Monoprice Air Motion Bookshelf, Center Channel & Subwoofer Preview

Online speaker retailer Monoprice unveiled their Monolith Air Motion Cinema Series Speakers at CEDIA in Dallas, Texas. The series features two way bookshelf speakers and a three way center channel geared towards great sound at an affordable price. The Monolith Air Motion Cinema Series Speakers is designed to bring the theater experience home with a nice looking cabinet design that sounded great. The AMT drivers help ensure an accurate and full high frequency extension, low distortion, and expansive imaging. The woofers boast a New Zealand pulp paper cone with rubber surrounds and cast baskets.  This is some serious hardware and performance that is atypical for speakers at this price class.

The center channel features a three way design, and has been tuned to sound just as good with vocals as it does playing full range music. In fact, you might just want to buy three of these and set them up as matching LCRs for the front channels! All speakers are fitted with magnetic grilles (an unheard of feature at this price), and the cabinets are internally braced for minimum cabinet vibration and acoustic coloring. Engineered for accuracy, dynamics, and detail, the Air Motion Cinema series sounds great for both movies and music.

Monoprice Air Motion Bookshelf (left pic) and Center (right pic)

Monoprice 15" Sub Prototype YouTube Video Preview

Initial Impressions

We got a chance to hear this setup on the CEDIA showroom floor and although it wasn't the optimal listening environment with 30,000 people walking around, you could tell the system would deliver some serious sound. The system was setup with the Cinema 5 as their left and right channel.  I watched a few scenes from the new Jungle Book movie when Kaa the snake was talking to Mowgli. The high pitched hissing of the snakes speech and slithering movements came through crisp and clear.  The 5" mids handled the higher pitched thumps and bumps of the branches cracking and crashing  as the pair is moving through the jungle.  A big surprise was hidden under the table though, the bass was supplied by Monoprice's prototype massively huge 15" sub which really stole the show and easily handled the low end boom.   It's a large ported subwoofer with a very high caliber 15" driver from TC Sounds powered by a 1200 watt DSP controlled amplifier.  Monoprice claims this sub is capable of 122 dB @ 2 meter per CEA 2010 burst test but this number seems almost unbelievable.  Regardless, it's obvious this sub has the tools to produce massive output with deep clean low end extension.

I really liked the solid build of all the cabinets, so many companies try to reinvent the wheel with funky designs, weird curves, and impractical modifications.  These are no nonsense speakers that deliver what they promise - Great sound at a great price.  Oh, and they look great too.

We're really looking forward to doing a full review of this system when it becomes available. The system (excluding the sub) will be available this fall.  Their 15" monster would be a great addition for this system if you really like a lot of physical low end push and pull throughout a movie. Pricing hasn't been announced yet for the sub, but Monoprice said they are shooting for under $1,200.  Let us know what you think about the whole setup and especially what you want out of the sub.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.