Monoprice Monolith THX-365T Mini-Tower and THX-365C Center Speaker Review

everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
How does mixing brands work ? Don’t they have the same tweeters?? Very cool mono-price stuff looks so good .


Reptilians invading in year 2025
Tesla spoken to them
You typically want your front 3 to match brand and series. Exceptions would be manufacturers like Salk and Dennis Murphy designs were they are voiced similarly, especially when drivers crossover. Another would be when a manufacturer dosent offer a center speaker, and that would warrant a neutral center to tailor the sound it needed.
 
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Adam2434

Audioholic Intern
I recently grabbed the front three thx speakers and am very impressed considering how much I paid for them. I guess I got lucky but I was able to get them all up here in Canada for under $1,500 Canadian taxes and shipping included. I am thoroughly impressed with how they sound and they can play louder than I will ever need them to be played.

Even though they are 4ohm, my Denon x3600 has no issue driving them to very loud levels.

Would like the 365ts to lose the upfiring Atmos drivers because I will never use them. I feel like they would sell more without the top firing speakers.
Good deal!

Just curious - what speakers were you running prior?
 
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JRED 1219

Audioholic
Good deal!

Just curious - what speakers were you running prior?
Some klipsch entry-ish level reference series towers and centre. They were too bright and I was having listening fatigue and finally it got annoying enough to upgrade! Super happy.
 
J

JRED 1219

Audioholic
Some klipsch entry-ish level reference series towers and centre. They were too bright and I was having listening fatigue and finally it got annoying enough to upgrade! Super happy.
One con however is finding speaker stands that are adequate. These are very large bookshelf speakers and they are kinda top heavy...
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
One con however is finding speaker stands that are adequate. These are very large bookshelf speakers and they are kinda top heavy...
If you find good cheap stand post pics I wonder how hard diy speakers stand are to build? Vs buying them and the price difference. I’ve never built any
Yeah I’m going to try adjusting the high end treble sometime on my onkyo , might be able to lesson the brightness on my klipsch icon , which are essentially what best buy sells as reference now .
Which essentially just synergies reverts to look better to get people to spend a premium price for low end speakers.
Best Buy loves do do this stuff .

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Adam2434

Audioholic Intern
Mr. Larson,

Just mildly curious about a couple geeky things.

Do you recall if the tweeter and midrange have plastic or aluminum cans/enclosures on the back, and whether you recognized design elements that point to a specific driver OEM company?

I also noticed the that the Monolith and XTZ THX (both designed by Claridy and Dan Roemer, I believe) use common, specific design terminology for the woofers: “long fiber pulp” and “NBR surrounds”. This makes me think that maybe Claridy uses the same OEM and similar design elements for both. Like perhaps Claridy came up with cone and surround formulations that work well, and have applied them across multiple speaker lines. The common terminology seems like more than a coincidence, but who knows…

Anyway, just a little geeky minutia.
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Mr. Larson,

Just mildly curious about a couple geeky things.

Do you recall if the tweeter and midrange have plastic or aluminum cans/enclosures on the back, and whether you recognized design elements that point to a specific driver OEM company?

I also noticed the that the Monolith and XTZ THX (both designed by Claridy and Dan Roemer, I believe) use common, specific design terminology for the woofers: “long fiber pulp” and “NBR surrounds”. This makes me think that maybe Claridy uses the same OEM and similar design elements for both. Like perhaps Claridy came up with cone and surround formulations that work well, and have applied them across multiple speaker lines. The common terminology seems like more than a coincidence, but who knows…

Anyway, just a little geeky minutia.
The housing for the midrange driver and tweeter was made from plastic. I don't know the OEM, sorry.

Yes, no doubt that Claridy uses the same OEM for many of their products, especially those going for THX certification. They tend to have a lot in common as far as construction goes. Why reinvent the wheel for every new product? What they are doing works very well.
 
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Adam2434

Audioholic Intern
The housing for the midrange driver and tweeter was made from plastic. I don't know the OEM, sorry.

Yes, no doubt that Claridy uses the same OEM for many of their products, especially those going for THX certification. They tend to have a lot in common as far as construction goes. Why reinvent the wheel for every new product? What they are doing works very well.
Yeah, agree, applying good engineering designs/materials to multiple product lines is smart and efficient. Seems like Claridy-designed speakers are very solid, across the board.

As a side note, I have some of the DCM TFE and TP series speakers in secondary systems. I believe Dan Roemer was involved in designing these when he was with Mitek. These DCM speakers sound very good for the money. He has a great track record for designing/engineering speakers.
 
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jmm22

Enthusiast
I’m debating between these and the JBL 590/580 and 520C combo. Both are approximately in the same range.

I am going to stick with 3.1 for the time being. Almost solely movies/tv
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
I’m debating between these and the JBL 590/580 and 520C combo. Both are approximately in the same range.

I am going to stick with 3.1 for the time being. Almost solely movies/tv
Both are good choices. The 580s/590s likely have a dynamic range advantage. However the Monolith center speaker design is easily superior to that of the JBL center speaker. The Monolith speakers will have a wider dispersion pattern than the JBL speakers. That means more early reflections which means a potentially more spacious soundstage in music. Honestly, it's a pretty tough choice. The Monolith speakers have no deep bass and require a subwoofer, but the JBL speakers should have very capable bass, however for a dedicated home theater, you will still want a sub, so that is kind of a moot point.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Both are good choices. The 580s/590s likely have a dynamic range advantage. However the Monolith center speaker design is easily superior to that of the JBL center speaker. The Monolith speakers will have a wider dispersion pattern than the JBL speakers. That means more early reflections which means a potentially more spacious soundstage in music. Honestly, it's a pretty tough choice. The Monolith speakers have no deep bass and require a subwoofer, but the JBL speakers should have very capable bass, however for a dedicated home theater, you will still want a sub, so that is kind of a moot point.
When did you compare them, particularly the centers?
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
When did you compare them, particularly the centers?
I haven't compared them. I haven't even heard the JBL center. But as an MTM, it is an inherently inferior design. I'm not saying it's a bad speaker, but there is no way that it will perform as well as the Monolith center. Nor should it be expected to perform on that level given it's much less expensive.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I haven't compared them. I haven't even heard the JBL center. But as an MTM, it is an inherently inferior design. I'm not saying it's a bad speaker, but there is no way that it will perform as well as the Monolith center. Nor should it be expected to perform on that level given it's much less expensive.
Didn't think you had thus a bit surprised at your conclusion. I haven't heard the Monoprice one either tho I have the 520 and it exceeded my expectations. I don't expect it do to much down low and the dispersion works for me....but would love to see an actual comparison as the Monoprice one doesn't look all that impressive either.
 
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hobohunter2316

Audiophyte
Could you use the center channel speakers in vertical orientation for L/R channels?
 
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shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Vertical center channels or the bookshelf versions?
The problem with using the Monolith center speaker vertically is that the tweeter and midrange would then be aligned horizontally. That would cause horizontal cancellation issues off-axis that were intended to be generated vertically where it wouldn't have mattered as much. However, the cancellation that does happen between the tweeter and midrange driver is actually very mild relative to other cancellation nulls that I have seen:

You see that 'valley' that occurs at about 2,000 Hz as we move away from the on-axis measurement (i.e., zero degrees)? That is what would happen on a horizontal axis if you used a Monolith center speaker on its side. It wouldn't be a big deal, so long as you had the speaker aimed directly at your listening position. You just don't want to be listening to the speaker too far outside of the on-axis angle.

I think you could use the Monolith center vertically mounted as a left or right front speaker and it would sound fine, but you just need to pay attention to the toe-in angle to make sure there is not a gap in the direct response at your listening position.
 
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mdinno

Junior Audioholic
Any comparisons to the Ascend Acoustics CMT 340 SE? Which is the better buy out of the two since they are very similar.
 
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Adam2434

Audioholic Intern
The THX-460T floorstander release date still keeps jumping around on the Monoprice website. Says June 5th now, but we'll see...

Been seriously considering them, but would like a see availability and a sale price first, as they occasionally run sales on the mini-tower (hate that description) and center.
 
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Adam2434

Audioholic Intern
Any comparisons to the Ascend Acoustics CMT 340 SE? Which is the better buy out of the two since they are very similar.
That would be an interesting comparison. Similar price when the Monolith is on sale for $350 with free shipping.

The Monolith should have better dispersion, being a 3-way. The Ascend will dig deeper and the Monolith is designed to roll-off at 80 Hz per the THX standard. With a typical 80 Hz crossover, the Monolith should technically blend better with one's sub(s) due to the combined electrical and mechanical (sealed box) highpass filter slope of 24 dB/octave, matching the same slope typically used in the subwoofer channel's lowpass filter.
 
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