Monet meets Nenuphar? Kinda. Unexpectedly, my eyes cottoned to Monet's broad-shouldered profile with its puckered derrière more than Nenuphar's far more bodacious booty of copious depth. To be sure, I totally credit the white finish for that. Were these broadburgers shiny piano-black reflectors, I'd fancy them seriously less. I cannot with a straight face or pointy ears invoke memory for comparative specifics other than two particular items. 1/ as already stated, by being less ambitious on bass reach and apparently more self damped on control—here I'm referencing the very same Enleum AMP-23R as driver for both—Monet in my space played it more linear and balanced down low than Nenuphar. 2/ crack not of the bum but drum sort aka impact in music's power region was higher. Fare like the earlier Miles_Gurtu quasi drums'n'bass track came off more persuasive though to be fair, a darker slammier Zu Soul VI does that better still. Yet shift to acoustic chamber music à la earlier Tawabil Project and that assessment flips. Monet attended conservatory. Soul VI skipped class to hit the drag strip on a hot-rod dirt bike. Different education, different persona. Though Monet remains a basic squared-out box, the new gold decal and round not square basket rim give it a certain cosmetic extra I thought updates the Nenuphar-gen looks. Where Cube's accountant should whinge is that today's model situates beneath Nenuphar on złoty when my gut instinct and memory suggest that for performance, I'd favour the trimmer painter over the looser lotus.

Will it challenge the court of public opinion on single-driver boxes? Not. Metal tweeters sound hard. Bits are bits. Cables make no difference. Widebanders shout. We all know that. End of. But then, Cube Audio aren't on a crusade to convert the barbarian hordes of disbelievers. That crowd has no interest in conversion. They just need to be right and remain rigid when challenged by proof to the contrary. So Cube are simply an adjunct to Qualio's more mainstream offerings; like FirstWatt are to Pass Labs. As I see it, Monet's target audience lives well outside the ghetto of audiophile dogma. They camp in that green wilderness where spectrum analyzers aren't needed to confirm the self-evident truth of our ear/brains. Many of them love low-powered valve amps. Those tend to kick into hyperdrive on this type load. Yet medium to low-power sand amps of ~1Ω output impedance or higher are equally welcome. If we ask ourselves what type music SET fanciers fancy most, we see how those areas of the score card where Monet doesn't get As but Bs are quite immaterial. Its cluster of strengths with minor demerits for raw reach and grunt carefully conforms to the needs and expectations of realistic buyers, not idealistic armchair criers. For the right music lover and playback connoisseur, this Monet could just require framing with actual ownership. In which case, go Monetize yourself. Your ears will applaud. And—if like me your playback reference is premium planar headfi not thick-coned ported multi-ways with obvious bloat, you will not feel like wading through loose sand or water whenever you slip off your cans and fire up your speakers. Rather, you'll remain in the same groove, just no longer miniaturized and locked inside your skull but projected well in front of you stretched broadly between the sidewalls and extending clear through the front wall as though it were clean glass. In a nutshell then, Monet is a prime candidate for winning votes as an ideal speaker for externalized thin-film headfi.