T H E A T E R O N E
Definitive Techno l ogy
BP-3000 TL Sp e aker Syste m
These speakers are definitely macho enough
for you. Are you macho enough for them?
by Jeff Cherun
A . If you don’t have
the real estate for the
behemoth BP-3000s,
the BP-2004 will work
just fine in front.
B. Sorry, apartment
dwellers, but at 55
inches high, the
BP-3000 probably
won’t even fit through
your door!
C. The C/L/R-3000
center’s powered
sub gave it that
extra oomph.
Much as we like to think we buy
products for their performance,
practicality, and price, the real driving force behind product development in American industry usually
boils down to machismo. And the
defining concept of machismo is,
of course, “bigger is better.” Guys
want big cars with 400-horsepower
V-8s, big watches with heavy metal
bands and silver-dollar-sized faces,
and big .44 Magnums that
nearly tear
your hand off
when you fire
them. The
A
B
“My universe was shaken…
these speakers are amazing…”
same goes for speakers. Nothing
can stir the Neanderthal soul like
a hunkering tower speaker,
coupled with bestial subwoofers
capable of snuffing out a candle
poised 10 feet away.
Definitive Technology has been
offering exactly this type of product for years, although they’ve
injected a cognizance of interior
design by taking steps to make the
loudspeakers seem less mammoth
in size. The company has recently
upped the ante with their newest
flagship speaker, the BP-3000 TL.
Featuring a massive 1,000-watt
internal subwoofer in each speaker,
the BP-3000 is, at least on paper, a
speaker to be reckoned with. At 55
inches in height, it’s meant to be
placed in a larger home theater
room, so apartment dwellers in all
probability need not apply. In
addition to the BP-3000, Definitive
sent us a pair of BP-2004s—a
smaller speaker with a built-in
subwoofer—for the rears. Also,
C
this review marks the debut of a
great idea: the world’s first center
speaker with a built-in powered
subwoofer. It’s a natural; all five
speakers in the system have their
own powered bass portion, making
for 360 degrees of full-range sound.
The BP-3000 is a bipolar d e s i g n ,
with four 6.5-inch cast-magnesium
basket bass/
m i d r a n g e
drivers complemented b y
two 1-inch
a l u m i n u m -dome
Home Theater/ December 199 8
T H E A T E R O N E
Definitive Technology BP-3000 TL Speaker System
tweeters. To round out the low
end, Definitive has supplied
the biggest powered subwoofer
in a tower speaker yet (an amp
providing a whopping 1,000 watts
of power, connected
to an 18-inch cast-
D . On back, the
C/L/R-3000 sports
three sets of fiveway binding posts
for triwiring.
TESTING SYSTEM
Proceed AVP preamp/
processor, Krell KAV 500
amplifier, Sony DVP-S7000
DVD player, Pioneer Elite
Pro 200 RPTV, Monster Cable
interconnects, and Kimber
Kable speaker cable
basket woofer.
bipolar design, with two
5.25-inch c a s t - m a g n es i u m basket p o l y - c o n e
upper bass/midrange
drivers, coupled with two 1-inch
aluminum-dome tweeters. For the
bottom end of the frequency spectrum, there’s a 10-inch bass driver
powered by 125 watts of juice.
features two 6.5-inch castmagnesium b a s k e t bass/midrange
drivers, flanking a 1-inch aluminum
dome tweeter in a D’Appolito array.
To make this arguably the first
full-range center speaker,
speakers. There is a bass level
control, and also a line-level input
for the low-frequency-effects
channel from Dolby Digital or DTS,
in case you want to feed the
subwoofer output from your
receiver or preamp/processor
directly to the speakersvia
D
The BP-2004 is also a
The C/L/R-3000 center c h a n n e l
Definitive threw in
a cast-basket longthrow 10-inch
woofer, powered by
a 150-watt amplifier.
On the BP-3000s,
there are three pairs
of five-way binding
posts, allowing the
user to triwire the
Y - c o n n e c t o r s . However, I found
this connection method overly
complicated and lacking in a real
sonic payoff; I’d recommend
sticking with just speaker cable.
The rear panels of the C/L/R-3000
center speaker and the BP-2004
surround speakers are
very similar to the BP3000’s panel, except
that the BP-2004 has
only one pair of binding
posts for single wiring.
Setting up this system
was a piece of cake.
Sandy Gross of Definitive
Technology urged me to aim the
BP-3000s at the listener, and after
trying a few different speaker
positions, I definitely agree w i t h
him. As with all the bipolar loudspeakers I’ve ever auditioned,
the BP-3000s present a huge
soundstage, but it becomes more
focused when directed at the listener. I also placed the BP-2004s
behind the listening position, a couple of feet out
from the corners of the
room, and directed them
at the listening position.
By the way, if you want
something a little less
bombastic (and more
affordable) in the rear,
you can opt for Definitive’s excellent BPX bipolar surround speakers.
Now, for the most
important part of any
product review—how did
this system perform?
Well, after I got it dialed in, I have
to say that my universe was
shaken. I’ve never heard bass so
clearly delineated and so deeply
reproduced from anything but an
army of standalone subwoofers.
From the highest highs to the
lowest lows, even at very aggressive volumes, I never heard any
distortion or roughness. Normally,
I get a little anxious when things
get so loud, but with this system I
found myself completely at ease,
simply delighting in its performance. The front soundstage was
just huge, all the while providing
better localization of instruments
than you typically hear from bipolar
speakers. That’s not to say the BP3000 is so brutish it can’t do t h e
delicate thing; on Natalie Merchant’s O p h e l i a CD, a recording
BP-3000 Main Speaker $4,500/pair
BP-2004 Main Speaker $1,498/pair
C/L/R-3000 Center Speaker $999 each
Definitive Technology
(410) 363-7148
www.definitivetech.com
that features a mix of
acoustic instrumentation
and raw-sounding vocals,
the BP-3000 excelled. To
get things going a bit, I
dumped the City of
Angels soundtrack into
the CD player, featuring
Peter Gabriel’s new
track, “I Grieve.” This
track starts off very
moody and quiet, and
builds up into that usual
Gabriel drums-and-bass
groove that I like so
much. The BP-3000 loved this
song, yearning to reproduce it
Home Theater/ December 19 9 8
T H E A T E R O N E
Definitive Technology BP-3000 TL Speaker System
The BP-2004s also did a fine job bringing up the rear, and they obviously
would also make for fantastic front
H I G H L I G H T S
• BP-3000 provides an
awesome amount of bass,
negating the need for an
external subwoofer
• C/L/R-3000 center speaker
is the first with a powered
bass section, which we think
really adds something to the
system’s sound
• Yeah, they’re big. You got a
problem with that?
over and over again (admittedly,
part of that was me).
Certainly, these speakers are
amazing for stereo listening, but I
was also overwhelmingly curious
about their surround-sound
performance. On multichannel
movie soundtracks, such as
Tomorrow Never Dies and Strange
Days, both of which feature deep
bass and bright upper ends, the
system excelled once again. The
C/L/R-3000 center speaker reproduced dialogue very naturally and
cleanly. But does having a powered bass section in the center
speaker really pay off? I think so—
when I changed the Proceed
AVP’s settings to “large speakers”
all around, I noticed better dynamics and a fuller sound in the center.
speakers if you can’t accommodate
the larger BP-3000s.
As compared to my reference
$3,000/pair Mirage OM-6 system
(also a bipolar speaker), the BP-3000
provided deeper, tighter bass, and a
fairly similar soundstage presentation, although the BP-3000’s soundstage appeared slightly deeper. The
BP-3000 d o e s cost $1,500/pair more;
for the additional bass output, I’d consider the additional outlay worthwhile.
I also had a chance to compare the
B P - 3 0 0 0 to our reference direct-radiating speaker, the Vienna Acoustics
Beethoven. I found that the BP-3000
blew the Viennas away in many
regards, including sheer size o f
soundstage and punch in the low e n d .
Of course, because the Viennasa r e
direct-radiators, they did have the
characteristic tight and focused
soundstage, with superior imaging,
but the BP-3000s did as well as any
bipolar loudspeaker I’ve ever heard in
that regard.
If you’re in the market for an allout speaker system with the absolute
maximum in machismo, t h e r e ’ s
really nothing that compares to
this one, short of a conventional
system with several separate powered subs thrown in. Granted, the
spouse-acceptance factor of such
huge speakers may be limited, but
that’s where y o u r machismo needs
to come into play.
Definitive Technology Speaker System
CFG Labs measures: Definitive Technology
BP-3000 System
This chart shows the frequency response of the BP-3000
tower speaker (top trace), the C/L/R-3000 center
speaker (middle trace), and the BP-2004 tower speaker
(bottom trace). We measured the speakers at a base
level of 90 dB and scaled the curves to fit this chart.
Quasi-anechoic on-axis frequency response of the
BP-3000 measures +/-3.19 dB from 20 Hz to 18.5 kHz,
–5.06 dB at 20 kHz. (The –3dB point falls below 20 Hz in
the bass; we only measure down to 20 Hz because
almost no speakers have useful output at lower frequencies.) The impedance curve is fairly low—it drops to a
low of 3.58 W at 10.7 kHz, and runs below 5 W in two
broad bands of the audio spectrum. A-weighted sensitivity is 91 dB (1 watt/1 meter).
Quasi-anechoic on-axis frequency response of the
C/L/R-3000 measures +/–3.04 dB from 46 Hz to 18.3
kHz; –7.72 dB at 20 kHz. The impedance curve runs
very low, dropping to a low of 1.65 W at 114 Hz, and
running below 5 W throughout most of the audio spectrum. A-weighted sensitivity is 90 dB (1 watt/1 meter).
Quasi-anechoic on-axis frequency response of the
BP-2004 measures +/–2.51 dB from 42 Hz to 18.3 kHz;
–9.21 dB at 20 kHz, with a –3dB point of 41 Hz in the
bass. The impedance curve is low, bottoming out at 3.03
W at 10.8 kHz, and running below 5 W in two broad
bands of the audio spectrum. A-weighted sensitivity is 92
dB (1 watt/1 meter).
These are very flat measurements for bipolar speakers; it’s worth noting that the speakers’ in-room response
will be flatter than that of most direct-radiating speakers.
However, the impedance curves run low, and in the case
of the C/L/R-3000, very low. The amp you drive these
speakers with doesn’t necessarily need to be all that
powerful, because the speakers’ sensitivities are high,
but the amp does need to be able to deliver substantial
current because of the low impedances, so we recommend you use a high-quality separate amplifier, or at
least a high-end receiver.—BB/JC
Home Theater / December 199 8
11433 Cronridge Drive, Suite K
Owings Mills, MD 21117
(410) 363-7148
www.definitivetech.com
Reprinted with permission of CurtCo Freedom Group.
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