What the maker puts in writing
- “ULTRAWIDE COVERAGE – Custom multi-element crossover ensures a smooth transition between drivers and creates an excellent off-axis response”
- “SEALED CABINET DESIGN – the smaller speaker can fit in smaller spaces with accurate bass response. 4” BASS DRIVERS – Custom poly drivers paired with a well-built cabinet”
- “WALL MOUNTABLE – Thanks to its keyhole mounting bracket and recessed binding posts, these speakers can be wall-mounted”
- “HIGH-QUALITY CONNECTIONS – Equipped with upgraded gold-plated binding posts, allowing the use of high-quality banana plug speaker cables”
- “A large (1-inch) silk dome tweeter reproduces accurate treble in stunning detail without being harsh”
- Description: “The unique 2-1/2 way crossover treats each 4” driver independently to create an extra wide listening experience”
The two-and-a-half-way crossover is the real engineering here
And it answers the one problem unique to center channels.
A center speaker has two woofers side by side with a tweeter between them, and it faces an audience spread sideways across a sofa.
When two physically separated drivers both produce the same midrange frequency, their outputs cancel at angles off the central axis. So one seat hears a dip in a man’s voice that the seat beside it does not — and the effect worsens as frequency rises and as driver spacing grows.
A two-and-a-half-way design fixes it by refusing to let both woofers do the same job: one runs up through the midrange, the other is rolled off early. In the band where cancellation bites there is only one source.
The unique 2-1/2 way crossover treats each 4” driver independently to create an extra wide listening experience.
JBL’s 245C at $439.95 uses the same approach — “Precision 2.5-Way Crossover” — and it is the only other product on this shelf that does.
Two others attack the same problem from the opposite end, by shrinking the spacing: Neumitech’s CS5 says its enclosure “is designed to minimize driver spacing, reducing the effects of off-axis lobing”, and Micca’s OoO specifies “a small diameter bezel for tight driver spacing”. Polk’s TL1 calls its version “Time Lens technology [that] aligns the drivers”.
Four of thirteen listings address it. At fifty-six dollars, this is the cheapest that does.
Recessed gold binding posts, which nobody else thought about
Three things in one bullet, and the third is the one that shows somebody used the product.
Binding posts clamp hard and accept bare wire, spades, pins or banana plugs. Both Goldwood models here use spring clips, which take bare wire only and weaken as the copper oxidizes underneath.
Gold plating resists the oxide layer that raises contact resistance over years.
Recessed is the detail: a center speaker gets pushed into a TV unit or against a wall, and protruding posts plus a right-angle of cable add forty or fifty millimeters of required depth. Recessing them lets the cabinet sit flush.
No other listing on this shelf mentions it.
And the sealed cabinet suits the job
Sealed traps the air behind the cone so it acts as a spring: output falls gently below the limit — about 12 dB per octave — with tight cone control. It reaches less deep than a ported box of the same size, and needs a little more power.
But placement is why it suits a center channel. A rear port shoved into a cabinet is choked, and Sony, JBL and Neumitech all publish rear ports. Only Triangle’s BRC2 at $459 fires its vents forward.
A sealed box has no port to choke. And a center channel is crossed over to a subwoofer in any sensible system, so its own deep bass matters less than its midrange.
The other sealed cabinet here is the Goldwood AA35CB at $38.88.
What is not published
No frequency response, no sensitivity, no impedance, no weight.
The sensitivity gap is the one that costs you, because it decides what amplifier you need and every 3 dB is a doubling of power. Four products here publish it: Klipsch 95 dB, Goldwood AA35CB 92 dB, Goldwood PSC-43 89 dB, Micca MB42X-C G2 86 dB — a nine-decibel spread, which is a factor of eight in amplifier power.
And both Goldwoods publish a recommended amplifier range. Dayton’s own Classic B40 bookshelf speaker publishes one too (10–50 W); this listing does not.
No crossover slope in decibels, only the “2-1/2 way” topology — which is arguably the more informative of the two.
140 × 330 × 140 mm is published, making this one of the shorter cabinets here: the JBL is 739 mm wide and the Klipsch 476.
Prices quoted in this text were read on October 4, 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.
