MAG Theatron M12-C Speaker Review

[Toni Mas]

I don't mind the bad performance, as this is expected for 90 % of speakers. Though an SPL with disortion performance already crashing at 106 dB? Come on, that's weak. More so, I am pissed because of the "50-20000 @ +-3dB" statement, which is clearly a LIE that warrants legal action.

It's kinda sad that the longer ASR and Erin are around the clearer it becomes that there is only a tiny fraction of speaker manufacturers that are 100 % trustworthy and offer actual performance for the money.

What I am quite sure is that there is only a tiny fraction ready to accept realistic specs. The vast majority expects ridiculously over promissing figures and generally believe anything (watts, dBs, thd, etc...) simply 'cause it's written!

 

[amirm]

Yea... You just need Klippel's and follow the instructions of the user's guide...

Which I am pretty sure you don't understand. But go ahead and impress us by explaining what this means from the manual and it's ramifications for measuring treble response:

For now, I haven't told anyone I have designed speakers because I haven't. I don't envy people who do as they weigh all the complex parameters that it takes to design a performant and successful product. My expertise is in understanding the above math (and signal processing), the theory of operation of a speaker, and psychoacoustics of perception of sound in rooms. This is far above pay grade of vast majority of speaker reviewers. It takes this level of expertise to bring you the volume of measurements you see and being trusted by major speaker companies such as Genelec and Neumann to send me their products to test. Having some DIY knowledge of speaker design wouldn't get you here.

 

[amirm]

What I am quite sure is that there is only a tiny fraction ready to accept realistic specs. The vast majority expects ridiculously over promissing figures and generally believe anything (watts, dBs, thd, etc...) simply 'cause it's written!

The vast majority doesn't even read or care about such specs as written. They only trust what they hear and what others say they hear.

Just as with electronics, we are raising the bar here substantially through our measurements. People are starting to take notice. It is slower to be sure in speakers but it is coming.

 

[Toni Mas]

Which I am pretty sure you don't understand. But go ahead and impress us by explaining what this means from the manual and it's ramifications for measuring treble response:

View attachment 464494

For now, I haven't told anyone I have designed speakers because I haven't. I don't envy people who do as they weigh all the complex parameters that it takes to design a performant and successful product. My expertise is in understanding the above math (and signal processing), the theory of operation of a speaker, and psychoacoustics of perception of sound in rooms. This is far above pay grade of vast majority of speaker reviewers. It takes this level of expertise to bring you the volume of measurements you see and being trusted by major speaker companies such as Genelec and Neumann to send me their products to test. Having some DIY knowledge of speaker design wouldn't get you here.

Please no need to be so pompous... We all know you are the voice of the Ministry of Truth (Audio Affairs)...

 

[amirm]

Please no need to be so pompous...

Hehe . I suggest you stop focusing on people and contribute technically, lest you want to have your hat handed to you again.

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the MAG Theatron M12-C center speaker. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $2,299.
View attachment 464150
As you probably can tell, this is a very large speaker. I can imagine it has to be mounted behind a projection screen. The woofer is inset, likely as an attempt to "time align" it with the very deep tweeter (or is it to control its directivity?). Oddly the speaker terminals are on top and are the screw kind. Don't usually see that for speakers aimed for home applications.

Here are the specs:
View attachment 464161

MAG Theatron M12-C Speaker Measurements
Let's start with our anechoic measurements performed using Klippel Near-field Scanner:

View attachment 464151
We see a rather rough response from the woofer and wavy one from tweeter. This is also a large discontinuity in the directivity around 700 Hz. We can get clues as to source of these problems by measuring each driver near-field:
View attachment 464152

Is that edge diffraction starting at 800 Hz and going past 1 kHz? Tweeter response is uneven as we have seen in our anechoic far field measurements. And ends in sharp resonance. Put another way, simple, non-anechoic measurements would have shown the issues here and clearly so in just a couple of minutes.

Back to the anechoic measurements, we see very high sensitivity of 95 dB.

Despite deploying 12 inch woofer in a rather large enclosure, bass extension is rather poor. Response starts to drop off 120 Hz with 50 Hz for F10. This is kind of bookshelf speaker response.

Early window response is some of the worst I have seen:
View attachment 464153
But do note that flush mounting changes this some. Predicted in-room response, non-flush mount naturally doesn't look good:
View attachment 464154

I was surprised at the very narrow directivity for a center speaker:
View attachment 464155

View attachment 464156

You better sit pretty far if you want to have sofa-wide even response. We also see what could be diffraction around 700 Hz yet again.

Vertical dispersion is usually not good in 2-way speakers and here, it is worse due to narrowing directivity:
View attachment 464157


The 12 inch driver allows quite high SPL levels. I only started to detect audible distortion at 106 dBSPL during sweeps (with hearing protection). Linearity is lost though pretty early on:

View attachment 464158
In an ideal speaker, distortion would remain constant and all the lines would be on top of each other. While we could tolerate fair bit of distortion in bass, this speaker brings plenty of it from 700 Hz on.
View attachment 464159
View attachment 464160

MAG Theatron M12-C Listening Tests and Equalization
Initial impression was that of upper bass warmth. But as soon as the first female vocal arrived, the sound was just odd to me. So decided to create some filters and boy was this a long journey:
View attachment 464162
The response is quite rough in bass so I focused only on larger variations in treble. Once there, overall response was more open without being too sharp. But lacked bass. With or without EQ, my deep bass tracks barely produced anything. And what it did produce was distorted to some extent. So I bumped up the response with that 80 Hz filter. That nicely evened out the response with EQ sounding quite a bit better than without.

Speaker was indeed sensitive. It delivered 10 dB better response than equiv. testing on other speakers with my amp. I still cranked it up. And then would be startled with some dynamics in the music. So the benefit of high sensitivity is there.

I tested the directivity at near field. Response does drop off rapidly with horizontal angle.

Conclusions
From my vantage point, this is a PA speaker with its proper application being larger spaces, no home listening spaces. Narrow directivity points to that as does high sensitivity. As with many PA devices, sensitivity is everything. Refinement only has to be adequate. We maybe have that. If this speaker was $800, we could stop here and say job is done but the price is home speaker category. Here, we expect at least some attention paid to obvious sources of distortion and acoustic faults. Thank heavens we have EQ so we can correct for half the problem.

I can't recommend the MAG Theatron M12-C center speaker. It is just too compromised as a design and especially for the price.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

For the score rational your journey starts here
Explanation for the sub score
The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration.
If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there.


The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 3.9
With Sub: 6.5

Spinorama with no EQ:

• Ragged
• Very uneven
• No bass
• Sensitive but at what cost?
• No point in a domestic environment
• Could have been much better without the 800 - 1000Hz anomaly

Directivity:
Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/15deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.

EQ design:
I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.

• The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
• The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.
• Too much effort for not much
• Probably only for academic purpose...

Score EQ LW: 4.8
with sub: 7.4

Score EQ Score: 5.4
with sub: 8.0
:

MAG Theatron M12 APO EQ LW 96000Hz
July212025-125926

Preamp: -6.00 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 63.0 Hz Gain 0.00 dB Q 1.30
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 125.0 Hz Gain -1.52 dB Q 3.23
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 173.7 Hz Gain 1.82 dB Q 5.94
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 635.4 Hz Gain 4.04 dB Q 3.08
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 608.2 Hz Gain -2.14 dB Q 1.20
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1215.6 Hz Gain 1.63 dB Q 3.00
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 2234.3 Hz Gain 4.07 dB Q 1.45
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 4068.8 Hz Gain -1.80 dB Q 2.05
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 6782.7 Hz Gain 1.52 dB Q 3.77
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 10322.8 Hz Gain 5.82 dB Q 0.93
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 22492.9 Hz Gain -1.51 dB Q 5.99

MAG Theatron M12 APO EQ Score 96000Hz
July212025-125926

Preamp: -4.80 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 61.0 Hz Gain 0.00 dB Q 1.37
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 125.5 Hz Gain -1.67 dB Q 3.59
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 179.4 Hz Gain 1.82 dB Q 5.94
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 654.1 Hz Gain 4.12 dB Q 2.16
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 580.0 Hz Gain -2.55 dB Q 1.02
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 906.2 Hz Gain -1.94 dB Q 3.60
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 1145.6 Hz Gain 2.12 dB Q 5.09
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 2153.7 Hz Gain 3.07 dB Q 1.32
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 4175.2 Hz Gain -2.13 dB Q 1.37
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 6424.8 Hz Gain 1.83 dB Q 3.19
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 10255.5 Hz Gain 4.78 dB Q 1.16
Filter 12: ON PK Fc 22495.9 Hz Gain -1.14 dB Q 5.99

Spinorama EQ LW

Spinorama EQ Score

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal

Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Some improvements?

Bonus Amirm EQ and minimum EQ (same number of BQ than Amirm's)

Score no EQ: 3.9
With Sub: 6.5

Score EQ LW: 4.8
with sub: 7.4

Score EQ Score: 5.4
with sub: 8.0

Amirm EQ Score: 3.4
with sub: 6.2

Minimum EQ Score: 5.2
with sub: 7.7

Amirm

Minimum EQ

The rest of the plots is attached.

 

[prerich]

I gave it a postman panther due to the fact that it is a PA speaker, 121db continuous.... yep (pain). That's it's job. You won't fine these in my den or anyone else's ....but you may find them in a church, outdoor event, or a rock concert.

 

[Matt_Holland]

I gave it a postman panther due to the fact that it is a PA speaker,

It's a home cinema speaker.

You won't fine these in my den or anyone else's ....but you may find them in a church, outdoor event, or a rock concert.

As they are designed and marketed for home cinemas and have pricing that looks like it supports healthy dealer margins, I would suggest that they are exclusively found in peoples' dens, and never in churches, outdoor events (they're not IP rated), or rock concerts (they nearly fell apart from one courrier journey!).

 

[Toni Mas]

It's a home cinema speaker.

Mmmm... Not really a home sweet home one... Something much bigger where your listenning position will be at 10m from the speakers and over...

 

[prerich]

It's a home cinema speaker.

As they are designed and marketed for home cinemas and have pricing that looks like it supports healthy dealer margins, I would suggest that they are exclusively found in peoples' dens, and never in churches, outdoor events (they're not IP rated), or rock concerts (they nearly fell apart from one courrier journey!).

Wow.....so would you consider it a hybrid then? Yes, they're not IP rated, and they actually had a cracked horn when they arrived. So can we say that they don't have a defined space (except for a large home cinema - but not one for nearfield listening). Many people think of churches as these gigantic sanctuaries, but there are churches that these would be perfect for. When I pastored we had three Crate speakers as LCR when we viewed the "The Passion of Christ" and people actually thought a dog barking was coming from outside (and yes the church purchased a license to show it). I can see a use for a speaker like this - IMHO it just wouldn't make muster in most homes.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Mmmm... Not really a home sweet home one... Something much bigger where your listenning position will be at 10m from the speakers and over...

There is a good market for fully built home cinemas where speakers are typically hidden behind the screen and behind fabric lined walls and ceiling. Seating could be one row or even as much as four rows. MLP (or RLP) could be 3-7m in most cases. The company markets them for smaller rooms. Dynamics would be unfettered!

 

[Matt_Holland]

Wow.....so would you consider it a hybrid then? Yes, they're not IP rated, and they actually had a cracked horn when they arrived. So can we say that they don't have a defined space (except for a large home cinema - but not one for nearfield listening). Many people think of churches as these gigantic sanctuaries, but there are churches that these would be perfect for. When I pastored we had three Crate speakers as LCR when we viewed the "The Passion of Christ" and people actually thought a dog barking was coming from outside (and yes the church purchased a license to show it). I can see a use for a speaker like this - IMHO it just wouldn't make muster in most homes.

Cool!
I agree that this speaker is not aesthetically nice enough to be left visible in most systems. It is designed to primarily be hidden as mentioned in my post above.
Yes it could work well in a church, but I think you could use more pro-oriented products and, if preferred, at a lower cost.
Line arrays often work very well in houses of worship. More discrete visually and exceptionally good coverage.

 

[Toni Mas]

I think that there are much better solutions for PA use at less than half the price, and that won't require adding a subwoofer, more likely 2 subwoofers. This speaker has actually been designed as the center piece of a Big home cinema system that does require a subwoofer for the range under 100hz. As a top in a PA system It looks totally overkill to me, both for size, weight and cost reasons.

 

[MAB]

Mmmm... Not really a home sweet home one... Something much bigger where your listenning position will be at 10m from the speakers and over...

Their demo room (below) and marketing literature is targeted at home theater.

They do show one commercial installation in a hotel, but aside from watching a movie in a lobby, all of the kit is in small man-caves.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to watch a feature-length film here. Maybe OK to for a 20 minute sales video on time-shares .

It does look like these are more appropriate for longer listening distances. But that's not what the company seems to have in mind.

 

[Toni Mas]

It does look like these are more appropriate for longer listening distances. But that's not what the company seems to have in mind.

Well, they seem to try explain that listenning distance is precisely the reason why some set ups might really need the high SPL their stuff is offering as practically a kind of unique selling proposal...

 

[MAB]

Well, they seem to try explain that listenning distance is precisely the reason why some set ups might really need the high SPL their stuff is offering as practically a kind of unique selling proposal...View attachment 464752

I'm not disagreeing. I saw their room-size chart too. Their demo room is small, with low ceilings, all of the rest of their examples except the hotel are small rooms below the low end of the max room length chart. They seem to be the ones in disagreement, since I think these are going to be better at longer distances, and likely with EQ, and likely even better active...

 

[bmc0]

And again, at larger distances in pa/ situations at 20 meters, that could count.

It'd expect that it would become objectionable at some point as the required sound power increases. Though there are other problems with sound quality to contend with when distances are large enough (especially outdoors).

The increased H2 could be a problem, but irritatingly, when I measured the intermodulation, there was none. [...] Nonetheless, the IM is so low compared to the H2, how come? It's a mystery to me still. Any ideas?

Would you mind stating what stimulus you used? There should be some intermodulation distortion.

It turns out that the propagation distortion can be modeled with a nonlinear partial differential equation known as Burgers' equation. Now, I know very little about solving PDEs (let alone nonlinear ones), but I managed to find a fairly simple-to-implement method that computes the derivatives in the frequency domain, then transforms back to the time domain to compute the nonlinear part. A generic ODE integration algorithm can then be used to solve for each time step. Since we're interested in harmonic and intermodulation distortion, I set the initial condition to one or more sine wave(s) windowed by a flat-top function.

Here's the simulated spectrum with the parameters set for ~3.5% H2 at 10kHz (similar to the Genelec S360 at 106dB):

As expected, the nonlinearity has a significant frequency dependency. Here's 2kHz at the same level:

H2 is now at ~0.7%, which happens to agree very well with the S360 data. Higher harmonics are virtually absent.
Intermodulation spectrum of 9kHz+10kHz, keeping the RMS level the same as in the single-tone tests:

Changing to 9.9kHz+10kHz reveals that the level of the difference tone is also dependent on frequency:

A multitone test (11 tones, log spaced, 1kHz-10kHz) shows clearly that the second-order intermodulation products have a 20dB/decade slope:

A "pink" (-10dB/decade) multitone stimulus results in this:

I'd speculate that the low order, the frequency dependency, and the spectrum of typical music all ensure low potential for audibility at domestic levels.

 

[Steakhouse]

Imo this Speaker is a bit of a mixed bag. It is not very goof but also (especially with eq) not so bad. The only thing really sticking out is the diffraction which comes from the odd design of the recessed driver.

Anyway, looking at the JBL 4309 we see similar weaknesses but the speaker got a much better rating. Even though it is about the same price.

'JBL 4309 Review (Speaker)'

Oct 12, 2021

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL 4309 2-way speaker. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. The 4309 costs US $2,000 for a pair.

NOTE: our company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products including the JBL Line. While the measurements are performed just like any other speaker and hence can't be "gamed," you are welcome to read any kind of bias you like in my subjective assessment.

The 4309 is a shrunk version of its larger brothers and somehow manages to look very cute!

It is like a half-scale version of a...

• amirm
• Replies: 334
• Forum: Speaker Reviews, Measurements and Discussion

• 

The JBL 708i without DSP also looks a bit similar and is not really usable without EQ. But it has no sich pronounced diffraction (but port resonances).

 

[beagleman]

Imo this Speaker is a bit of a mixed bag. It is not very goof but also (especially with eq) not so bad. The only thing really sticking out is the diffraction which comes from the odd design of the recessed driver.

Anyway, looking at the JBL 4309 we see similar weaknesses but the speaker got a much better rating. Even though it is about the same price.

'JBL 4309 Review (Speaker)'

Oct 12, 2021

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL 4309 2-way speaker. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. The 4309 costs US $2,000 for a pair.

NOTE: our company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products including the JBL Line. While the measurements are performed just like any other speaker and hence can't be "gamed," you are welcome to read any kind of bias you like in my subjective assessment.

The 4309 is a shrunk version of its larger brothers and somehow manages to look very cute!

It is like a half-scale version of a...

• amirm
• Replies: 334
• Forum: Speaker Reviews, Measurements and Discussion

• 

The JBL 708i without DSP also looks a bit similar and is not really usable without EQ. But it has no sich pronounced diffraction (but port resonances).

In some ways, the JBL you link to, is worse than this one. Distortion is clearly lacking in comparison, and so is frequency response.

 

[kyuu]

In some ways, the JBL you link to, is worse than this one. Distortion is clearly lacking in comparison, and so is frequency response.

It's a much smaller speaker (6.5" woofer versus 12"), the frequency response is somewhat better actually (and better bass response) and the directivity is much better. Considering the size difference between the woofers the distortion performance of the JBL vs. the MAG doesn't actually suggest anything flattering about the MAG.