louder yet remained distinct rather
than a blur of noise. Every distress
call spoken into the microphone by
the co-pilot amid the cacophony was
clearly audible, as was the ticking of
Hanks’s pocket watch. The sub-
woofer more than justified its exis-
tence when the plane hit the water.
At the other end of the spectrum, the
high-pitched whine of the engine
turbines drilled into my ears as if GE
had dropped one in the backyard.
All in all, this system did an impres-
sive job of conveying every audible
bit of this catastrophe.
If white noise provides a good
test of frequency-response smooth-
ness, then the nearly constant surf
through the middle portion of
Cast
Away
proved that the Definitive sys-
tem’s response is even and its speakers are tonally well
matched. Whenever the surf subsided, subtleties
revealed themselves—the creaking of palm trees sway-
ing in the breeze, the thunk of a falling coconut.
But the human voice is the ultimate test of speaker
accuracy because we’re all intimately familiar with it.
While I’ve never personally spoken with Tom Hanks,
the Def Tech system seemed to reproduce his voice in a
natural, neutral way. In general, voices spilled from these
speakers with clarity.
I replayed the crash scene repeatedly with and
without the PF15
TL
+
subwoofer. The PowerMonitor
700 system on its own acquitted itself with authority.
But adding the subwoofer delivered the floor vibration
and visceral kick that made me feel I was in the middle
of the disaster.
The Definitive Technology system did equal justice to
music. However, I found that turning the woofer control
on the PM 700s down a couple of notches from the
movie setting provided a more accurate and appealing
sound. I confronted the system with a warhorse record-
in a storm and ditches somewhere in the Pacific. Hanks,
the lone survivor, washes up on an idyllic deserted atoll,
where he spends several years in increasing despair until
he lashes together a raft and sets out to sea.
Randy Thom’s sound design is one of the most com-
plex and varied in recent memory. Even before the plane
crash, the various noises on the aircraft sounded authen-
tic. (I should know—I’ve flown about a million miles.)
The way the PowerMonitor system reproduced the mon-
tage of sound during the crash might be a little too real-
istic for those with a weak heart. Layer upon layer of
wind noise, engine roar, cockpit alarms, shouting crew
members, and rolling carts and loose cargo careening
around filled my home theater, yet each strand of sound
was clear enough to seem real.
As the plane dove toward the sea, the sounds became
ed in Dolby Digital 5.1, Richard Strauss’s
Thus Spoke
Zarathustra
performed by the Dallas Symphony con-
ducted by Andrew Litton on the
Delos DVD Space
Spectacular
. While the PF15
TL
+
helped make those
rumbling pipe-organ notes at the opening palpable, even
without the sub the system produced enough low bass to
impressively recreate the ambience of Meyerson Center
in Dallas, transforming my theater into a concert hall.
With the volume set to my maximum tolerance, the
sound seemed effortless, without the expected rise in dis-
tortion or speaker breakup. I heard imposing monoliths,
but all I saw were bookshelf speakers.
To round things out, I spun the new CD,
Under
American Skies
(Appleseed), by Tom Paxton and Anne
Hills, a folk duet. I’ve heard Tom and Anne perform live
and recorded them innumerable times. Playing this
recording on the pair of PowerMonitor 700s brought
them into the room, with highly accurate vocal repro-
duction.
Next I played Suzanne Buirgy’s
The View from Here
(Atune). This full-throated pop vocalist also entered my
room with flawless imaging. I tired of jumping up to
confirm that the center speaker was off and eventually
turned it on its face. Finally, acoustic guitarist Badi
Assad’s
CD Rhythms (Chesky) tested the transient
response and damping of these speakers, which articu-
lated her artistry with definition and body.
You’ll be hard pressed to find another $3,200 home
theater speaker system that delivers better sound than
this Definitive Technology setup, and you could reduce
that ticket to $2,500 by forgoing the subwoofer — bass
performance without the sub was
that good. The com-
pact PowerMonitor 700s and their well-chosen compan-
ion speakers provide big sound while fitting in small
spaces where larger systems would be obtrusive or
impractical. No matter where you listen, they can trans-
port you to your own tropical island.
S&V
Excerpted from the PowerMonitor 700 Speaker System Review, Sound & Vision
Magazine
, October 2001.
11433 Cronridge Dr. • Owings Mills, MD 21117 • (410)363-7148
Visit us at www.definitivetech.com
Tom Hanks never gave up in Cast Away, and neither did the
Definitive Technology speakers.
fast facts
PowerMonitor C/L/R 2000 BP2X PF15
TL
+
700
(front L/R) (center) (surround) (subwoofer)
TWEETER 1-inch dome 1-inch dome two 1-inch domes —
MIDRANGE 5
1
/
4
-inch cone two 5
1
/
4
-inch cones ——
SUBWOOFER 8-inch cone 8-inch cone two 5
1
/
4
-inch cones 15-inch cone
ENCLOSURE vented vented vented vented
POWER 250 watts 150 watts — 500 watts
(woofer only) (woofer only)
INPUTS AND
gold-plated multiway gold-plated multiway binding gold-plated multiway speaker-level inputs
OUTPUTS
binding posts, LFE input posts, optional full-range binding posts and outputs, LFE Input,
line-level woofer input line-level inputs and
high-pass outputs
DIMENSIONS 6
7
/
8
x 16
3
/
4
x 14
1
/
8
6
3
/
4
x 23
1
/
2
x 14
1
/
8
14
1
/
2
x 19
1
/
4
x 6 17
1
/
4
x 17 x 17
5
/
8
(WxHxD) inches inches inches inches
WEIGHT 32 pounds 42 pounds 11 pounds 54 pounds
FINISH black laquer and caps, black laquer or cherry woodgrain black or white black ash vinyl,
black knit grille end caps, black knit grille vinyl, black knit grille black knit grille
PRICE $599 each $799 each ($899 cherry) $250 each $699 each
Total: $3,196
MANUFACTURER Definitive Technology, Dept. S&V, 11433 Cronridge Dr., Owings Mills, MD
21117; phone, 410-363-7148; Web, www.definitivetech.com
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