The crystalline sound of the PL300 and PL100, combined with the almost perfectly matched voice of the PL350C, brought a new level of excitement to movie soundtracks. In the revered (if overplayed) tiger scene from Apocalypse Now, the bugs and birds - buzzing and cawing and circling all around me - sounded creepier than I could ever remember, thanks to the ribbon tweeters, and my anticipation of the tiger's attack became almost unbearable. Again, bad recordings proved extra-annoying; the ribbons did nothing to tame the harsh-sounding dialogue in the children's classic Matilda. But all of the other DVDs I played, from the frantic Live Free or Die Hard to the placid Planet Earth series, sounded pretty darn close to perfect, even without help from a subwoofer.

BOTTOM LINE

The Platinum Series proves that a little American influence can work aesthetic wonders. With the rich, enveloping sound of the best British speakers and the raw muscle needed to meet the demands of American-style home theater, this system is an all-around winner for any home that has the space for it.

TEST BENCH

All three Monitor models have a similarly smooth response above 500 Hz. The PL300 tower exhibits a broad but shallow dip centered at 375 Hz, while the PL350C center shows a similar dip centered at 275 Hz. The PL350C has excellent off-axis perfor- mance for a center speaker, with only a slight treble rolloff above 10 kHz and a mild dip centered at 1.2 kHz when the mike is moved 15º or further off-axis. The PL300 and PL350C produce strong midbass output; at 10% distortion, both average around 100 dB in the range from 50 to 63 Hz. - B.B.