X3

The model that launched the X series and the one most reviewers reached for, because it is where the range stops feeling like a compromise: three 5-inch DCC5 drivers under the RP89 ribbon, 35 Hz, and a cabinet 607 mm deep — more than half a metre, on a speaker whose baffle is only 22 cm across. That wedge tapers to a spine barely 6 cm wide, and the narrowness is why the bass vents through six separate reflex tubes rather than one: there is no room back there for a port of useful diameter. A single pair of binding posts, and a crossover mounted on the back of the baffle. Black or white piano lacquer.