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Product of the Year Award 2025 – stereonet.com
Best Buy Award - avsforums.com
Highly Recommended Award - hometheaterreview.com
Five Stars – What Hi-Fi? Magazine
Five Stars – techradar.com
Best Buy Award – the-ear.net
Applause Award – stereonet.com
Breathtakingly Big Sound from a Beautiful Compact Box
Studio 89 delivers a breathtakingly big sound from a beautifully finished compact box.
Monitor Audio's high-performance Studio 89 bookshelf speaker is inspired by the creativity and individuality of the 1980s. This sense of adventure is brought up to date with the latest Monitor Audio technology, including an MPD III high-frequency transducer and twin 4-1/4" RDT III C-CAM bass-mid drivers.
Studio 89 takes inspiration from the culturally explosive 1980s and Monitor Audio's iconic Studio Series, but it is a thoroughly modern loudspeaker. Inspired by individual expression and the culture that shapes it, Studio 89 is the loudspeaker for the new change-makers.
"This is a Seriously Special Speaker"
Studio 89 won a Product of the Year Award 2025 from stereonet.com, which reports, "This suavely-styled new compact mid-price standmounter deploys technologies developed for Monitor Audio's superb flagship Hyphn loudspeaker to significant effect."
"Deeper than it is tall, this unusually proportioned design has a sublime finish, and the company's latest drive units are positioned in a vertically symmetrical layout. Locate it a little away from a boundary wall to give its rear-facing narrow-velocity ports room to breathe, and the result is a super-clean, open and engaging sound. This is a seriously special speaker with a delicacy that's rare at or anywhere near its price."
Award-Winning Sound
The Studio 89 won a top rating of Five Stars from England's What Hi-Fi? magazine.
"The Studio 89 have a good sense of rhythmic drive and the kind of surefooted timing that can’t help but get your feet tapping with appropriate music. We love their sense of cohesion and the seamless way the drive units integrate. Those hours spent fine-tuning the crossover have paid off."
Studio 89 also won a Best Buy Award from the-ear.net, which observes, "All-in-all the Studio 89 is a modern-looking, modern-sounding loudspeaker package well worth considering… Here’s to further Monitor Audio models taking their inspiration from Hyphn."
More Stars and Applause
Another Five Star review comes courtesy of techradar.com. "Looking backwards in order to move forwards is a bold and dangerous policy – but with the Studio 89, Monitor Audio has managed to combine a mildly retro aesthetic with some thoroughly modern engineering to create a speaker that both sounds great and will never be mistaken for any other speaker out there."
"The Studio 89 sounds unerringly natural," reports stereonet.com, which handed these speakers an Applause Award. "Low-frequency presence is substantial but not muscle-bound; the leading edge of bass information is straight and crisp, so rhythms are expressed convincingly, and momentum never flags. It’s a subtle and detailed yet charming and engaging design that’s sure to seduce many prospective purchasers and is so well worth an audition."
Advanced Acoustic Technologies
This compact bookshelf model houses many of the advanced acoustic technologies found in both the Platinum Series 3G and Monitor Audio's statement speaker, Hyphn.
Powerful twin twin 4-1/4" RDT III C-CAM bass-mid drivers provide punchy, articulate, and controlled bass that seamlessly blends with the MPD III high-frequency transducer. The sonic package delivers exceptionally lifelike HF clarity and taught MF/LF bass precision for a truly high-fidelity presentation.
RDT III C-CAM Mid-Bass Drivers
Studio 89 is compact for good reason. Monitor Audio knows space is at a premium within the home, while large room-filling sound is a must. Advances in metal driver cone technology and powerful motor systems mean that the two things aren't mutually exclusive.
The twin 4-1⁄4" mid-bass drivers have been specially designed to ensure the three ultra-thin layers of C-CAM, Nomex honeycomb core, and carbon weave act pistonically when they are driven by the powerful motor systems, which boast large 3.5" diameter magnet structures. The magnet is larger than the cone! This high-strength magnetic field provides exceptional control over cone motion for pristine performance.
The 1" overhung voice coils and a linear cone excursion of 4.5mm allow the drive units to react to even the most dynamic passages with ease, producing an exceptionally large soundstage and presentation into the room.
Highly Recommended Award
Studio 89 snagged a Highly Recommended Award from hometheaterreview.com. According to Andrew Burns, "I can honestly say the performance of the Studio 89's is what impressed me the most. I've listened to quite a few different speakers with small drivers, and they never had the same heft in the low end, articulacy in the bass and mids, nor the ability to get loud enough to give the neighbors a reason to come knocking on my door."
The Sheer Brilliance of the Performance
"Play to the Studio 89’s strengths though and the result is very special indeed. This is a speaker that can take music you know and love, deliver all the passion and emotion it possesses but combined with a realism, accuracy and sheer ‘in the room’ that warrants having the word ‘Studio’ in the name," notes Ed Selley, giving the Studio 89 a Best Buy Award from avsforums.com.
"Its demanding nature means that the Studio 89 cannot be seen as a true Best in Class but the sheer brilliance of the performance it is capable of with a little care means it has to be seen as a Best Buy."
MPD III High Frequency Transducer
Studio 89's ability to transport the artist's vision from the studio into your home is the result of Monitor Audio's Transparent Design Philosophy. An important element in this ability is the advanced acoustic engineering and design of the Micro Pleated Diaphragm (MPD) III high-frequency transducer.
MPD III works with lighting speed and accuracy. Its lightweight, pleated design acts like an accordion, producing a wide linear HF presentation into the listening area. Lifelike realism, precision, and clarity are produced with ease. From a delicate whisper or note to a growl or shout, every single detail is delivered as the artist intended, in truly spine-tingling high fidelity.
MTM Array for a Larger Soundstage
Studio 89 is a diminutive speaker. Yet its topology ensures that even in large rooms, the soundstage, imaging and detail levels are completely enveloping and remain true to the ethos of bringing ‘studio monitoring quality' into the home. This is in no small part down to the 'Point source' MTM (Mid-Tweeter-Mid) driver Array.
Positioning the MPD III high-frequency transducer between the twin 4 1⁄4" mid-bass drivers, and with a carefully-built third-order crossover to ensure the perfect frequency response across each drive unit for total symmetry, helps control sound dispersion.
This complex array of drivers delivers on Monitor Audio's Transparent Design Philosophy, ensuring that the sum of all Studio 89's parts are built around total performance. The resulting high-fidelity sound is of a scale and quality that belies Studio 89's diminutive size.
Born in a Decade Fueled by Cultural Change-Makers
The iconic Studio Series was a legendary speaker range born when music, television, and video tape ruled. It was an era of bold styles, vibrant colors, early computer gaming, and breathtakingly rapid technological innovation. This time period fueled an unrivalled explosion of popular culture and laid the foundation for today's digital era.
Glam metal, new wave, synth pop ruled the airwaves, and the birth of the music video revolutionized how artists connected with their audiences. Consumption, individuality and self-expression defined the times.
Studio 89 takes inspiration from this culturally explosive decade but is a thoroughly modern loudspeaker. Inspired by individual expression and the culture that shapes it, Studio 89 is the loudspeaker for the new change-makers.
Studio Style
Studio 89's cabinet is finished in your choice of deep high-gloss black paint or high gloss white paint with gold-colored drive units. The black finish is a reference to the iconic Studio 15, which was the only model within the original Studio Series available in this stylish combination.
"Reference‑Grade Balance, Imaging, and Scale"
"Monitor Audio’s smallest Studio‑series model delivers reference‑grade balance, imaging, and scale far beyond its modest dimensions – so long as you treat it like the serious loudspeaker it is," observes Daniel Kumin, soundandvision.com, May 2, 2025.
"The Studio 89s produced a volume of unstrained, undistorted sound wholly out of scale with their diminutive size. Powered with 150W each, they delivered both orchestral and big‑band sound at not‑quite‑but‑close‑enough‑to‑live levels without any sign of discord."
