INTRO To My 1st Impression That Took 2 weeks
So, I wrote a bunch of notes about the Mon Acoustic Platimon VC One and read it back to myself. Then I thought about if I wanted to post it and decided to scrap that idea. I don’t have enough experience in the high-end speaker market, so it’s just me gloating at how glorious the Platimon is. Plus, there are 5 professional reviews people can watch for a better impression of the Platimon speaker. So, I thought I would do what I always do and just compare with what I have. Comparing headphones and speakers is like comparing chicken vs beef, but they both bring me audio joy so lets see what makes me happier.
For this 1st impression, I will talk about the pros and cons of the Platimon speaker first and then song comparisons focusing on only 1 specific thing. The below screenshot was my original test songs, but I threw it out the window after listening to them because this is my 1st impressions for probably mostly for me, so after I burned in the Platimon or maybe after the replacement of the power amp, I would like to go back and see how much the Platimon improve or how much of its “magic” wore off on me. I still listened to the test songs, but that was on the rough draft of my Platimon 1st impression which is much longer and not really worth reading.
HOW IS IT SETUP RIGHT NOW
So my Platimon speakers are 7 feet away from each others. My listening chair is near the dead middle and 5 feet away from the Platimon speaker. With this, the speaker is almost outside my field of vision, but I can still see it in the corner of my eyes. I like to try to keep the speakers not in my field of vision, but it’s the best I can do with the current room and speaker stands.
Right channel Platimon bass port is about 1.5 feet away from the wall. Left channel Platimon bass port is about 1 feet away from the wall.
So when I do serious listening, I do like to close my eyes just to help “visualize” the music.
Reviewers says that the Platimon if close to each other provide insane amount of details. I much prefer soundstage, so I try to widen them out as much as I can in my small room without having to move everyone when I want to listen to them.
In between my Platimon is my TV and junk, but it’s nothing I can do about it for now.
My current audio chain for the Platimon is: ROON Rock - Intel NUC 7i7 > EMM Labs NS1 > [AES] Mojo Audio Mystique EVO B4B 21 > [AES] Custom 45/6SN7 Tube Only Supratek Cabernet DHT > [RCA] Schiit Vidar 2 > Mon Acoustics Platimon VC One
Headphones setup is the same except my amp is: … > [AES] Custom 45/6SN7 Tube Only Supratek Cabernet DHT > [RCA] Allnic HPA-5000XL > Headphones
How Many Hours Of Burn In?
The original owner did less than 30 hours of burn-in
My Burn In since I got it:
1/22 - 4 hours
1/23 - 2 hours
1/24 - 9 hours
1/25 - 10 hours
1/26 - 2 hours
1/27 - 8 hours
1/28 - 10 hours
1/31 - 10 hours
2/1 - 12 hours
2/2 - 6 hours
73 hours of burn in on my side so far…
Pros:
This is probably the most highly detailed and overall clarity audio equipment I owned/maybe even tried. The soundstage is deep and wide. Imaging is the best I heard. Music overall just sounds brand new to me again, so the Platimon is a new experience even though I owned a Polk R200 for a year and I heard a lot of variety of headphones. Electric guitar and drums are the best I heard on a piece of audio equipment is isn’t a live show. Music genres with a lot going on are really fun to listen to because of the Platimon imaging, wide soundstage, and great separation. The Platimon just layers everything so nicely and you can hear everything in the music very similar to the Susvara, but better to me. I am getting all these “Pros” and I am using an entry-level power amp.
Cons:
So, I watched 5 reviews of the Platimon since the Platimon took a while to get to me. A lot of the stuff in New Record Day review is pretty spot on. He talked about how female vocals to him on the Platimon sounded odd to him. He said when a female singer uses her head vocals, it’s forward. When the female singer uses her chest vocals, she takes a step back thus making the singer move when she switches her vocal technique, and that overall makes it sound unnatural to him. I did a test on male vocals and I got the same result where if a singer switches his/her vocal technique and goes to a higher frequency, their vocals will now be placed in a different spot on the soundstage. That is why I didn’t want to talk about vocals and just say the midrange is clear. I do agree that it takes away the illusion that this song could be real when that happens, but after about two weeks of listening, I think I know why the creator did that. The company Mon Acoustic has a YouTube channel to show the viewers how they test things and progress reports on their products. If you have seen the creator’s test songs and his interview, the creator of the Mon Acoustic speakers is for mainly Jazz and Classical music. There are Jazz singers, but I don’t know if that was accounted for when he created his speakers. The reason I am saying this is because I’ve been blown away every time I hear the Snares and Tom Tom being hit and the Platimon honestly makes drums seem to have more room in the soundstage. That maybe is not natural, but I don’t really care cause it sounds so awesome lol. They should change the slogan from chasing natural sound or whatever marketing gimmick they say and just change it to, “We Do Drums Really FuKing Good!”. The Platimon still sounds natural on pretty much everything, but I think that is to be expected from a piece of audio equipment costing $6500. The Susvara is around that price tag and I thought it sounded pretty natural as well until comparing it to something like the Mysphere. The Platimon is still natural sounding, its just vocal placement can get weird if your singer uses different techniques in a song. If it is things like rap where it is pretty monotone, it’s not an issue. If you like dry vocals with an acoustic music, that might be an issue for you. For pop songs, I think it adds more of a fun factor because I really enjoy vocals being all over the place in my pop songs. So dry music, the Platimon presentation on vocals will take away your immersion, but for vocals songs that already have some reverb here and there with other special effects in the song, the Platimon will probably add some flair to the music.
Lets Start A Showdown between the Platimons and My Current Favorite Headphones In My Collection
Platimon vs Susvara on Imaging
Song: Holy Diver - Dio
At 2:24 - 2:27 listen to the drums. On the Platimon it’s on stage left to center stage and you got a clear image of the drums the entire time. On a headphone like the Susvara, at 2:24 - 2:27, the drums start from behind my left ear and go toward the center. For some reason, I keep rewinding this back cause sometimes I get and sometimes I don’t. But it felt like the drums skipped my left eye and went toward the center. You gotta REALLY listen to hear all the drums rolling through from stage left to center.
5:00 - 5:03, the drums going from stage left to stage right were just so clean and badass on the Platimons. Feels like I can clearly hear the entire drums being hit the entire way from stage left to stage right. With the Susvara, again it’s similar to the last paragraph. It’s something around my left eye that it’s hard to get an image for. I am not too sure if it’s me or my ears are biased or maybe the Susvara might be faster. The Susvara still gets a really good image on the drums, but it just feels a little blurry whereas with the Platimon I feel like I got the complete image.
3:25 - 4:12 The electric guitar solo was just too magnificent on the Platimon. All I am imagining is the sound of a shredding guitar on top of the mountains with the rock gods 
. The Platimon soundstage just give this a huge advantage. Because the Susvara still got a headphone presentation the guitar solo is in my head and it’s still pretty cool, but not nearly as impressive vs a speaker. It’s also because the Platimon is pretty much the best I heard for an electric guitar, so it was more than just imaging that made that guitar solo so damn great.
Platimon vs Mysphere 3.2 on Midrange Vocal
Song: Stellar Stellar (FROM FIRST TAKE) - Suisei Hoshimachi
The Mysphere 3.2 is the champ here. I never cried once from the Platimon nor any audio equipment, even the Shang Sr on the Grand Cayman, the Sennheiser HE-1, and even the Sony MDR R10. Yet, even after owning the Mysphere 3.2 for 6 months, these ear speakers from time to time again always get me to shed some tears during a listening session. I cannot express this enough, the emotional connection you get with the singer using the Mysphere 3.2 and honestly the entire music. From the violin and piano in the background, there is this tinge of pleasantness that I can’t really describe that I really enjoy hearing that I only get from the Mysphere 3.2. There is something so magical about the Mysphere 3.2 that just convinces my brain that this is real, no mics, no studio production, she is there with me and performing right here. This is some sick lunatic talk, but that is what the Mysphere 3.2 does. It makes me go so crazy into believing that this digital music is real.
No matter how high spec the Platimon is or any other audio gears out there are, I always have this disconnect with the music and some little detail will remind me that this music is digital and this isn’t real. For the Platimon case, the switch on the female vocals position when Suisei is hitting the high notes brings me back to reality that I’m listening to a digital recording. The Mysphere with acoustic music will always have this magic to make me forget this is digital and make me want to believe that what I’m listening to is real.
I honestly could say the Platimon is very close to making the midrange “real” to me. I think besides vocals placement when Suisei does her chest vocals and head vocals, the midrange might be missing a little texture. I could maybe play with tubes more to solve that, but that’s a topic and conversation for another day.
FOR FUNSIES:
Platimon vs Mysphere 3.2 on who make this Vocaloid sound the most realistic?
Song: Little Lazy Princess - Yumenokessho POPY & De De Mouse
This is a Vocaloid song meaning the vocals are artificial from a voice bank that code name POPY. Her voice bank was a sample from the lead singer of a rhythm game band named Popin Party. I think I first heard this song through my Susvara when I was listening to new tracks at the beginning of January and I thought this was the most realistic voice bank I ever heard. I always like listening to Vocaloid to see how far they progressed in making an artificial voice sound real and they did a really good job with POPY. So far she is the most realistic voice bank I heard and it’s up there with ROSE (same company).
Right in the very beginning using the Mysphere 3.2, I think I hear distortion lol. I will say POPY sounded real on the Susvara, but I guess the Mysphere 3.2 knows the difference and made her sound like the artificial voice bank she is. I think I had to listen to this song 3-4 times to finally know why she still sounds artificial. I explain to someone else, but I will shorten this explanation here. Even though POPY vocals sound pretty realistic, she still has this digital artifact sound that I can still hear from her. Basically, it’s like me talking to someone over the phone and the phone voice sounds like the person I know, but at the same, it sounds different from the person I know. The Mysphere 3.2 is a little interesting though. I think the Mysphere 3.2 removes a lot of that “telephone” effect for me and POPY do sound a little more real if I can forget about her distortion.
I used the Platimon and POPY sounded really good, but you can still hear this digital artifact in her vocals. I think Susvara did it best making POPY sound as real as possible and I wonder if the smoothness may have something to with it 
Platimon vs Onkyo A800 For Violins
Song: Four Season Of Buenos Aires: 3 Primavera Portena (Spring)” - Arabella Stenbacher
Just like the other comparison, I did with the Onkyo A800 vs Sus, SR1a, and Polk R200, my opinion is the same and I just really like the lower-end emphasis the Onkyo A800 presents and reverb and echo is pretty special on the Onkyo A800 to my ears. I also think I probably like this song more on headphones just because the driver is closer to my ear. I really like hearing the pull of the bow on the violin next to my ears.
The Platimon played the song similar to the SR1a where it sounded really nice and real, but it’s just not the same as the Onkyo A800 and I just prefer how the A800 presented the music.
Platimon vs Raal SR1a On Midbass With High Energy Song
Song: Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
For the SR1a, I switch back to my old setup with the original cable and the Schiit Vidar 2 as the amp. That way, both the Platimon and SR1a are using the same amp.
2:45 - 3:16 is where I like to test with a really loud volume to see if I can listen to this without piercing my ears, but at the same time makes me smile and want to stand up and start moving. SR1a for sure passed without it being piercing and at the same time put a smile on my face. Platimon surpasses it and I’m not too surprised because it’s just a mixture of difference in soundstage and details. Plus the clarity, separation, and layering are much better on the Platimon and I can just hear much more of the music compared to the SR1a. Not to even mention Platimon “bigger” sounding nature just because of it’s speakers, so the speaker mid bass punch will sound and feel much nicer than the ear speaker. The SR1a sounded good, but the Platimon was just better. In terms of bass punching speed, I couldn’t really tell. I plugged my ATH-W10VTG to add to the comparison so I have a based comparison to go off of. They both sound pretty evenly fast and I don’t know if that’s a good thing as music tends to sound faster on the SR1a. My ears are probably already adjusted as I already listened to the Platimon for 2 weeks. I guess I will leave it as a head-scratcher because both of them are pretty fast.
Conclusion
The Platimon is the highest overall technical audio device I own. Even with all its high technicality, it doesn’t have that midrange magic that I really liked from the Mysphere 3.2 or the things I like from the Onkyo A800. The Platimon doesn’t completely obsolete my headphones as my headphones still offer some unique presentation and qualities, but I will probably still use the Platimon more than my headphones if I want to be completely honest. If I had to say which headphones are the most similar to the Platimon, I would probably say the Raal Sr1a. It’s probably because the Platimon uses an AMT tweeter and it reminds me of the ribbon sound from the Sr1a where its fast, very clear sounding, and highly detailed.
My original plan was to buff its clarity to the max with the next big power amp upgrade, but I don’t think I want that anymore. If I keep going down that path, I will be making the Platimons more analytical sounding and that is straying from my original setup path. My current setup with the Evo DAC and the Supratek 45 tube preamp is to make music more pleasant to the ears vs something that’s really good on paper. I think for my big upgrade power amp, I got to really think about it. I should probably wait after 300 hours of burn in before deciding. I may do a side grade power amp to experiment more or I might be taking another leap of faith on the power amp. For now though, I will continue listening to my Platimon and ponder when I am going to do room treatment.