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Klipsch ProMedia 4.1

Performance - Loudness

Sound Levels

Test Parameters The sound level meter was positioned where my head would be positioned when I am at the PC playing games. This means 3 feet away from the front speakers and 7 feet from the rear speakers. I also did a test when the front speakers and subwoofer are 7 feet away which is a more typical movie set-up. We used a 1 kHz test tone, which is generally accepted for testing sound pressure, as well as a real world DVD test using the Fifth Element and a real world music test using Rossini’s William Tell Overture. For the music tests, all system tested had their subwoofers at normal listening levels and for DVD a bit above neutral where they system has subwoofer controls. For the 1 kHz test, the subwoofer of course does not matter. But for the music and DVD tests some units offers the ability for greater bass exaggeration using the subwoofer control. This type of exaggeration would result in higher sound levels that we get in our tests. All sound level tests were done using an original Sound Blaster Live! with the windows mixer wave output set to maximum and the master volume just one notch below maximum. For the music test the peak sound pressure level is recorded where as for the DVD test we are only looking for the peak bass heavy effect. The results of those tests are summarized in the first and second tables below. The DVD tests are of course done in Dolby Digital 5.1 mode. Even though PowerDVD is bundled with the Xtrusio DSR-100 the DVD tests were done using WinDVD for consistency with past speaker tests.k

As usual we used a sound level meter to be able to test system loudness with more than a simple "they are loud" or "they are not so loud" statement. While using this sound level meter is better than just using ears and memory to compare the speaker system's loudness it's not 100% accurate. This is due to a number of reasons including the accuracy of the sound level meter. When we look at repeatability, the 1 kHz test tends to vary a bit between different tests. The other point that we will make a couple of times in this section is no one should be driving their systems at full power levels for extended periods. Our point in this section is not to suggest any of these systems should be used to deliver these kinds of volumes. The fact that one system does not distort at its highest level can’t always be taken to mean that it will give even better quality at lower levels as some systems have built in circuitry to limit the peak power output to clean levels. However, using the sound level meter along with our ears (to subjectively evaluate distortion) allows us to illustrate the potential dynamic range of a system.

To get some perspective on how loud the system is, I compare it to the numbers we got for the Monsoon’s MM2000 ($300 4.1 system), Logitech’s Xtrusio DSR-100 ($180 4.1 system), Boston Acoustics’ BA4800 ($200 4.1 system) and VideoLogic’s Sirocco Crossfire ($450 4.1 system). All numbers were done in the same test room.

 

 

1 Khz - this is a test of satellite response.

Distance to front (and sub)/rear speakers	ProMedia 4.1	Xtrusio DSR-100	MM2000	Crossfire	BA4800
3 feet and 7 feet	111 dB* (106)	101 dB	110 dB* (102)	107 dB	107 dB

* significant distortion - number in brackets is clean

 

Music - Rossini - William Tell Overture - this is a multi-frequency test.

Distance to front (and sub)/rear speakers	ProMedia 4.1	Xtrusio DSR-100	MM2000	Crossfire	BA4800
3 feet and 7 feet	104 dB	95 dB	98 dB	106 dB	97 dB
7 feet and 3 feet	99 dB	95 dB	94 dB		92 dB

 

DVD Scene in Fifth Element
This is a multi-frequency test with emphasis on low end.

Distance to front (and sub)/rear speakers	ProMedia 4.1	Xtrusio DSR-100	MM2000	Crossfire	BA4800
3 feet and 7 feet	104 dB	100 dB	102 dB	107 dB	103 dB
7 feet and 3 feet	100 dB	95 dB	96 dB	103 dB	94 dB

 

1 kHz Test Tones

I am going to make a departure from normal practice when it comes to the 1 KHz tests and adjust both the ProMedia 4.1 and MM2000 numbers down to almost clean numbers (to match the subjective rating of the other systems by ear) at the start of this analysis where we usually use unadjusted number for the comparison. I did this as the unadjusted numbers would give too much of a skewed impression of "usable" 1kHz loudness. I have usable in quotes as no one normally sites and listens to test tones but if we were to refine all our loudness tests we would before hand cap the numbers used to some predetermined maximum measured distortion level, something we currently can’t accomplish other than by ear. I am not using the perfectly clean numbers as none of the other 1 kHz numbers have been similarly adjusted so kept it in the same range as the others based on past notes on distortion levels which are described below. If you want to compare unadjusted numbers the raw results are in the table below. I will also put more emphasis of the analysis of the music and DVD test results.

When in the normal seating position, using the standard 1 kHz test tone and adjusted numbers, the ProMedia 4.1 still turned out to be the loudest of the five systems at 109 dB, 2 dB ahead of the Crossfire and BA4800, 4 dB ahead of the MM2000 and 7 dB ahead of the Xtrusio DSR-100. That’s pretty good but we don’t listen to test tones so lets look at the real world test results (unadjusted as per our usual practice).

 

Music

Playing Rossini’s William Tell Overture with the sound meter 3 feet from the front resulted in peak sound pressure levels of 104 dB using the ProMedia 4.1, 9 dB ahead of the Xtrusio DSR-100, 7 dB ahead of the BA4800 and 6 dB ahead of the MM-2000. It also turns out to be 2 dB behind the Crossfire.

Movies

When playing a very bass heavy scene in a DVD movie (Fifth Element) I got the following results. The ProMedia 4.1 was again the second loudest at 104 dB, 1 dB ahead of the BA4800, 2 dB ahead of the MM-2000, 4 dB ahead of the Xtrusio DSR-100 but 3dB behind the Crossfire. When it comes to a more traditional movie seating arrangement (7 feet from the front satellites and sub) the ProMedia 4.1 delivered a peak bass heavy sound pressure level of 100 dB. This again put it ahead of all the systems compared other than the Crossfire that delivered 103 dB. Specifically it was 4 dB ahead of the MM2000, 5 dB ahead of the Xtrusio DSR-100 and 6 dB ahead of the BA4800.

So what do all these sound level numbers mean?

Looking back to the logarithmic nature of a dB, this means that at full volume the ProMedia 4.1 has a signal power 7.89 times stronger than the Xtrusio DSR-100, 4.986 times stronger than the BA4800, 3.96 times stronger than the MM-2000 and 1.58 times behind the Crossfire signal power 2 in the music test at normal seating position. This means that at the systems maximum volumes the music test played back on ProMedia 4.1 is perceived to be 79 percent louder than when played back on the Xtrusio DSR-100, 50 percent louder than on the BA4800, 40 percent louder than on MM2000. The Crossfire is in turn 16 percent louder than the ProMedia 4.1 in the same test.

In the 3&7 DVD tests at peak volumes the ProMedia is perceived to be 25 percent louder than the Xtrusio DSR-100, 16 percent louder than the MM2000, about 13 percent ahead of the BA4800 and about 20 percent behind the Crossfire. In the more typical 7&3 movie seating arrangement the Crossfire still comes out about 40 percent louder than the ProMedia 4.1 but the ProMedia 4.1 maintains its placement by an in increasing margin and there is some shifting in the order behind. In this configuration the MM2000 is perceived to be 25 percent behind in perceived loudness with the Xtrusio DSR-100 next at 32 percent behind and the BA4800 trailing at 40 percent behind the ProMedia 4.1.

 

How much does it distort?

As discussed above, none of these numbers above are distortion free levels and at the reported levels there are varying degrees of distortion that will be affected by the type of signal and by the subwoofer level setting. No one should be driving their systems at full power levels for extend periods. Risk of damage aside, there is also sound quality to worry about.

What is distortion? When you try to push a speaker system to the maximum distortion will usually become a problem. Distortion, when used in the context of sound, is defined as a change in the waveform of a signal during processing, often caused by the signal level being too high for the hardware or software that is processing it. Something to keep in mind is distortion is a fact of life when it comes to sound reproduction. The higher quality something is, the lower the distortion is going to be at normal operating levels. Pushing the system to its maximum will result in higher levels of distortion and it's at this stage where what is acceptable will depend for the most part on three factors. First, you don't want to push the system so hard that you damage it. The next two are personal as its your ears and your tolerance as distortion starts long before your system sounds like its going to blow up

The 1 kHz number adjustment aside, all of the systems are very good when it comes to minimizing distortion. The BA4800 can be run pretty much full volume with no clearly audible distortion from the satellites. The Xtrusio DSR-100 needs to be reduced about 2 dB below the listed peak output levels. The same is true for the ProMedia 4.1, Crossfire and MM2000. Where there is lots of bass at very high volumes the subs have to be lowered to varying degrees to maintain quality with the MM2000 and ProMedia subs being able to sustain the loudest volumes of the three. The Crossfire satellites can be pushed the hardest of these systems but all three of these systems can be pushed very harder with acceptable but not identical performance. 

The ProMedia 4.1 satellites are more limited by the presence of lots of upper bass frequencies and even some lower bass (down to 60 Hz) than the other two systems. I will get into a bit more detail in the next section but this observation ties into the clearly greater midbass extension of the ProMedia 4.1 satellites relative to all the other satellites I have referenced in this section. To be clear you can still push the ProMedia 4.1 satellites to loud volumes with good quality. However, more midbass/bass heavy music can limit the overall quality, as there is no way to tone it down as compared to other systems where you can lower the subwoofer levels if necessary. It's also important to note that the range where quality starts to become an issue begins around 95 dB (doing single tone testing) so you can still get very good volume before it becomes a real concern in actual use.

Once again, manufacturers tweaking the system gain (i.e. it limits the maximum volume to clean levels) can influence being able to run at maximum volume with the cleanest possible signal. The bottom line here is that all of the systems are able to deliver more than enough volume for most people’s needs without pushing the systems to the highest levels.

A couple of other points of note follow. The ProMedia sub has more quality exaggeration range than all of the other subs tested including the Crossfire sub which can hit the end stops when exaggerated even slightly at very high volumes. That’s not to say that the ProMedia 4.1 sub is delivering super quality at those exaggerated levels as there is in fact audible port noise in this range, particularly for sounds below 60 Hz, but it’s also usually masked by the sound from the satellites. The same comment about port noise can be made for other vented subwoofers including the Crossfire. The other I will get into in more detail in the next section but the Crossfire and ProMedia 4.1 subs will deliver greater volume at frequencies below 50 Hz than all of the other subs compared against, something that can have a clear impact most important in games and movies.

What about amplifier noise?

One other parameter that is often more noticeable during quite parts of a movie or a songs when pushing systems to the max is amplifier noise. Systems with separate tweeters also tend to be more revealing of system noise. Using a Philips Acoustic Edge, a Live, a Game Theater XP and the Terratec m3po, which is a standalone MP3 player, I had no issues with hiss even at max volume and playing nothing with the satellite only 1 foot away. At this price point nothing less would be expected but given the early 2-v.2-400 hiss problems it’s something worth pointing out. Again, if you are looking for some direct comparisons I found the Monsoon MM2000 performance equality good and the Crossfire slightly, but clearly quieter when the amplifiers are maxed out with no sounds playing. Note that if you make a habit of maxing out the system in normal usage while sitting with a sat one foot away and listening for slight hiss you won’t be hearing that hiss for very long. In other words for real-world usage there is absolutely no noise issue and the same comments apply to the very good quality headphone output. Coming from another perspective, the new ProMedia 4.1 is night and day quieter than the original v.2-400 and also quieter than the v.2-400 with the original gain modified preamp.

Subwoofer Exaggeration Ability

While we try to emphasize the importance of quality over quantity as well as the importance of neutral sound many people like to exaggerate the bass beyond the level that it was set at by the musician, audio director or sound engineer, especially when it comes to gaming. As noted all of the numbers generate above are with the subwoofers at neutral, or in the case of DVD, near neutral levels. Exaggeration of bass will result in higher sound levels for both the music test and the DVD test described above.

In order to test the exaggeration range of the ProMedia 4.1 I used a 1 kHz test tone generated by Spectra Lab 432 with the master output levels of the sound card (Game Theater XP in this case) set to just below the maximum. I then set the satellite volume to 80, 90 and 100 dB (using the sound level meter about 3 feet from the satellite and subwoofer). At the 80 dB setting the sub can be exaggerated by about 16 dB with good quality. At the 90 dB setting the subwoofer has about 8 dB of exaggeration range with reasonable quality although the quality can be improved by dropping the exaggeration down to above 5 dB. Starting from the 100 dB point the exaggeration range drops to +2 dB and it sounds like the driver is over extending. Dropping it back down to 100 dB maintains the good quality. I also used ETFAcoustic as well as Spectra Lab 432 to do some sweep tests and both showed that the subwoofer boost is fairly even across its frequency response for each of these settings, although the boost is decreasing at the lower range of the sub.  One other point worth noting above subwoofer exaggeration and that is that at higher volumes the lower frequencies which emanate from the port are more likely to generate audible turbulence. This is not something unique to the ProMedia but because it has such a significant exaggeration range it is possible to end up with clearly audible port turbulence even when the satellites are firing.

One other important point is even if you don’t want to exaggerate your bass this test can give a good idea of the excellent dynamic range of the ProMedia 4.1 subwoofer.