I would be very careful of that speaker, and not purchase without an audition. My strong hunch is that it is in the very nasty category.
The review and measurements were instructive.
I would put that speaker in the "too clever" by half category.
I think it is aimed at the pop thump market and also plays the numbers game in a cynical way.
This speaker is unusual in that it is a 2.5 way ported, with the speakers in different enclosures. The speakers have the same T/L parameters, but the fill driver does not have a phase plug as it does not need one.
Now the enclosures of the two drivers differ in volume by 100% and are tuned 1/3 octave apart. The ports are the same dimension, but one chamber has a forward facing port and the other a rear facing port.
Now, in vented speaker there is only one alignment that really works optimally.
My suspicion is that one chamber is two big and the other too small.
This has been done I suspect to claim -3db to 36 Hz with small drivers.
I would bet that the fill (BSC) driver is tuned in an extended bass alignment. These have poor transient response and droop early.
So the bass/mid enclosure is too small to lift the droop. This might be attractive on some pop music but in other genres will be awful.
I suspect phase is a mess. In the area of maximum reinforcement of the drivers the cones and ports are in phase with the drivers, but a cycle behind.
So between the cones and the ports there is a lot of room for phase additions and cancellations.
Designing a speaker like this is very difficult. My TLs are dual, but the two lines use different drivers, and tuning is half and octave apart, and the phase angles between lines and ports only 90 degrees and not 360. Even then, this was a very difficult design.
The next issue is that by my calculation the crossover for the fill driver is too low.
I would bet that nasty droop in the 250 to 650 Hz range is real. This will make the speaker thin, in a vital part of the midrange. This will be disguised to the casual listener by the 100 Hz thump, which I also strongly suspect is real. It is quite possible that the crossover to the fill driver was made too low on purpose to help disguise the 100 Hz peak. That will fool a lot, but not experienced listeners.
The next issue is generic to Monitor audio. This is not a huge problem, but when I auditioning speakers from this stable I'm aware of it.
They use very rigid ceramic coated, magnesium alloy cones.
Now rigidity in the pass band has the advantage of excellent dispersion.
The downside of rigid cones is that they eventually do break up, and when they do you get a massive break up mode.
This break up mode is hard to deal with. I use similar cones from SEAS. This break up is a big problem. When I have auditioned MA speakers, I can hear some residual of the break up mode. You can see the residual of the break up mode in the frequency response. It is largely suppressed, but it is still visible, peaking at around 6 to 7 KHz, just were you would expect from a rigid driver this size.
Another issue is that the impedance has not been quoted honestly. I agree with the reviewer, that this speaker is a 3.5 ohm speaker and not an 8 ohm one. The impedance is low where most of the power response is.
One last point, contrary to what is expressed here, auto Eq programs do not put speakers right.
Speaker response aberrations are always associated with other problems such as retained energy and phase errors. Frequency response correction can sometimes make an improvement, but will never make a bad speaker a good one.
You have to be careful with speakers, as there are far more bad speakers than good ones, with a boat load of dreadful speakers in abundance.
