excellent match for any Pinnacle Gold mains; very clear and articulate dialogue/vocal performance

not bi-ampable

I've always been a strong believer in 100% identical speaker/amplification matching for ANY surround sound application. Unfortunately, for home theater applications, it's nearly impossible to get a proper setup where the center channel can be exactly the same as the remaining speakers. The dang television gets in the way!

Enter the specially designed center channel. This speaker is invariably of radically different design than the rest of the speakers in a home theater setup. You're faced with having to place the center channel either above or below the television. This often requires a speaker of smaller size (and performance) than the surrounding speakers.

Given this inherent limitation of center channels, one is often left with little choice but to match the tweeter to those of the surrounding speakers and hope the smaller drivers can pull enough weight to come somewhat close to the other speakers in performance.

I sorely wish that Pinnacle made a center channel incorporating their excellent aerogel midrange driver, however, this center channel comes very respectably close to the Pinnacle Classic Gold Aerogel speakers I am using. For movies, it's perfect, providing for clear, concise dialogue that you never have to strain to understand and enough depth to never get bogged down by the action. For music, it's great for surround mixes with a center vocal, but for mixes with lots of center action, its lower frequency limitations can be heard.

Construction quality is excellent and although it is a rather large center channel, its dimensions allow for some flexible placement. My only real gripe with this center channel is that it is not bi-ampable like the Classic Gold Aerogels.

I'd give this thing an overall 4.5 stars if I could but looks like I'll have to round down.

I have been doing research for about 6 months and auditioned the best centre channels from JBL, Polk, Cerwin Vega, Bose, etc...without a doubt the Pinnacle is the best choice.
This speaker rocks...say goodbye to thin transistor-sounding dialogue! I've never heard voices like this before and this speaker can also play very low for a centre channel (check out Star War movie clips with Darth Vader). I'm also hearing more of the movie track. Armed with 4 woofers and a tweeter this nice looking speaker spreads itself almost entirely across my 36" tv thereby preventing localization of voices. And guess what folks...I'm experiencing this with a pro logic system. Can't wait to hear it when I upgrade to the 333ES in the next few weeks.

Beleive me, if you're looking to upgrade your centre channel you should give this one a try. I got it from onsale.com for a respectable $329 including shipping. The list for this speaker is $550 and a local dealer said that he can get order it for $450. I would give it 10 stars if I could!