platinum audio solo's

Gullahisland hit it on the head. These beauties require as much current and voltage as you can afford to give 'em - quality is important as always. I had them on extended loan about 7 yrs ago and used a 165wt Mesa tube amp. In triode mode (35wts) the speakers sounded weak, with 165 tube wts they came alive and really do have tremendous bass for their size. In a small room I don't think you'd need a subwoofer - just keep 'em 3 ft from back and side walls.

The Solos were musical and seductive, no brightness or hardness whatsoever. They also were, at that time, the best looking speakers on the market - I think one of the first to address looks and be successful. I have seen a pair of used high gloss finished ones and I almost bought them just to look at. I now have a 10wt SET so there is no chance in hell I could get a squeak out of them.

By the way, don't waste your time trying to remove the grills, they are attached really tightly and you could spoil the cabinets very easily.

The grilles are easy to remove - at least mine were. No damage incurred.

If you guys don't find these bright, try comparing them to something else at the same time. They are without doubt the brightest 2-way small monitor I have ever heard. Metal 4" cones probably didn't help this any either. Compared to a good tweeter such as that in old L-series ADS, the Aerial tweeter, or even the Paradigm reference tweeter, these are *shrill*.

Low 30hz? Doubtful. Even from Plat. they were only rated mid-40s at best, IIRC. Like all small monitors, they need a subwoofer for anything below 40hz or more.

On balance, they just are not a good choice, IMHO, for the reasons stated initially. Maybe for $200-300 or so, if you can afford to throw them away if a driver goes bad. Anything higher than that, price-wise: look elsewhere for something better.

Hey, buy them if you want. But I'd be willing to bet we will see them back on the market before long. There's a reason these are always on Agon...

-Ed

Ed,

Please tell us your associated equipment at the time that you listened to the Solos.

No proud owner syndrome here. I don't currently own them, but I do think that they're an absolute STEAL at their used prices.

Per Platinum Audio's specifications - They were rated 40-20 +/- 2db. In room response most definitely extends into the mid 30s.

Maybe you had them connected out of phase???

How about the Infinity 2.6p's. Audio Advisor has them for $999. The best $1k speaker I've ever heard. And well worth the $2k retail price, to my ears.

I used to have a pair of Platinum Audio Solo's, and my system never sounded better. However, they sound horribly bright right out of the box, and require about 113 hours burn-in time. After that time you will start to hear their magic. They are one of the most transparent sounding, musically involving, and refined sounding monitor's I've ever listened to. Today the solo's would probably retail for about $3500+ as opposed to their original retail price of $2500 back in 1996. I did find that they needed a lot of juice. nevertheless, I used an old B&K Ex330 200rms amp and Musicaly Fidelity AC3R preamp which was a perfect match for the Platinum Solo's. recently I've heard well known loudspeakers in the $2500-$4000 range that don't come close to the performance of the Solo's.