Monoprice has made a name for itself in the consumer electronics market making and selling high quality audio accessories like HDMI cables at affordable prices. Over time the company has expanded into the home speaker market with soundbars, bookshelf speakers, subwoofers and packaged surround sound systems. Prices vary but one thing remains consistent: Monoprice speakers all punch well above their weight class: high performance, low price tag. Their budget 5.1.2-channel speaker bundle just got my recommendation as part of a budget Dolby Atmos surround system under $1,000 on eCoustics.
This week the company has unveiled their latest trick: a complete THX-certified 5.1 channel home speaker system for $799. The Monolith by Monoprice M518HT THX Certified 5.1 Home Theater System is ready to rock your world without denting your bank account. It's a compact system with 5 satellite speakers and a powered subwoofer. The system comes in any color you want, as long as you want black.
Monoprice's Monolith branded THX-certified speakers are not new. Their THX-265B bookshelf speaker and THX-365C center channel recently got the thumbs up from our friend Brent Butterworth at Wirecutter. These were Brent's "upgrade pick" for the best home theater speaker system under $2500. But all in, with 5 speakers and a powered subwoofer, that system tipped the monetary scales right around $2500. That's not a ridiculous amount of money to spend on speakers, but possibly out of the reach of the budget-conscious audiophile or movie-lover. This new system comes in at a third of the price, but still retains that THX certification so you know it's going to sound great.
What is THX, you might ask? It all goes back to Tomlinson Holman (the "TH" in THX). The "X" is for "Experiment." Tom was an audio engineer working for a guy called George Lucas over at Lucasfilm. You may know George for his movie "American Graffiti" as well as some other films (smily face emoji goes here). In 1983, Tom was tasked with making sure that the soundtrack for the third "Star Wars" film ("Return of the Jedi") would sound amazing in theaters.
Tom developed a sort of Quality Assurance system for movie theater sound systems. If the movie theater passed a series of rigorous tests including frequency response, dispersion, channel separation, sound pressure level and dynamic range, that theater would earn THX Certification. The THX badge became a symbol of pride in theaters, and it earned a certain panache in the public eye as well. Soon every theater wanted THX certification because they knew it would draw in the public, and it would allow the theater to charge a premium.
Over time, THX expanded into image certification (film and digital cinema) and eventually into the home theater space. Similar to movie theaters, home theater equipment like amplifiers, displays, receivers and speakers must meet certain performance standards in order to earn the THX badge. THX says that its engineers perform "hundreds of audio and video performance and quality assurance tests before a product is confirmed to be THX® Certified." To earn that certification on a complete surround sound speaker package for under $800 is pretty impressive.
The M518HT system features five compact satellite speakers which measure around 6" in all dimensions. A keyhole mount on the back enables the satellites to be wall mounted with just a single mounting screw. Monoprice is able to keep the speaker size small by using concentric drivers - a 3/4 inch silk dome tweeter is placed in the center of the 4.5" polypropylene woofer. This design assures proper time alignment between the drivers. Monoprice says the satellites deliver accurate performance down to 80Hz (80Hz-20KHz +/- 3 dB). Below that frequency, the included powered subwoofer kicks in to extend bass response down to about 30 Hz. The subwoofer features a 150-Watt digital amp with DSP, powering an 8-inch driver.
About the only drawback we can see with this system is that it is a bit power hungry. The satellite speaker's sensitivity is rated at 81 dB, which means it will take a fairly powerful amplifier or receiver to reach theater reference levels. Our recommendation for a receiver to drive the system would be the Denon AVR-S960H (90 WPC), the Yamaha RX-V6A (100 WPC) or the similarly spec'ed Yamaha SR-700 (100 WPC). Any of these should be capable of driving the Monolith system.
If you're interested in an immersive sound Dolby Atmos implementation, you will need at least two more speakers for the height channels. You can buy an extra pair of the satellite cubes from this system for $229.99. Mount these on the ceiling or high on the front wall for a 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos speaker configuration.
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