test report
BY DANIEL KUMIN
Definitive Technology
StudioCinema 350 Home Theater System
SOUND & VISION
off the top cap and undo the grille, like a drawstring-
pajama bottom, to reveal the drivers.) The C/L/R 2002
center speaker is substantially larger than its flankers. In
fact, it’s about twice the size of two StudioMonitor 350s
laid end to end and has two of the same woofers on either
side of its tweeter.
For the surround speakers, Definitive reverted to form
with the wedge-shaped BP1.2X, a bipolar design with a
woofer and a tweeter on each of its angled faces. When
mounted on (or near) the sidewalls, the speaker radiates
sound toward the front, middle, and back of the room,
creating a somewhat more diffuse sound field. Rounding
out the bottom octaves is Def Tech’s newest subwoofer, the
ridiculously tiny SuperCube II. This new-generation sub
cheats the laws of physics and gets big bass from a “too-
small” enclosure by using very-long-throw drivers,
advanced cabinet-venting techniques (dual passive radia-
tors in this case), and an ultra-high-power amplifier with
built-in equalization. The SuperCube II’s sophistication is
evident on its control panel, too (photo below). There are
no heat sinks thanks to its super-efficient, cool-running
Class D amplifier. And there’s a complete set of connectors,
including stereo input/output for both line- and speaker-
level signals plus a single LFE (low-frequency effects)
input for a receiver or processor’s sub output. Controls are
unusually complete, too, with continuously variable knobs
for level, both low-
and
high-pass crossover, and phase.
This rather rare high-pass control lets you fine-tune the bass
that’s sent on to the satellites via the line-level outputs.
There’s high-pass filtering on the speaker-level outputs,
too, but it’s fixed at 80 Hz.
I set up the StudioCinema system with the Monitor 350s
on the 28-inch-tall stands and the C/L/R 2002 on top of my
30-inch Princeton Graphics HDTV monitor. The BP1.2X
surround speakers went on sidewall shelves just behind the
listening position and about 6 feet off the floor.
ounded in 1990 when Sandy Gross left Polk
Audio to start a speaker company with a
different design philosophy, Definitive
Technology quickly established a reputation
for building tower speakers that deliver
spacious, full-range sound at reasonable
prices. The big sound that defines Def Tech
speakers is achieved using a bipolar configuration, with
rear-firing, in-phase drivers added to the usual front-
mounted drivers. When I first set eyes on Def Tech’s
compact StudioCinema 350 system, the question that came
to mind was whether the company could pull off the same
trick with much smaller monopole speakers.
In a departure from Def Tech’s tower tradition, the
StudioCinema 350 is a subwoofer/satellite system built
around a very small front left/right bookshelf speaker, the
StudioMonitor 350. It’s a shade smaller all around than
a 12-pack of longnecks and has only a 5
1
/
4
-inch woofer,
but the side-firing “port” is a passive radiator measuring
a full 8 inches across. Like Def Tech’s tower speakers,
the StudioMonitor 350 has wood end caps, in this case
finished with an elegant piano-black lacquer, and a black
knit grille that wraps around the four sides. (You can pop
“The results were little short of stunning ... a genuine
cinematic experience ... I was impressed”
“very high quality sound for music
and movies”
“Played behind a curtain, the
StudioMonitor 350s would convince
even seasoned audiophiles they were
listening to larger speakers”
“they sounded warm and full even on
bass-rich pop music ... tonal balance
through the critical midrange was
nearly perfect”
F
