Ascendo The5 Coaxial Cinema Loudspeaker

The5 is the smallest loudspeaker Ascendo makes, and the company's own framing of it is that quality is not a matter of size or budget. At its centre is a heavy-duty 13-centimetre coaxial driver taken from professional PA technology, which is where the bandwidth and the 88 dB efficiency come from — enough that a modest amplifier drives it comfortably.

Seventy-five millimetres deep is the specification that decides most installations. That will go on a wall without projecting into the room, and it will go into a wall in the places where nothing may project at all. Dimensions are 240 by 360 millimetres and it weighs four kilograms, so mounting is a bracket rather than an engineering exercise.

Output is 105 dB continuous from 85 Hz up, which makes it the sensible choice throughout a smaller immersive room, or for surround and height duty in a larger one where The6 or The10 carry the front. A subwoofer is not optional beneath it — the loudspeaker is designed on the assumption that the bottom octaves are handled elsewhere.