What the maker puts in writing
All five bullets, in full:
- “Quad 4.5-inch (114mm) Polycellulose Ribbed Cone Woofers”
- “Precision 2.5-Way Crossover”
- “Next Generation HDI Horn”
- “1-inch (25mm) Anodized Aluminum Tweeter”
- “Dual Rear-Firing Tuned Ports”
Five lines, and three of them describe engineering that matters on a center speaker specifically. What is missing: any frequency response, sensitivity, impedance or power figure.
The 2.5-way crossover is the right answer, and this speaker needs it most
A center speaker faces an audience spread sideways across a sofa, and it has multiple woofers spread sideways too.
When physically separated drivers all produce the same midrange frequency, the path lengths to an off-axis ear differ — so their outputs partly cancel away from the center line. One seat hears a dip in a man’s voice that the next does not.
The effect worsens as frequency rises and as the array gets wider. This array is 29.1 in (739 mm) wide and has four woofers in it.
A 2.5-way design refuses to let them all do the same job: some run up through the midrange, others are rolled off early, so in the band where cancellation bites there are fewer competing sources.
Dayton’s C40 at $55.98 uses the same approach and explains it more fully: “the unique 2-1/2 way crossover treats each 4” driver independently to create an extra wide listening experience.”
Two other listings here attack the same problem by shrinking the spacing instead: Neumitech’s CS5, which names “off-axis lobing” outright, and Micca’s OoO, with square-frame drivers and a small tweeter bezel.
Four woofers, which is more cone than any pair here but one
Four 4.5-inch cones against the shelf’s pairs:
Cone area goes as the square of the radius. Four 4.5-inch drivers give roughly 2.4 times the area of two 4.5-inch ones, and about 1.9 times the area of a pair of 5.25-inch drivers like the Klipsch’s.
Only the Triangle’s two 6.5-inch cones come close, at about 86 percent of this array’s area.
Polycellulose is a paper-based composite: well damped, so resonances die quickly rather than ringing, at some cost in stiffness against aluminum or carbon fiber. The ribbed cone profile is the standard fix — corrugations raise stiffness without adding much mass.
The HDI horn, without its angle
A horn or waveguide constrains where the tweeter’s output goes, rather than letting it spread widely and unevenly. On a center speaker that is exactly the right thing to control: a bare dome narrows sharply as frequency rises, so the person in front hears a different balance from the person at the end of the sofa.
A horn also raises efficiency, by coupling the small dome more effectively to the air.
What this listing does not give is the coverage angle. Klipsch’s R-52C at $149.99 publishes “a 90x90 square Tractrix Horn” — ninety degrees horizontally and vertically — which is the only angle on this shelf. Neumitech’s waveguide is likewise unquantified, though its wording is honest: a “predictable treble response”.
Anodized aluminum on the dome: stiff and light, so breakup is pushed high; anodizing hardens the surface and raises stiffness further. The trade is damping — aluminum rings when it does resonate, so the crossover has to stay below that point.
But the size is the decision
739 mm wide. Twenty-nine inches.
279 mm Micca OoO · 330 Dayton · 340 Yamaha · 356 Goldwood PSC-43 · 373 Neumitech · 381 Polk and both Micca MB42X-C · 430 Sony · 476 Klipsch · 579 Triangle · 739 mm this
A typical television unit is 43.3 to 55.1 in (1,100 to 1,400 mm) wide, so this takes more than half of it and leaves little room for a receiver or a player alongside.
And 12 kilograms rules out many wall brackets and most glass shelves.
In its favor: at 6.10 in (155 mm) tall it is lower than the Klipsch (7.64 in (194 mm)), Neumitech (216), Sony (220) and Triangle (259). The vertical clearance is the easy part.
Two rear ports, which is two to choke
A center speaker always lives in a confined space, and a rear port in that position is choked — airflow restricted, bass compressed, the port liable to whistle at volume. With two ports there is more airflow to restrict.
Leave at least a hundred millimeters behind it.
Sony and Neumitech also publish rear ports here. Triangle’s BRC2 at $459 — eight dollars dearer than this — fires its vents forward, and says why: “front-firing vents allow flexible shelf or cabinet positioning without compromising performance”.
What four hundred and forty dollars does not tell you
No frequency response, where Klipsch at $149.99 publishes 89 Hz – 21 kHz ±3 dB — the only tolerance on this shelf.
No sensitivity, which decides what amplifier you need. Klipsch publishes 95 dB; the four published figures here span a factor of eight in power.
No impedance and no power handling, where Klipsch publishes 400 W.
So the two most expensive speakers on this shelf — this and the Triangle — publish markedly less than the one at a hundred and fifty.
Prices quoted in this text were read on October 4, 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.
