I don't know why this is so hard to understand. The goal of this series of reviews is to solve the problem of needing a center speaker in a setup like mine:
I have the matching center speaker for the Revel bookshelves but there is no way, no how it can fit in that cabinet. There is just room for a speaker like Revel C10 and its competitors. Among those, they have all had severe directivity errors with other response errors on top of that. The C10 is least compromised in that manner.
This is NOT a discussion of what would be the best center speaker. That type of speaker does not fit this application. When I have room, I use them like this Revel C52 which weighs some 60 pounds:
Even the midrange is too big to go under these TVs!
We built his cabinet custom at a time when a 50 inch TV was large. So I originally thought I would put a proper center under it. But then 65 inch TVs became common so that is what is in there, leaving no room for much of a center speaker.
Those Revel speakers need to be vertical but then would make the shelves too big so they are on the side as a nod to looks. Not everything is optimized for sound.
And yes, we do need to sometimes categorize things. On testing AVRs, I initially compared their DACs to desktop units. But then decided to make a category for them and grade on a curve that way. Otherwise they would all fall in the category of "not recommended."