Definitive Technology ProCinema 800 User Manual
testreports
Daniel Kumin
Definitive Technology
ProCinema 800 Speaker System
or years, Baltimore’s Definitive
Technology has produced phalanxes of
tall, imposing, powerful floor-standing
towers. Nevertheless, the eyes of the
F
seem to take on a special twinkle when he sings the
praises of his latest pint-size production, which suggests he gets a special buzz out of squeezing the
mostest from the leastest — like the ProCinema 800
array seen here. Not pint-size, exactly (quart-and-ahalf would be closer), but impressively small
nonetheless, Definitive’s latest ProMonitor 800 satellite design employs an unusually located passive
radiator firing straight up to help the bantamweight
speaker produce enough low-frequency output to
company founder Sandy Gross always
“reach” and blend with a subwoofer effectively. The
same technique is found in the matching center channel, in doubles.
“A must-hear ...
very pleasing and
surprisingly high-end
sounding”
SETUP
Definitive sent a pair of their inexpensive fixedheight stands for the front speakers, which worked
fine in my room. The ProCenter went on a stand
below my 50-inch Samsung’s screen. It has no tilt
adjustment built in, and only one rubber foot (the
front edge has molded-in hard feet), but I dialed in
the substantial uptilt I need using a couple of stick-on
feet I had lying around. The ProMonitors for the surround channels went on my high shelves flanking the
listening position, angled back to bounce off the rear
wall as I usually do with direct-radiating surrounds.
Acoustical balancing was a bit more involved.
First, I found that all three front speakers benefited
greatly from a little tilt: Rocking them back on their
heels several degrees made important improvements,
opening and defining the upper mids and airing up
the treble. Proper adjustment of the subwoofer level
and crossover also proved absolutely critical. After
nitial meter balancing, the system sounded a bit dis-
i
appointing: heavy in the mid-bass and not particularly impressive down low. What a transformation was
won by an hour or so of fiddling! I finished with a
superb blend almost entirely free of boom or bloat,
and with surprisingly deep-bass extension. But too
much sub level (or too high a crossover) and the
Definitives could sound “woofy” or a bit bloated (and
the sub would localize); too little or too low and they
could become gaunt.
Small differences of even 1 dB in sub level made
very obvious changes, as did experimentation with
crossover settings. I settled on 75-Hz crossover from
my flexible processor, with 6-dB high-pass and
24-dB/low-pass curves — which, as it happens, is
pretty much what Definitive’s own circuits yield if
you use the sub’s speaker-level inputs instead of the
LFE/line connection I employed. The fixed 80-Hz
filters of many inexpensive receivers, which use 12dB/24-DB per-octave filter slopes, should also work
quite well.
“this is a marvelously
high-value system”
MUSIC PERFORMANCE
A brief session with the ProMonitors playing fullrange alone confirmed that they don’t produce
enough bass for satisfying sound on their own — but
that nonetheless they play amazingly loud without
obvious distress. These are strictly satellite speakers,
but they do go lower and louder than I’ve had
guessed on sight.
With the system tweaked and tailored, I started as
usual with stereo listening, finding a generally neutral, open sound with a slightly warm cast to male
The Short Form
Snapshot
A must-hear for those who insist on a
very small, accessibly priced system.
Plus
:: Excellent overall tonality.
:: Good bass output, extension.
:: Surprising volume potential.
Minus
:: Needs careful setup. (But don’t they all?)
:: Center shifts tone at of
+
f-axis seats.
-
Price $1,099 (AS TESTED)
PHOTO BY TONY CORDOZA
testreports
Definitive Technology speaker system
Test Bench
Full lab results at soundandvisionmag.com/deftech800.
“pleasant, easy-to-listen-
to ... open and airy ...
plenty of heft”
vocals and a pleasant, easy-to-listen-to treble that was
open and fairly airy without excess bit or sizzle.
Clean, well-recorded CDs like Ani DiFranco’s
Reprieve were very pleasing and surprisingly highend-sounding, with modest depth, some genuine
transparency, and considerable more weight and
impact from the below-50-Hz region than I’d expected. The solo acoustic bass was tight and realistically
woody, but still had plenty of heft for its occasional
ventures below 60 Hz or so. The Definitive system
also displayed arresting clarity on stuff like the explosively compressed, crystalline Dobro (or whatever
that is) that enters, startlingly, a bit later.
The ProMonitors (and ProCenter, for that matter)
could play cleanly far louder than expected — about
as loud as plenty of much larger small-bookshelf
speakers I’ve heard. In fact, their tweeters ran out of
headroom (resulting in hardness and “shriekiness”) at
about the same time as their woofers (flatulating, and
“tup-tuping” on transients), which is quite rare
among mini-sats of this size. And since Definitive’s
tweeter is no slouch, this was rather loud indeed.
“a tight, well-integrated
‘screenstage’”
MOVIE PERFORMANCE
The little Definitives’ performance on even demanding soundtracks was, if anything, even more pleasing.
Collateral may be no Citizen Kane, but it’s an
expertly made movie in technical terms, and the
pectedly loudly and cleanly: The Definitive would
become a bit “grumbly” at very high levels, but
hanks no doubt to intelligently engineered limiting
This system has smooth
response blemished primarly
by a depression centered just
below 1 kHz. The subwoofer’s
high-frequency response to
150 Hz mates well with the
limited bass of the upper-
t
circuits, I had to push it to ludicrous settings well
beyond THX-reference from the overall system to
elicit gross rattles or thumps. It had plenty of bottom
for thumping of
which indeed the full system delivered in fine, loudly enveloping, smoothly claustrophobic fashion. That
channel speakers. It has good
low-end extension for a small
sub, delivering true 25-Hz
“I don’t think you can
output, but only at 76 dB,
revealing its dynamic
do very much better.”
limitations. It averaged 95
dB from 25 to 62 Hz, and put
out 103.7 dB max SPL at 62
Hz, all at less than 10%
distortion.
ProMonitors handled it with relative ease. From
moderate to fairly loud volume — say, about 6 dB
below commercial-cinema reference level — I
never once came out of the story because of a
sonic shortcoming.
The ProCenter did a great job on dialogue, and as
the system’s music-and-effects keystone player (the
center is always the most important speaker in any
movie-surround system). It made an excellent tonal
match to the ProMonitors, producing a tight, wellintegrated “screenstage.” On the other hand, it
demonstrated moderately audible tonal changes
when heard from more than about 30° off-axis,
becoming slightly muffled and hollow-sounding on
many male voices (a common effect of “lobing”
response from closely spaced dual woofer/
midranges). And like the ProMonitors, the center
proved quite sensitive to vertical aiming: As I’ve
mentioned, to keep sounds evenly bright, I had to tilt
it up a good bit on my low stand.
— Tom Nousaine
said, the ProSub 800 doesn’t have the bottom-octave
grunt for fully cinematic deep-bass — the near-infrasonic content of a T.rex footfall or the underpinnings
of the ram’s-horn calls of those War of the World’s
thingies — but it does impressively just the same.
(Reality check: This is a $399 subwoofer. And there’s
a 10-inch ProSub 1000 [$499] that might well do better still.)
Bottom Line
This is a marvelously high-value system for smaller
rooms — and even some not-all-that-small ones. If
you’ve simply go to have really small and (by serious
home theater standards) really cheap speakers, I
don’t think you can do much better.
“played unexpectedly
loudly and cleanly”
I was also very happy with the ProMonitors at the
rear corners. When angled well back to reflect sound
from the rear wall as I’ve described, the little 800s
worked particularly well for plain, non-dipole 2-way
surrounds. (Truly small 2-ways like these always
seem to work well in this confi
because their small-diameter mid/woofers are sufficiently wide-dispersion to avoid the “beaming” that
might otherwise help the ear localize them.)
Despite its diminutive, roughly 6-gallon form
(smaller than a Texan’s lid!), the ProSub 800 proved
a worthy support.
sonably even output considerably lower than many
inexpensive 8-inchers (about 35 Hz or so), rolling off
fairly quickly below that point. And it played unex-
This little sub produced ample, rea-
guration, probably
Collateral’s climactic club scene,
S&V
Key Features
oMonitors 800
Pr
:: ($250/pair) 1-in. dome tweeter; 4
mid/woofer; 41/2-in. passive radiator;
3
8
/8-in. high; 4 lb.
ProCenter 1000
:: ($200/pair) 1-in. dome tweeter; (2) 4
mid/woofers; (2) 4
radiators; 5-in. high; 8 lb.
1
/2-in. passive
ProSub 800
:: ($399) 8-in. driver; 8-in. passive radiator;
300-watt RMS amplifier; 12
1
/2-in.; 41 lb.
13
:: Finish: Gloss-black, matte-white, silver.
Subwoofer: black ash or white vinyl.
DEFINITIVETECH.COM :: 410-363-7148
11433 Cr
onridge Dr
isit us at www
V
SSOOUUNNDD &&VVIISSIIOON
soundandvisionmag.com
. • Owings Mills, MD 21117
(410) 363-7148
.definitivetech.com
N
NOVEMBER 2006
1
/2-in.
1
/2x 141/4 x
1
/2-in.
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