Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G

REVIEW
Simon Lucas
Aug 11, 2025

It’s been 36 years since Monitor Audio first introduced its ‘Gold’ range of passive speakers. The new ‘Gold’ range, launched last year, is the sixth generation, which means it’s averaging a refresh every six years. There are six models in this sixth-generation line-up, including the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G. Monitor Audio, it would seem, has some sixth sense where the ‘Gold’ range of loudspeakers is concerned.

Of the six 6G models, this Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G is the largest of the two stand-mounters. And ‘stand-mounter’ it most definitely is. It’s 448 x 230 x 357mm (HxWxD) dimensions, it’s 14 kg per side weight and its gaping rear-firing bass reflex port make it about as bookshelf-unfriendly as any speaker not supplied with spikes can be. At a pinch, perhaps you could position it on a wall bracket. Port bungs are provided in the packaging (along with a couple of magnetically attached grilles per speaker).

Big box

But while there’s plenty of it, not a huge amount has gone on where ‘design’ is concerned. The Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G is, fundamentally, a big straight-edged box of almost exclusively parallel lines. Only the top of the cabinet has come in for even the most cursory ‘designing’. It’s a ‘mid-pod’ steel enclosure, positioned behind an aluminium baffle. This contains both a high-frequency transducer and a midrange driver. That driver sits just fractionally proud of the top edge of the cabinet. A substantial strip of die-cast aluminium flows backwards from the top of this ‘mid-pod’ along most of the length of the top panel. It is also home to what is the only overt branding on the cabinet. However, that branding offers just a hint of very welcome visual relief.

The way Monitor Audio builds and finishes the Gold 100 6G is excellent. It doesn’t matter if you choose the high-gloss black finish, the satin white of my review sample of the artificial Macassar wood veneer. The standard of construction is beyond reproach. This is just as it should be when you’re asking £3,000 for a pair of stand-mounting speakers. The bolt-through technology Monitor Audio has deployed here means the front baffle looks clean. There are no distraction from the suggestion of visual drama provided by the driver array.

More than striking looks

And it’s a driver array with more than just striking looks going for it. The high-frequency transducer positioned at the top of the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G ‘mid-pod’ is the latest version of its ‘MPD III’ design. It draws inspiration from the transducer used in both the company’s range-topping ‘Platinum’ series of speakers and the flagship ‘Hyphn’ loudspeaker, which I reviewed here.

MPD III is a micro-pleated diaphragm tuned for dog-bothering treble extension (Monitor Audio reckons it’s suitable for 60kHz). It features a square radiating area intended to deliver equal response in both the vertical and horizontal planes. This should subsequently result in more open, better-defined and more convincing soundstaging. The rear volume of the MPD III arrangement has been optimised in a drive for minimal ‘ripple’ in the audible frequency range. In front is a waveguide designed for even greater control of directivity and, theoretically, even more confident soundstaging.

Mid Pod

Both the 76mm midrange driver, which is the other occupant of the ‘mid-pod’, and the 203mm bass driver positioned below it are of a new design that Monitor Audio calls ‘HDT’. This ‘hexagonal diaphragm technology’ owes plenty to the RDT III (‘rigid diaphragm technology’) Monitor Audio deployed in the Platinum and Hyphn loudspeakers, it’s true. However, it owes even more to the decades-old bee in its bonnet Monitor Audio has about metal driver technology.

Monitor Audio has been finessing its preferred ‘C-CAM’ (ceramic-coated aluminium magnesium) cone material since the early 1990s. Its Nomex/carbon fibre/aluminium sandwich construction is one of the fundamentals of the RDT III drive. For its reimaging as HDT, Monitor Audio has stamped an asymmetrical hexagonal pattern on the surface of the driver. It’s designed to thwart the breakup characteristics inherent in a symmetrical cone design. The fact that it looks pretty good, especially when (as it is here) surrounded by a quantity of high-quality brushed aluminium, doesn’t do any harm either.

Less visibly busy

And the company has been equally busy with the less visible aspects. Each of the HDT drivers benefits from a new spider design, fully optimised driver surrounds, increased voice-coil lengths and larger, more powerful motor systems. The little midrange driver has a high-strength neodymium bucking magnet for improved control and optimal power-handling. It also features increased voice-coil venting for sensitivity improvements. All of these improvements make the HDT design the strongest, most piston-like cone Monitor Audio has ever delivered.

Monitor Audio has scrutinised its crossover network, too. The company positioned the crossover points at 700Hz and 2.6kHz, where they oughtn’t be readily apparent, and fitted pricier, high-performance capacitors. The net result is a pair of three-way loudspeakers with a ‘HiVE II’ reflex port tuned to 38Hz. They claim a frequency response of 32Hz—60kHz, nominal impedance of 4 Ohms, and sensitivity of an unremarkable 86.5dB.

It certainly doesn’t present any difficulty to a Naim Uniti Star when used as an amplifier and network streamer. Attached via a couple of lengths of QED XT50 speaker cable, the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G seems to genuinely revel in music of all styles and all degrees of complexity.

Not a dry tool

They’re certainly no dry tool for analysis. Oh, they can peer deep into a dense or complicated mix and return with all sorts of pertinent observations about the minutiae of a recording – transient occurrences don’t elude them, and they have no problem putting them into convincing context. But the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G seem far more concerned with engaging on a purely musical level – they can do the ‘scrutiny’ thing, but it’s never at the expense of ‘entertainment’.

The fact that the frequency response is so smooth and even despite the relative number of crossover points doesn’t do any harm in this regard, and neither does tonality that’s very carefully one notch to the ‘cool’ side of neutral. Low-frequency presence is considerable, as the ample cabinet and large bass driver suggest. The Monitor Audio speakers exhibit significant variation in bass sounds. Rhythms sound confident because of that overall control. For example, the fast-moving bass-line of ‘LesAplx’ by Floating Points [Ninja Tune] sounds as lithe as can be.

Air and space

There’s air and space at the opposite end of the frequency range, as well as admirable bite and shine. Treble sounds have substance as well as brilliance. They enjoy the same sort of harmonic variation as the rest of the frequency range. And that little(ish) midrange driver does sterling work with a well-recorded vocalist. The amount of character and attitude it loads onto Syd Staw’s performance during Future 40’s (String of Pearls) [Virgin] is prodigious. If it’s a window into a singer’s emotional state, as well as the secrets of their technique, you’re after, then the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G will delight you.

The soundstage on which all of this good stuff happens is large, properly organised and entirely convincing. Even a recording as dense and instrument-heavy as Shostakovich’s Scherzo for Orchestra in F-Sharp Minor (Guennadi Rosdhestvenski/USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra) [EMG Classical] is easy to follow. The Monitor Audio provides ample ‘elbow room’ for every participant. This means individuals are easy to isolate and examine. It should be noted, though, that there’s nothing remote or estranged about the way these speakers present this recording. Its handover is a singular occurrence. This is a performance, not a collection of discrete events.

Chink in the Armour

This recording does make one little chink in the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G’s otherwise impregnable armour apparent, though. It’s a piece that contrives to sound quite loud and intense even during its quieter passages. When Rosdhestvenski releases the metaphorical hounds, the Monitor Audio don’t quite breathe deeply enough to make the shift through the gears explicit. The broad dynamics of ‘quiet/loud/REALLY LOUD’ are required to make the recording as vibrant and colourful as possible. The Gold 100 6G can sound slightly inhibited in this regard.

I’ll concede that this is something close to nitpicking on my part, though. In almost every regard, and to a nearly complete extent, the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G get the job done in some style. Smaller three-way speakers are becoming a rarity these days. Monitor Audio keeps this flame burning so brightly. Congratulations to the company for doing so.

Technical specifications

Type: Three-way, three-driver, stand-mount speaker with bass reflex alignment
Driver complement: MPD III micro-pleated diaphragm tweeter; 76mm HDT C-CAM hexagonal diaphragm technology midrange driver; 203mm HDT C-CAM hexagonal diaphragm technology bass driver
Crossover frequencies: 700Hz; 2.6kHz
Frequency response: 32Hz – 60kHz
Impedance: 4 Ohms
Sensitivity: 86.5dB/W/m
Dimensions (HxWxD): 448 x 230 x 357mm
Weight: 14kg/each
Finishes: High-gloss black; satin white; Macassar wood veneer
Price: £3,000, $4,200, €3,600/pair