It's not every day that a car audio legend decides to pour decades of experience into the home audio market. MB Quart has done just that with its new ALEXXA line of loudspeakers, and they've done it well.

The B-One speakers make up the entry-level end of the line, with a 2-way ported bookshelf design that is magnetically shielded. The driver complement includes a single 1-inch titanium dome tweeter with neodymium magnet that is cooled via a metal heatsink which surrounds it. A 6-1/2-inch polypropylencone mid-bass woofer handles the midrange and mid-bass duties. These drivers are top quality pieces, and the workmanship that went into the cabinet is nothing short of breathtaking. From the smooth lines, to the high quality binding post terminals on the back of the speakers, to the oval-shaped front ports, the B-One bookshelf speakers from MB Quart are built to impress.

In regards to connectivity, the rear-mounted speaker connections include a pair of 5-way binding posts and a pair of banana-only connectors. While the multi-lingual User Manual recommends taking the advice of your dealer as to which high-end cables to pair with the B-Ones, we think any 12-gauge wire will do just fine, terminated or not. If you want to bi-wire these speakers, however, at least one pair of your cables will need to be terminated with banana plugs.

In our listening tests, the ALEXXA speakers came through with impressive detail. We're fans of the neodymium magnets when used in conjunction with metal dome tweeters, and found them able to play very loud without the typical distortion common in other dome tweeter configurations. The mid-bass was also clean and free of any break-up--even during difficult female vocal passages played at high volume levels. These are speakers that could handle large amounts of power and still come back for more. In addition, the ability of the B-One speakers to image with absolute accuracy and precision was uncanny. Low frequency response was excellent, though not as low as the specs may indicate. What was important was that the woofer never bottomed out or attempted to exceed its lower 41Hz spec.

We can't recommend these beauties enough. In fact, "beauty" is the operative word for these speakers--both in terms of their look as well as their sound. MB Quart has hit the home theater scene with a vengeance and we hope they are here to stay.

Pros: Stunning cabinet, quality drivers, excellent low frequecy extension
Cons: Vertical tweeter location may be troublesome for most common speaker stand heights

Warranty
5 years, parts and labor