Photos by Tony Cordoza
With the popularity of flat-panel TVs exploding and companies straining to create speakers that will mate with the unobtrusive sets, it seems like the era of hulking home theater gear — towering speakers, massive subwoofers, video projectors hovering above your head like an F-15 — is over. I’ll admit that part of me likes the interior design-friendly stuff, but another part frets about trying to coax too much from too little. I’m reminded of that every Saturday night when I hear the screech of my neighbor’s “home theater in a box.” Man, I wish that guy would go out to the movies!
Inexpensive subwoofer/satellite systems can give you a taste of surround sound, but compromise-free performance requires serious speakers. And in my experience, that usually means floor-standing towers at least for the front left/right channels. Definitive Technology’s BP7001sc SuperTower speaker, a slightly smaller version of its flagship BP7000sc, is equipped to deliver full-range performance thanks to its built-in powered subwoofer. In the system I tested, a pair of BP7001sc towers is mated with the company’s C/L/R 3000 center speaker — another full-range design with a built-in powered sub — and a couple of beefy BPVX surrounds. Definitive Tech claims the system can handle the dynamic needs of both movie soundtracks and multichannel music on DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD. And with each speaker in the system using the same 6 1/2-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter, you can count on seamless sound all around.
There are plenty of top-shelf speaker systems available, so you’re probably wondering what makes this one different. First off, both the BP7001sc tower and BPVX surround are bipolar designs (the C/L/R 3000 center speaker is a conventional direct-radiating, or monopolar, design). A bipolar speaker uses matched sets of drivers to radiate equal sound from the front and rear, and because all of the drivers operate in phase with one another, it can produce a nearly 360° sound field.
The second thing, of course, is the built-in powered sub in each tower speaker (each BP7001sc must be plugged into an AC outlet for the sub to operate, and the same goes for the C/L/R 3000). The BP7001sc sub’s 10-inch driver is powered by a 1,500-watt Class D amplifier, and it has two 10-inch passive radiators, so using a pair of BP7001sc towers effectively gives you stereo subwoofers. In some rooms, this will boost deep-bass output. The BP7001sc has a line-level input that lets you separately feed the subwoofer/LFE (low-frequency-effects, the “.1” in “5.1”) output from your surround processor or receiver to the tower’s built-in subwoofer. There’s also a volume control to adjust the sub’s output when only a full-range speaker-level connection is used. The C/L/R 3000 has a line-level input as well, but it’s designed to connect to the full-range center-channel preamp output found on some receivers and is not intended for subwoofer/LFE signals.
The system Definitive Technology sent me came with wood end caps finished in its new golden cherry piano-gloss finish. They all have the same black knit wraparound sleeves as most of the company’s previous speakers, but to me the lighter finish on the end caps is an aesthetic leap forward from the previous monolithic black look. Another pleasing touch is a beveled edge that runs the length of the tower speaker’s front baffle and is echoed in its end caps.
Weighing in at 61 pounds, the C/L/R 3000 is one hefty center speaker — as you’d expect from a model packing a powered subwoofer. It’s also pretty large, so don’t expect to set it on top of one of those slim new TVs, most of which provide only a few inches of surface depth on top. For horizontal placement, a set of adjustable feet lets you angle the speaker up or down.
With a specified low-end limit of 31 Hz, Definitive Tech’s BPVX is equipped to deliver more bass than your average surround speaker. Standing a tall 22 inches, it has a semi-triangular design with matched sets of drivers on both of its angled sides. The supplied mounting hardware lets you attach the speaker’s back panel to a wall.
There’s been a lot of debate about which type of speaker works best for surround sound. But because they radiate sound from both front and rear, bipolar surrounds like the BPVX split the difference between a dipole’s diffuse presentation — a desirable trait for movie soundtracks — and a monopole’s directionality, which tends to work better for music.
I used the Def Tech system to christen Sound & Vision’s new A/V testing facility — a set of soundproofed, acoustically treated rooms tucked away in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Owing to the large size of the BP7001sc towers, I set up the system in the more voluminous Room 1, a 20 x 14-foot space with an 8 1/2-foot ceiling. The C/L/R 3000 center went on a shelf of a large TV stand, under the screen, and was angled up toward the seating position. I put the BPVX surrounds on a set of 38-inch-high stands 2 feet behind the couch. I set these up in the arrangement Definitive Tech recommends, with one set of drivers angled in toward the listening position and the other facing the rear of the room.
Since only a precious few DVD-Audio and SACD players provide any kind of bass management, what to do with the bass can be a problem in a typical surround sound setup with small, bass-limited satellite speakers. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about that with this system.
Both the BP7001sc and the C/L/R 3000 provide a variety of hookup choices. Besides the subwoofer input options (line- or speaker-level), the tweeter and woofer of both models can be biwired by removing jumpers connecting the two sets of binding posts. Of course, you could simplify setup by selecting “no” for the subwoofer option in your receiver or preamp’s setup menu and running only one set of wires to each speaker. That way your receiver sums the subwoofer/LFE channel with any full-range signals that it sends out.
Balancing built-in subwoofers on the three front speakers seemed like an intimidating prospect at first, but in practice it turned out to be fairly easy. In my processor’s setup menu, I selected five “large” speakers plus subwoofer and used a Y-connector to route the subwoofer/LFE output to the front left/right towers. I then tweaked bass levels using the processor’s subwoofer-output control setting for the towers and the back-panel subwoofer volume control for the C/L/R 3000, which was hooked up using only the speaker-level connection.
Aside from the obvious space-saving advantages, a benefit of having subwoofers built into the main speakers is that you won’t have to deal with subwoofer placement — or worse, misplacement, which can cause the bass to sound overly boomy or lean. I found the Def Tech system’s bass performance to be extremely smooth on most material, but settling on an ultimate bass level proved more tricky than with systems I’ve used that had one separate sub.
Although I was eager to listen to multichannel SACDs, I limited my first tests to stereo tracks with little more than male vocals and simple instrumentation. The intimate manner in which “Taphead” from Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock was recorded makes it sound like there’s an enormous head singing in the room. The BP7001sc speakers cast a tall, wide image that was nonetheless locked dead center between the speakers. Moving on to the more distant-sounding “King of Bohemia” from Richard Thompson’s Mirror Blue, the Definitive Tech towers accurately conveyed the space in which he performed, positioning his voice a few steps back and slightly to the right.
Bluegrass and old Hot Tuna fans interested in surround sound music would do well to pick up Jorma Kaukonen’s Blue Country Heart SACD. As heard on the Definitive Tech system, the guitarist’s slightly raspy voice sounded warm, seamless, and natural coming from the system’s front speakers. Acoustic instruments in this multichannel recording came through with striking clarity and presence: I could almost feel the gritty texture of a fiddle’s bowed strings as its sound glided around me, and the plucked guitars and mandolin were clear and distinct. The well-defined notes of the stand-up bass, meanwhile, let me know that the BP7001sc towers could also deliver a tuneful, tight low end.
The pure sound quality of Jorma’s surround sound outing was also in evidence on classical SACDs. The Definitive Tech system did a great job conveying the full, sweet tones of massed strings and woodwinds in John Adams’s The Chairman Dances from the opera Nixon in China, as performed by the Symphony Orchestra of Norrlands Opera. At the same time, it delivered the extended highs and dynamic snap of the percussion instruments — sonic elements that splash around the room like light colors in an Impressionist painting and drive the dense composition forward. Although the surround channels in the recording provided little more than ambience, the BPVX surrounds helped the presentation by meshing with the BP7001sc towers to create a seamless sound field from front to rear.
Moving on to discs with pictures, the punchy rap soundtrack of the 8 Mile DVD sounded awesome on the Def Tech speakers. The system proved up to the task of reproducing the ambience of the metal-stamping shop where aspiring rapper B-rabbit (Eminem) works, creating a brutal industrial swirl along with thunderous bass when a machine stamped out a set of steel bumpers. And watching the final rap battle keyed me in to the advantage of having a center speaker with a built-in sub. When the deep-voiced MC shouted out to the crowd, the C/L/R 3000 gave a convincing sense of vocals coming from a PA in a packed club, loud microphone pops and all.
It was a stretch to go from the urban grit of 8 Mile to the digital-enhanced fantasy world of George Lucas, but I wanted to see how the system would hold up on Star Wars II — Attack of the Clones. The Speeder Chase scene in Chapter 7 is a literal showcase of sound effects. I found that the Definitive Tech speakers injected life into the artificial environment Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi careened through, conveying an exciting sense of continuous motion as their vessel blazed through skybound traffic. And in a subsequent scene where the assassin they’d been chasing is killed, the sound of a poison dart as it zipped from high above my shoulder to the center of the screen was frighteningly real.
If you’re looking to take your audio rig to the next level and want to check out some serious home theater speakers, Definitive Technology’s BP7001sc-based system demands your attention. It might cost twice as much as many of the speaker systems we review, but when you factor in its great performance with both movie soundtracks and music, solid construction, and the substantial powered subwoofers built into the front towers — which would normally cost a couple grand all by themselves — the price seems more than fair.
PDF: In the lab