CEDIA 2013

When audiophiles think of Monitor Audio, they probably imagine beautiful, well-engineered, fairly conventional, relatively compact and somewhat expensive tower speakers. The new Silver Series towers completely, absolutely fit that mold -- except for the expensive part.

The new models represent the fifth generation of the Silver Series, a line of speakers that dates back 15 years. While the general concept is the same, the new models feature a lot of tweaks compared with the previous Silver RX Series.

There's a new and improved version of Monitor's sort-of-trademark gold tweeter, for starters. The midrange and bass drivers have the same continuous diaphragm design Monitor employs on the Platinum and Gold series speakers; the company says this design yields a stronger diaphragm than the ones in the Silver RX Series, which had a hole in the middle to accommodate a phase plug. The upper-end models -- the Silver 8 (shown here) and the Silver 10 -- now use a 4-inch midrange instead of the 6-inch midrange used in the Silver RX8, for smoother integration with the speakers' 1-inch tweeters.

No, the prices aren't what you'd call cheap, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear how reasonable they are:

Silver 6 ($1,500/pair): 6-inch woofer, 6-inch midrange, 1-inch tweeter
Silver 8 ($2,000/pair): two 6-inch woofers, 4-inch midrange, 1-inch tweeter
silver 10 ($2,500/pair): two 8-inch woofers, 4-inch midrange, 1-inch tweeter

The Silver Series also includes the Silver 1 and Silver 2 bookshelf speakers, the Silver Center and the Silver FX subwoofer.