Monoprice Monolith Encore T6 Tower Loudspeaker Review

Monolith Encore T6 Tower Speaker Introduction

At the end of our review for Monoprice’s Monolith HTP-1 processor, we mentioned that Monoprice’s Monolith line has all of the necessary ingredients to build a complete home theater system except for the projector/TV (they do have some well-regarded PC monitors though). It would be a great system and a bargain for what the user is getting, but it still would not have been inexpensive. With inflation taking a big chunk out of most people’s discretionary income, dropping $1,700 on a pair of tower speakers or $1,000 on a pair of stand-mount speakers becomes increasingly too much scratch for many folks. Perhaps, as a response to this, Monoprice has added a more affordable line of speakers in their new Encore series. The Encore speakers are priced to be within reach of a lot more people than Monolith’s THX speakers. In for review today, we have the Encore tower speakers, the T6s, which, at $400 each, costs less than half of Monolith’s THX tower speakers’ pricing.

Shoppers for lower-cost hi-fi loudspeakers are surely wondering how much speaker they can get for such a modest sum, and where do diminishing returns really set in for loudspeaker costs? Let’s now dig in the Encore T6 speakers to try to find some answers…

Packing and Appearance

The Encore T6s landed at my home in a thick cardboard box and were generously packed in polyethylene foam from nearly top to bottom. Inside the foam, the speakers were covered in a soft cotton drawstring sack to prevent scuffing and to protect against moisture. That all can’t have been cheap, and it’s nice to see such a level of care and protection for this budget speaker that I sometimes don’t even see on much higher-priced items. Monoprice looks to be very aware of how brutal shipping can be and has packed their speakers accordingly.

Once unpacked, I was presented with fairly normal-looking tower speakers with some embellishments that wouldn’t be expected for this price range. The veneer was a standard faux black-oak vinyl that is often seen in this class, but the top and bottom of the speaker were capped with some gloss-back end caps. The drivers were all fairly normal-looking and not all that visually remarkable, and they can be hidden with a grille that has a beveled edge. There isn’t a lot to say about the Encore speakers’ appearance; they don’t look bad at all, but they aren’t exciting either. They are innocuous enough that they should be able to blend in just about any normal decor. I would say that they look a tad better than what would be expected for $400 each.  

Design Analysis

The Encore T6 speakers don’t break the mold of traditional loudspeaker design. Instead, they stick with some fairly tried and true principles. The most noteworthy aspects about them, in my opinion, are the waveguide and the crossover design. Regarding the crossover, the Encore T6 speakers are a 2.5-way design which means that at least one of the midwoofers is not just dedicated to midrange duties but also covers the bass driver band as well. The advantage of this 2.5-way design is low-frequency headroom is increased with the additional woofer. Another advantage of a 2.5-way speaker is the gain in efficiency in low frequencies that can help compensate for baffle step loss. Baffle step loss is the loss of forward-traveling acoustic energy where the lower frequencies radiate out omnidirectionally instead of in front of the speaker. That means that if lower frequencies are emitted out at the same overall energy level as the rest of the range, the speaker might sound thin because much of that energy is not traveling toward the listener but rather in every other direction. By allowing the midrange drivers to tackle low-frequencies as well as mids, it can help to compensate for that loss and give the speaker a fuller sound without resorting to tapering down upper-frequency sensitivity in the crossover circuit.

The other interesting aspect of the Encore’s design is the waveguide. The geometry of the waveguide is very important in any speaker that uses them. Poor geometry can cause all kinds of problems that defeat the purpose of using a waveguide in the first place, but good geometry can bring major benefits to the loudspeaker. Some of the problems that can occur are diffraction from the waveguide surface as well as poor directivity control. Diffraction occurs when sound pressure waves reflect off the surfaces of the waveguide and intersect with the direct sound being emitted from the tweeter, which can cause a comb-filtering effect that can be perceived as distortion. Poor directivity control is when sound emitted at off-axis angles has a badly uneven acoustic output. The purpose of a waveguide is to evenly control the dispersion the driver’s output across a wide frequency range as well as raise the acoustic impedance against the driver. For the purposes of waveguides, acoustic impedance can be thought of as the amount of pressure against the driver as it moves in the air. Higher acoustical impedances enable the driver to perform with much greater efficiency.  

The Encore speakers look to be using a spherical waveguide. In theory, such a shape should do well at not only loading the tweeter but also having a smooth expansion of the acoustic wavefront that itself expands out as a sphere. The waveguide is loading a 1” silk dome tweeter. Somehow this tweeter can manage a crossover frequency of 1.35kHz which is extremely low, especially for a dome tweeter. While the horn-loading of a tweeter can help it manage lower crossover frequencies by raising its acoustic impedance, 1.35kHz is still unusually low for such a design. One advantage of such a low crossover frequency is that it can provide better directivity matching with the woofer. Normally, 1” dome tweeters cannot have a perfect directivity match with a 6.5” woofer since the tweeters can’t play to low enough frequencies to match a point where the woofer hasn’t significantly narrowed its dispersion. In such cases, when the tweeter takes over, there is a “bloom” of dispersion where the tweeter radiates sound at a much wider angle than the top of the woofer’s frequency band. That is not optimum. Ideally, you’d like to keep the sound consistent at all angles, but the Encore T6’s waveguide should be able to blend in the tweeter much better with the woofer.

Underneath the tweeter, the Encore T6 uses three identical 6.5” bass/midrange drivers. As was mentioned in our discussion of 2.5-way speaker design, the uppermost driver plays all the way up to the tweeter’s band, while the two lower drivers only play up to 180Hz. This is a good low-pass point for a 2.5-way design for these drivers since that is around where they would become fully omnidirectional. Dual 5-way binding posts allow for bi-amping ability, but that seems like an extraneous feature for a $400 loudspeaker. Few people shopping in this price range would be looking for that feature or would have the extra amps laying around to make it work properly. Monoprice would have been better off just saving the few pennies it took to implement this feature and just have used a single binding post set.  

The enclosure is a lot more substantial than what would be expected from a $400 speaker. It is an MDF construction using ¾” thick paneling on all sides and has two windowpane braces that divide the cabinet into three sections. On the lower rear panel, there is an 11” long port with a 3 ½” diameter. That is a seriously large port and, given its proportions, ought to be capable of some real output at deep frequencies. The feet are mounted on an outrigger system that must be assembled when the speakers are unpacked. Users have the option of going with some spiked feet with some floor discs or just rubber feet. The style of feet should depend on the surface that the speakers will rest on, where spiked feet would be better on carpet but rubber will be better for hard surfaces.

Given the size and driver array of the Encore T6 speakers, I would expect it to be capable of some pretty serious dynamic range as well as good dispersion control at off-axis angles. Physically speaking, it’s an impressive amount of speaker for $400 each, but how does it fare in practice? Let’s give them a listen to find out…

Listening Sessions

In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately) listening room, I set up the speakers with a few feet of stand-off distances between the back wall and sidewall and equal distance between speakers and listening position. I angled the speakers to face the listening position initially but experimented with other angles to examine differences in soundstage that could be had. The listening distance from the speakers was about 8 feet. Amplification was handled by a Pioneer SC-55. No room correction equalization or subwoofers was used.

Music Listening

For something simple with an emphasis on a solitary human voice, I found a delightful album in “Loredana” by Emilia Martensson, a Swedish-born singer based in the UK who straddles the line between jazz and folk music. “Loredana” is a thoughtful and emotional tribute to Emilia’s mother of the album’s title. Emilia is backed by her band, but the sound is very uncluttered, and her ethereal voice is the foremost element in these tracks. Emilia may have one of the loveliest voices in contemporary music, so her albums stand as a good test of a sound system’s ability to reproduce that natural beauty. The production quality is first-rate, so the only bottleneck to realizing the potential of this music is a subpar sound system.   

With my initial toe-in with the T6s facing me directly, Emilia’s voice had a dead center image. However, it occurred to me that the controlled directivity the T6’s waveguides should produce would have a significant change in the soundstage depending on the angle. Specifically, the speaker design should make it a great candidate for time-intensity trading. Could these speakers keep a center image across a wider seating position with an aggressive toe-in? After trying an aggressive toe-in to see how wide of a listening area that could still yield a center image, the effect only somewhat worked, and I have heard other speakers pull off time-intensity trading better (a good discussion of time-intensity trading can be seen in this Audioholics Youtube Livestream). Imaging seemed to become slightly more focused with an aggressive toe-in, but at the cost of a wider soundstage. Aiming the speakers with only a slight toe-in so that their aim intersected further back from my listening position did seem to broaden the soundstage a bit, but perhaps at the cost of some imaging precision. Aside from soundstage matters, Emilia’s voice sounded natural and unified, and at points, it sounded as though she were in the room with me. Instruments sounded tonally balanced as well, and nothing sounded off or abnormal. Bass was strong, and I doubt that subwoofers would have offered a better bass experience beyond what these speakers could do for this album. Altogether, these speakers recreated the sound of this album at a shockingly good level when considering the speakers’ pricing.

One brand new release that I found streaming on hi-res on Qobuz was “Saint-Saens: Complete Symphonies” from Warner Classics. This is released on the centenary of Camille Saint-Saens’ death which occurred in December of 1921. As the title indicates, this recording covers all of Saint-Saens’ five symphonies which were written between 1850 and 1886 (the first written when he was just 15). They are performed by the Orchestre National de France with acclaimed organist Oliver Latry joining in for Saint-Saens’ famous No.3 “Organ Symphony.” The production on this gorgeous album is top shelf, as would be expected from a major label and a major orchestra, and there is a large difference in dynamics from diminuendos to crescendos. This album is a great test of the dynamic range in an acoustic recording for a sound system.

Classical music typically has a very different soundstage than other genres since the venues in which this music is played are so large and the musicians are so spread out that you don’t usually get precise imaging. Rather, the soundstage induces more a sense of acoustical environment. This being the case, I again experimented with toe-in to see the effects that would have on this music which had a very typical symphonic hall sound. An aggressive toe-in seemed to shrink the width of the orchestra and created a feeling as though I were seated at a distant back row. The orchestra was a more concentrated group of players with this speaker positioning. Switching to a very mild toe-in with the speakers having hardly any inward angling at all, it broadened the orchestra and made it seem like I was seated at a much closer proximity to the orchestra. Either speaker angle sounded good, and what would be better is entirely a matter of individual preference. The good news about these speakers is that they give you that choice more so than other speakers thanks to the attention paid to controlled directivity. The dynamic range of the speakers was surprisingly good, and the T6s had no trouble with the livelier passages where bass drums, organ, and brass are blazing at full force. There is nothing in this recording that subwoofers would have contributed beyond what the T6s could do. The signature sounds of the instruments were authentic, and the speakers didn’t seem to be imparting any sound of their own. A classical music lover on a budget has a great choice in the Encore T6s, and even those who aren’t on a budget are sure to appreciate the sound that these speakers can produce.

Another new release that is well-deserving of attention of great sound systems everywhere is Jonsi’s “Obsidian.” This album is a solo release from Jonsi who is better known as a member of the group Sigur Ros. It was meant as a sound accompaniment for an art installation exhibit of his in New York, but it is so emotionally vibrant and self-complete that it sounds like so much more than a mere soundtrack. The sound is mostly sweeping synth pads with occasional vocals from Jonsi, but the electronic tapestries that he weaves form an intricate soundstage that deserves some serious audio equipment to fully reproduce.  While many of the pieces are largely ambient in nature, there is a nearly symphonic structure here that gives them a narrative quality. This drop-dead gorgeous album is a revelation, and I like it even more than Sigur Ros’s albums, not that I thought anything Sigur Ros did was bad at all.

The T6 speakers were able to project the expansive soundstage that is integral to this recording. Sounds emanated from the entire width of the front of my room and seemingly well outside the boundaries of the speakers’ placement. The last part of track 6, “Cypriol,” had some wild panning effects that ably demonstrated the T6s ability to reproduce extreme soundstages. Nonetheless, imaging for many of the lead sounds was still well-defined. Bass sounds also had good definition whether it be electronic bass lines, percussion, ambient drone, or low-frequency atmospherics. Bass sounds were sharp and unconfused. The same is true for the rest of the range, and while the album is largely ambient with lots of sweeping synths, the T6s maintained a lucid soundscape of individual instruments instead of an ambiguous blend of electronic pads. I played the album at a healthy volume level, and I never thought the T6s were challenged by the drive level. I think these speakers could handle a fairly sizable room for music like this despite their modest cost. By the end of the album, I had no complaints about the T6s performance, regardless of their low cost. They reproduced this album beautifully by any measure.  

For something that could indicate the low-frequency extension of the Encore T6 speakers, I threw on an album called “In Praise of Darkness” by Shades. This is nearly avant-garde dubstep that doesn’t pay much heed to the tropes of the genre but rather uses genre elements to craft something new and nearly experimental. As dubstep music, the bass is heavy and plentiful, the sound is grimy and often compressed to full-scale, and the attitude is belligerent and crass; in other words, this is finer music for the more discerning audiophile.

The T6 speakers were not perturbed by the high volume setting I used. As I said before, these are budget speakers that could handle a good-sized room, which is surely a rarity. They may not be able to hit THX reference levels in a large room, but they would doubtless be able to fill them with vibrant sound to the satisfaction of most people. SPL extremists will want something with compression drivers, large AMT tweeters, or line arrays, but normal humans will be perfectly happy with the dynamic range on tap with the T6 speakers, and those super-wide dynamic range speakers are going to cost a heck of a lot more than the T6s. The T6s proved to be very capable in bass too. Subwoofers might have augmented the very lowest notes a bit more than what these speakers were capable of, but they were able to proficiently convey 90% of the low-frequency content on “In Praise of Darkness” with aplomb. If you are looking for some low-cost towers so you can get by without a sub, these would be an outstanding choice, even for bass-heavy electronic music such as this album. The bass hit me in the chest with kick drums and it could also churn my stomach with deep-digging basslines. Again, imaging was terrific on tracks that called for it, such as Killa P’s rap in track 6, “Alarma.”  Anyone looking for some fun should visit “In Praise of Darkness” on a bass-competent sound system, and I am happy to report that the Encore T6 speakers offer just that.

Movies

To see what the Encore T6 speakers could do for a big-budget Hollywood production, I watched “The Suicide Squad.” The word ‘The’ is imperative because this movie is altogether different from the critically derided (but commercially successful) 2016 version simply titled “Suicide Squad.” “The Suicide Squad” is not a reboot nor is it a sequel, and I am not sure of its relationship to the prior film, but I suppose that hardly matters; it must stand on its own either way. With large-scale action scenes, absurd and over-the-top characters, and the best sound engineering that money can buy, “The Suicide Squad” should be a good demonstration of a sound system’s capacity to reproduce a typical effects-heavy motion picture.

“The Suicide Squad” turned out to be a fun way to spend two hours, and the Encore T6 speakers turned out to be a great vehicle by which to listen to it. While it was a very effects-heavy film, the most prominent aspect of the sound mix had to be the music. Being a James Gunn movie, the sound mix was littered with an eclectic mix of music pulled from sources as varied as Johnny Cash, The Pixies, hip hop, Louis Prima, and others. John Murphy’s original score was also a fusion of traditional orchestral music and rock elements, and the Encore T6s had no problem coping with both the blaring music tracks as well as the diegetic sounds of the movie. The dialogue was always perfectly intelligible, and I never had a problem understanding what was being said. The effects sounds were reproduced with gusto, and the various crashes, gunshots, and explosions were violently relayed. The T6s topped out my own desire for wide dynamics, and that was only with a 120watt RMS x2 channel amplifier. There was more headroom left in the tank, but I didn’t need it. Low-frequency reproduction was lively, and mid-bass frequencies conveyed a nice amount of punch. The T6’s deep bass performance was competent, although it wasn’t equal to that of a beefy sub. However, it was better than any loudspeaker at this price point has any right to be. “The Suicide Squad” was better than I anticipated, and I am glad I watched it on loudspeakers as good as the T6s.

One movie that I watched with the Encore T6 speakers was “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” on the streaming service Shudder. In this 2016 release, a coroner and his assistant conduct an autopsy of an unidentified girl who was apparently the victim of some kind of bizarre torture. Little do they know she is much more than an anonymous corpse and that just because she has no pulse does not mean she is entirely gone. Modern horror movies can often have lively and imaginative sound mixes, and I could not resist such a sensational premise, so I set out to see how this ghoulish scenario unfolded using the T6 speakers.

While an autopsy is sure to be a gruesome sight to those who do not routinely deal with corpses, much of the horror of “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” came from sound cues. Menacing noises emanating from around the laboratory, distressingly timed thunder cracks, malfunctioning radios, and a tense score from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans make for a buffet of audio scares, and the Encore T6s rendered it all with zeal. The effects sound of the autopsy process was also given a sickeningly detailed representation by the T6s that was a good match for the macabre visuals. Bensi and Jurriaans’ music score was a simple but effective orchestral work that was energetically rendered to maximize the suspense. As with the on-screen drama, the sound mix gradually builds from vaguely creepy to sheer terror over the course of the autopsy, and a lot of the experience would be lost on a compromised sound system. The T6s delivered a full experience, and again I was impressed by their bass output, particularly with the thunderstorm sounds. “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” isn’t for everyone, but those who would enjoy it should see it with speakers as good as the Encore T6s.    

Monoprice Monolith Encore T6 Tower Loudspeaker Measurements & Conclusion

The Monoprice Monolith Encore T6 Towers were measured in free-air at a height of 4 feet at a 2-meter distance from the microphone, with the microphone raised to a 7.5’ elevation that was level with and aimed at the tweeter center. The measurements were gated at 8-milliseconds. In this time window, some resolution is lost below 400 Hz and accuracy is completely lost below 200 Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/12 octave resolution.

The above graphs depict the Encore T6 tower’s direct-axis and horizontal dispersion out to a 90-degree angle in five-degree increments. Information on how to interpret these graphs can be read in our article Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II. The performance shown here is not perfect but overall very good. There is a wide but shallow 3dB rise between 3kHz and 6kHz that occurs at and around the on-axis angle. It may well be audible when compared to a speaker that doesn’t have that elevated range. It should make this speaker a bit more sibilant and forward when compared to something without that hump. I didn’t notice the Encores being especially sibilant in my listening. Aside from the 3-6kHz rise, the response is fairly neutral, much more so than would be expected of a tower loudspeaker in this price range. The elevated range doesn’t really carry out too far off-axis angles, so equalizing it out might leave a slight depression in that range for an in-room sound character, although I would guess it would be mild at worst. 

The above polar map shows the same information in the preceding graphs but depicts it in a way that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, polar maps use color to portray amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis perspective. The advantage of these graphs is they can let us see broader trends of the speaker’s dispersion behavior more easily. More information about interpreting this graph can be read in our article Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II.

The first thing to note is that we can see that the waveguide is doing a beautiful job of controlling overall directivity so that there are no large off-axis fluctuations that would drastically change the sound character for any given angle. This quality makes the Encore T6s amenable to ordinary room acoustics, and the user will not need to rely on acoustic treatments to get a good sound from these speakers. This type of dispersion also means that this speaker is suitable to conventional equalization. Some readers might think that statement contradicts statements made above about how unmatching off-axis responses makes this speaker more difficult to EQ, but that is for a finer level of equalization in getting a perfected response for an extremely neutral sound. What the polar map shows us is that we can easily shape the response for broader tonal changes without worrying about whether acoustic reflections will screw up our intended results. Another takeaway from the above graph that we can see is that we could be listening out to a 40-degree angle without missing much at least under 10kHz, meaning this speaker is pretty generous in covering a wide angle with the full spectrum of sound. Above 10kHz, the tweeter does start to beam a bit, but it is not severe, and listeners will be met with high treble in any normal listening position with respect to the speaker.

The above graph is a sampling of some of the vertical angle responses at and around the on-axis angle. The response holds pretty nicely at and above the on-axis angle, but not so much when listening below the tweeter axis. The height of the tweeter is set at 36” which should be about where most listeners’ ears would also be situated, but those with low-slung seating might end up at lower altitudes in which case they would not be hearing the T6s at their best. These curves tell us that the best sound occurs at a +/-5 degree vertical angle with respect to the tweeter.

The above graph shows the T6’s low-frequency response captured using groundplane measurements (where the speaker and microphone are on the ground at a 2-meter distance in a wide-open area). Going down in frequency, there seems to be a slight bump in lower mid-bass centered between 90 and 100Hz which is followed by a gentle slope leading to the port tuning frequency that occurs around 30Hz. This is a typical underdamped response that we see from many tower speakers which is done to avoid the bass boost that comes from in-room boundary gain that can make speakers sound boomy. Pressure vessel gain should shore up such a shallow response so that the user will get a solid response down to port tuning. The T6’s are tower speakers with unusually low bass extension for their price point. Few people would really need a subwoofer with these, especially in a small room where pressure vessel gain can be massive. The irony here is that these are budget speakers that could only benefit from the addition of the relatively expensive subwoofers that can competently dig below 20Hz.

The above graphs show the electrical behavior of the T6 speakers. Monoprice specs these as 4-ohm speakers, and that would appear to be the case, although this is not a very demanding load as far as 4-ohm speakers go. Much of the mid-bass band dips below 5-ohms but not at a very severe phase angle. Most midrange AVRs could handle these speakers without problem. Rocking them hard for a long period with an entry-level AVR might be asking for thermal protection shutdown, however. Some attributes that we can discern from the dip in the saddle of the bass response is that the port tuning frequency seems to be 30Hz as we saw from the low-frequency response graph above. We can also see that the bass drivers have a significantly higher resonant frequency than the enclosure from observing that the bass saddle peaks so much higher at the upper half of the shape.

I measured the Encore T6’s sensitivity to be 89.75dB at 1 meter for 2.83v. This is a bit above Monoprice’s spec of 87.8dB. Either way, sensitivity in the high 80’s is typical for a tower speaker of its size. Megawatt amplifiers are not needed for this speaker to get loud. A typical AVR would be enough to make it rock pretty hard.

Conclusion

Before bringing this review of the Monoprice Encore T6 speakers to a close, I will briefly go over their strengths and weaknesses, and, as usual, I will start with their weaknesses. The problem with that is that it’s hard to ask for more from an $800/pair tower speaker. There are attributes that I might be critical of, were this a $2,000/pair loudspeaker set, but I find the T6’s to be a very strong undertaking for this price range. If I were to pick nits, one thing to be aware of is that the vertical dispersion is a bit restricting for anyone listening at a significantly lower height than the tweeter level, and that could occur with lower seating in a small room. Users should make sure the height of their ears at listening position is roughly level with the tweeter, but that is also the case with so many other speakers. If I were being super picky, the rise in the lower treble in the frequency response may make these speakers sound a bit more forward than loudspeakers with a perfectly neutral response, but the overall response is not bad, especially when considering the pricing.

That brings us to the Encore T6’s strengths, the foremost of which is the kind of sound they can produce for the cost. They can give the user a dynamic, balanced sound with excellent bass extension for less than $1k. Buyers would need to spend a lot more to get something that is significantly better. The T6 speakers are a great example of how returns begin to greatly diminish after a certain point of investment into audio equipment. Yes, there are better speakers, but you are going to have to double your budget to get something that can notably surpass these in any one area. They can get loud if you provide sufficient amplification, and they can dig deep enough that subwoofers are not required to enjoy movies or music. A stereo pair of these would make most folks pretty happy with their sound system for most applications as well as serve nicely as the heart of a surround sound system.

Their appearance is fine, and, in my opinion, goes beyond the minimum requirements for budget tower speakers. Gloss top and bottom pieces along with nice-looking drivers should make them easy on the eyes, and the vinyl black oak veneer is pretty standard for loudspeakers in this class. There are prettier speakers out there but at much greater cost, and the Encore T6 speakers are certainly inoffensive if not quite beautiful.

The T6s are also not a terribly challenging load for electronics, and any mid-level receiver will drive these with no problems. That is basically a requirement for a loudspeaker in this price range, and the Encore T6s fulfill that criterion.

Most buyers will probably be looking at the Encore T6 speakers as merely a part of a surround sound system, but, in truth, I think they bring more to the audio market as a two-channel system. Most surround sound shoppers are going to pair these up with subwoofers, but that negates their strength as an affordable loudspeaker with unusually potent bass capability. If you are looking for a full-range stereo speaker set without spending a fortune, these may be your best bet. To be sure, they would function terrifically in a home theater setting; in fact, those who are looking for a home theater on a tight budget would do well to consider omitting subwoofers and just let the T6 speakers handle deep bass. That skips the expense and complication of adding subs. There is no need to worry about properly integrating a sub to your audio system when there is no subwoofer. I doubt that anyone except for die-hard enthusiasts will feel a need for the inclusion of subwoofers when they hear what these speakers can do. I enjoyed my time with the Encore T6 speakers, and I think if the word gets out about how good these speakers are, Monoprice will have another hit in their Monolith product line.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value