeTheaterReview Rating
Value: 
Performance: 
Overall Rating: 
© JRW Publishing Company, 2023
As an Amazon Associate we may earn from qualifying purchases.

magnifiercross
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram
Share to...