Monkey Banana Turbo Series Studio Monitors
We’re big fans of the Monkey Banana brand of loudspeakers and whilst we’ve focused mainly on the cheaper Gibbon series, we’ve decided to have a closer look at the Monkey Banana Turbo Series which, while they will cost a bit more than the Gibbons, are still very competitively priced.
Anatomy
The first thing one notices about the Monkey Banana Turbo Series is their unusual shape. Designed by two German engineers and studio owners from the town of Schliengen, they maintain that these different looking speakers’ hexagonal shape is “most effective in minimizing standing waves inside the enclosure,” thus minimizing distortion.
The material used for the cabinets is MDF which is known to produce a low resonant housing and the woofer is made from a patented mixture of polypropylene, carbon fibre and ceramics. This makes it lightweight resulting in a fast transient response and quick return time.
The bass speakers push out a decent wattage ranging from 30 watts on the Turbo 4 to 80 watts on the Turbo 8 woofer and the cabinet has a rear mounted bass port. The grill shielded soft dome tweeter weighs in at 30W (except the 4 – 20W) and uses a neodymium magnet structure.
Controls and connections
Inputs include Neutrik XLR/TRS combo jack for +4dBu levels, an RCA jack for unbalanced -10dBv levels, and an RCA co-ax for S/PDIF digital input. There’s also a toggle switch to select the channel when using S/PDIF. This is really cool since you can then have both analog and digital plugged in at the same time.
There’s also a volume control as well as HF and LF controls to shelve frequencies, something fairly common in nearfield speakers in this price range.
The Monkey Banana Turbo Series range
Available in black, red or yellow
Turbo 4
- Powered
- 4″ Bass
- 1″ Silk HF
- Power – 30W & 20W
Expect to pay – R 10,264 / pair
Turbo 5
- Powered
- 5&1/4″ Bass
- 1″ Silk HF
- Power – 50W & 30W
Expect to pay – R 12,424 / pair
Turbo 6
- Powered
- 6 &1/2″ Bass
- 1″ Silk HF
- Power – 60W & 30W
Expect to pay – R 15,396 / pair
Available in black or red
Turbo 8
- Powered
- 8″ Bass
- 1″ Silk HF
- Power – 80W & 30W
Expect to pay – R 18,456 / pair
Turbo 10 Subwoofer
- Powered
- 10″ sub Bass
- Power – 200W
Expect to pay – R 15,395 each
SA distributors for the Monkey Banana Turbo Series – Viva Afrika